Kidney Pie - Chapter 16

The coming dawn had begun to soften the darkness over Fleet Street before Mrs. Lovett threw down her cleaning rag and picked up the half-empty bottle of gin. And that was long after her entire body had begun to ache for a rest.

The baker sighed with relief as she dropped into an empty seat beside Sweeney Todd. "Well, now. That's a longer night than I'm used to." Jack sat across the table from her tenant. The two killers studiously ignored both her and each other, and she fully returned the favor, uncapping the bottle and taking a generous swig of the gin. "I don't exactly turn in at sundown, neither. Ain't every day I have to run from bloody herds of lunatics and all, never mind the rest of it."

She could have added that a part of the rest of it had been fussing after her two companions, but she took another drink instead. She had always known men could be peevish when they were busted up, but at least with Albert, trying to keep him from moving hadn't been an issue. Neither had keeping knives out of his hands. Wouldn't call either one of these buggers sweet-natured to start with.

She supposed it was enough of a miracle that she had kept them both from snapping at each other all night, never mind gotten them washed up and dressed in clean clothes. Since she had accomplished both, she supposed she had done well enough for her two fiends.

Her two sullen, bleary-eyed, aching, exhausted fiends, glaring past each other in stubborn silence. With a weary sigh, she drank again.

"I'm in for a long day, I expect, Mr. T." She continued to ignore the fact that Sweeney paid her no attention, scowling half at the tabletop and half at Jack, saying nothing. Dreadfully pale – Mrs. Lovett hadn't thought he could get any paler – he slumped, hurt and exhausted, over the table. The Ripper, for his own part, sat hunched over his broken arm, bandaged in a makeshift sling, his eyes narrowed with pain. "Don't suppose business'll be slow, either. World ain't that kind."

Lounging back against the creaking wooden chair, Nellie stifled a yawn. "Wish I could drink myself right into bed. Ugh! I never knew I could be so sore all at once."

The glances that darted her way were less than sympathetic. Mrs. Lovett drank again.

Finally, Sweeney stirred, turning his glower toward the baker. "Give that here."

Still slouching back against the chair, Nellie gave him a doubtful look. "I don't know, Mr. Todd. Don't want you keeling over again, now." Still holding the bottle, she looked across the table. "What's your professional opinion, Jack?"

"Let him drown in it for all I care." She had found the Ripper one of Albert's old shirts while his own was drying with the rest of their bloodied laundry, and it hung off him. Could probably fit three of him in there. "Only don't let him slobber all over the bottle. He's not the only one that could use a drop."

Mrs. Lovett rolled her eyes as she heaved herself out of her chair again. "I'll just get us a couple of glasses, then, shall I?" Every step bit at her aching knees, but she crossed to the counter. Even reaching for the glasses seemed like more effort than her exhausted arms felt like going to. And I still got them two bleeders to carve up tomorrow. Holding the three glasses between the fingers of one hand, she paused and then reached up again for a fresh bottle. "Just in case, loves. Don't know how I'll feel about getting up again if you two drink that one dry." Stiffly, she turned back to the table and lumbered on again.

Until a faint noise stopped her.

"Mum?"

In the doorway, her Toby stood, dressed in his ill-fitting pajamas, and looked at her hesitantly, for all the world like a little boy woken by nightmares. "Do you suppose I could have just a bit?"

"No!" Nellie could almost sense Mr. Todd's glare burning into her back. But she smiled.

In spite of her stiff muscles, she felt her heart softening at the look on his face. Always did have a soft-spot for the little imp. "Come on, then." She held out the bottle and he took it eagerly, hesitating only slightly as he approached the table and the two sulking killers that occupied it. Mrs. Lovett turned back for another glass.

A plate of pies sat beside her table, and on a whim, she grabbed those, too. She'd brought them up from the bakehouse hours earlier, thinking they'd do for a quick meal for Johanna and the lads. Too bad Sweeney had refused to let her dish them out. Never was the practical one, was he? They'd always been good enough for her Toby.

Her tenant's eyes met hers with a fierce stare as she returned. At the moment, though, the baker was too tired to care about his temper. In fact, she felt a little thrill of giddiness and relief. That might've been the gin going to work, she supposed. Wish it'd work as quick on my bloody back. But even more potent, she knew, was the mere closeness of Sweeney Todd. She'd been near him often enough, touched him even, but tonight, it awed could be as angry as he wanted. He was still here. He was alive. And he had even kissed her. How the hell that ever slipped my bloody mind… Even as he turned back to his silent fuming, she dropped her weary bones into the chair only just next to his.

She set the glasses down with a clank and watched, smiling, as Toby filled them neatly. Boy does make a fine waitor. Deftly, Toby passed the glasses around, and, in quiet unison, all four downed their drinks. Nellie winced, then reached for the bottle again. "That's the stuff to keep you going, boys." Without hesitating, she refilled their glasses.

Across the table, Jack pressed his good hand uselessly over his sling as if even the motion it took to throw back the small glass jolted his arm. Poor thing ain't hardly glanced at them pies, either. Mrs. Lovett massaged her own tired arms, and cast him a sympathetic look. That'll quiet things down in Whitechapel for a while, I'll wager. But, looking again, she didn't like the trace of mischief that crept into the Ripper's scowl. Gritting his teeth, he kicked the chair beside him out from other the table. "Here, come sit next to your old friend Jack, my lad."

Toby sat, reluctant only for a moment, and the four drank again. Nellie stretched. "No games now, love. I'm too tired for it. And you really ought to be in bed, Toby." Stifling a yawn, she rested her elbows on the tabletop. "For that matter, I really ought to be in bed."

"Oh, come now, Eleanor. Surely he can have a nice sit-down with us, after the fine work he did getting rid of the old goat." Jack gave Toby a smile, but glanced at Sweeney. Mrs. Lovett groaned as she poured another round. "Now, where'd you stick him, son?"]

"Jack!"

"What?" Grinning an awful, grimacing smile, the Ripper looked across the table at her. "Ain't no shame in a job well done. It's a bloody good thing he done it, too, seeing as certain other folks here just let an unarmed old man, and a judge of the law, no less, go strolling out the front door." Jack gripped his glass, throwing another sidelong look at his rival. "Quite a lucky chance things played out as they did. What with that somebody who might be sleeping with a bullet in his head if certain other somebodies were, say, trapped in a madhouse or something like that."

Beside her, Nellie saw Sweeney smoldering with rage. She wondered if he still had a razor holstered in the clean pants she'd brought him. She also wondered when her back and legs would quit aching. At any rate, she prayed the barber was hurting enough to sit and bear it for the night. Probably the only thing stopping them from finishing each other off, at this point. She drank, and automatically, the others followed suit. She saw Toby look away as he set down his empty cup, and the baker cast Jack a pointed look. "Toby might not want to talk about it just now, dear."

The boy looked up, as if startled by his name, and met her eyes earnestly. "No, mum. It's alright, really." A rusty smudge, either blood or dust or both, Nellie supposed, colored his pale cheek. She didn't have the energy to reach up to brush it off, but mentally added getting Toby a bath to the list of things she would have to do that day. "I've been thinking about it all night, and I'd like to talk."

Mrs. Lovett searched the pale little face across from her, and those dark eyes, just showing the traces of shadows underneath, stared back at her. It struck her, suddenly, what a sober little man her boy could be. Even with the gin. Beside them, even Jack and Sweeney seemed to soften a bit, giving up their quarrel and falling back into their silence and pain. She felt her heart swell a bit. "Anything you like, son."

Toby looked down again, his eyes and fingers resting on his glass. "Well, what I've been thinking is, it's just like I was doing my part, is all. I never thought of it before, until I seen how you handled that detective, Mrs. Lovett. Always figured it was just…" His eyes flickered up briefly at Mr. Todd. "Well, but I guess whatever you two are up to, I know you're in it together. And you, too, Jack, sir, since you saved Mr. T."

Nellie ignored the strangled noise that came from one of her two killers.

Toby looked up again, right up into her face. "And now, I suppose I am, too."

The words struck Nellie. Her little lad, and accomplice to murder and cannibalism. Not that he hadn't been, anyway, but… She floundered for a reply. Until Mr. Todd stirred beside her. "So you are, boy."

She and Toby both turned to the barber in surprise. It was certainly the first time she could recall that her sullen Sweeney Todd found words before she did. Nellie had traced his features with her eyes more than she would care to admit, but her practiced eye couldn't find any trace of anger in him. He looked grim and serious, as always. Not to mention looking like death warmed over. But he spoke almost softly.

When she turned back to her helper, he had already shifted his gaze back to her. And his makeshift mother found that she couldn't look away from those brown eyes fixed on hers. Those innocent eyes. Mrs. Lovett generally set little store by the idea of innocence. But it struck her quite suddenly that she had led Toby into all sorts of murder and villainy, boozed him up, set him down with madmen, and fed him on human pies. Probably not quite the motherly attention he needed, that. Not sure what to say, she knocked back her glass and poured another. "If it weren't for you, Toby, every one of us would be running for our lives right now."

Jack half-smiled wearily at nothing in particular. "With the lawmen snapping at out heels."

Smiling shyly, Toby lifted his gin. "So, now we're like a family? All together?"

"That we are, my darling boy." Brimming with as much joy as she had the energy to muster, Nellie picked up her own glass. "Here's to us – in it together!" Grinning, they both drank.

Across the table, over the last remaining rags and strips of bandage, the two killers glared at each other. "Rubbish," said Jack the Ripper. They both drank.

Toby set down his empty glass. "Besides, if the two of you ever take to hurting Mrs. Lovett, now I know I can always just kill you." The two glares turned curiously at him. "And thank you for the knife, Mr. Ripper."

Mrs. Lovett picked up the bottle. "More gin, then." The clear liquid gurgled softly as she poured the last of it into their four glasses. They drank. Nellie winced, and wiped her mouth the back of her weary arm. "Might want to keep a few of those insights to yourself, Toby dear."

"Sorry, mum." Toby's white face colored a bit. "But at least you don't have to pretend like it's all a secret, anymore, and I don't have to pretend like I don't know nothing."

Prying the lid off the new bottle, Nellie smiled sleepily. The gin seemed finally to be easing away the stiffness in her poor joints. Or at least easing her awareness of it. "Well, that'll be alright, I'm sure and -" She blinked, the alcohol splashing across the front of her dress as the top popped out of its place. "What do you mean, 'pretend'?"

The lad looked away again, sheepishly. "Well, I didn't think you were in on it, exactly. At least, not until you knocked out the Inspector, there." He paused, glancing up from the droplets collecting in the bottle of the cup. Nellie filled it again. Boy's got a problem, he does. But she took a quick drop for herself, too. "But Mr. Todd, sir, I knew you been killing the people what went upstairs." Toby spoke quietly, looking away towards the counter. "And you, too, Jack. I guessed about you, too."

Mrs. Lovett broke into a grin as she stared, and leaned back into her creaking chair. "Well, I'll be damned!" So he didn't go in so blindly as I thought, my little lamb. She supposed it was less than motherly of her, but she felt almost proud of the lad. "I think I've underestimated you, love."

"It wasn't really that hard, even." Cheering up, Toby looked up at her bright-eyed, just like her little boy always eager to help, and shyly helped himself to the plate of meat pies. "I kept noticing how people would go up to Mr. T's shop and never seemed to come down again." They both spared a glance at Sweeney, who still looked a little sour. And no wonder. Her eyes wandered to the clean white cloth of his shirtsleeve, just over the bandage she knew was probably still soaking up the seeping blood from his wound. Poor Mr. T. And to be in such a state on the night when he should finally be celebrating his revenge. "And then I got to thinking about Senor Pirelli, and where he could have gone to all of sudden. And, well, I guess I figured it out."

Nellie glanced across at Sweeney again. She suddenly wanted very much to touch him. She shouldn't, and she knew it well enough. But why couldn't she give him a bit of comfort, after everything? And hadn't he kissed her, right on the steps of Fogg's Asylum? Her heart galloping, the baker smiled and reached down to give his knee a friendly squeeze.

She felt a little giddy as she pulled her hand back quickly. That she blamed on the gin. Really should slow down… A glance at her companions reinforced the idea. Although Toby fought manfully to stay awake, she could see the drink beginning to have its usual effect. Beside the lad, the stiff liquor seemed to have drained the starch out of Jack the Ripper; he seemed less to hunch, stiff and scowling, over his arm than to hang over it, looking all moody with Albert's shirt hanging off him like off a coat rack. And her own Mr. T looked the worst of the lot, listing slowly sideways in his chair as exhaustion and blood loss and the gin worked on his senses. But she reached for the bottle again. I'll just have this last one with Toby.

Toby drank, swallowing with hardly a grimace, then paused, bit into his cold pie, and chewed reflectively. "The only thing I could never think of is what you done with the bodies."

Mrs. Lovett choked on the gin she had poured herself, bracing herself on Sweeney's shoulder as she coughed. Beside her, the barber looked at her with uncharacteristic shock written on his face. She supposed he didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to say. More gin. She reached for the bottle.

A laugh interrupted her before she could even pour. She looked up.

Across the table, Jack chuckled low and quiet. Restrained. For a moment at least, before his laughter grew louder and freer, and he rocked forward in his seat, his good arm cradling his bad one close to his chest.

Toby looked around the table in surprise and alarm, but even the startled look on his face didn't drive away Nellie's grin. A sideways glance told her that even her sullen Mr. Todd wore a slight smirk. Still smiling, she reached across the table to take Toby's hand. "That's our Jack the Ripper, duck. Ain't he a cheerful fellow?"

Jack leaned back in his chair, grinning breathlessly even as he pressed his hand ruefully over his bandaged arm. "I quite like that lad of yours, Eleanor."

"So do I, Jack." Mrs. Lovett smiled at Toby, who smiled back. With her free hand, she began refilling glasses. "We do pretty well for ourselves, we four. Don't we?"

All around the table, the gin disappeared. Mrs. Lovett lay her own glass down, and found that her aches and pains seemed much less troublesome. In fact, she felt quite pleased, to be sitting here with her own Mr. T, and Toby, and even Jack the Ripper, who amused her. And they'd done it all, that very night. All they'd wanted. And here he was, Sweeney Todd, sitting right beside her.

She knew that maybe she shouldn't, but she wanted to. Whether it was the hour or the gin, she didn't care. She wanted to. She did it; she slipped her hand, careful of his wounded arm, into Sweeney's. He was alive, and they were safe, victorious. Besides, he looked pretty well the worse for the gin himself. What did it matter if he pulled away?

But to her surprise, her tenant's hand closed around her own, squeezing her fingers between his. And Mrs. Lovett felt she would do quite alright, indeed.

XXXXXXX

Johanna lay, still and stiff, staring at the cracked plaster above her head. Being confined for most of her life to Turpin's mansion, she had never slept well in strangers' homes. Especially not in strangers' beds, wearing strangers' borrowed nightgowns. Or after being dragged from the dungeons of a madhouse and witnessing the murder of her guardian of fifteen years.

Or with young sailors crooning lullabies beside her.

"Hush, hush, time to be sleeping.

Hush, hush, dreams come a' creeping.

Dreams of peace and of freedom,

And meeting again at the seaside…"

The song drifted gently up from the floor beside Mrs. Lovett's bed, where Anthony, mindful of propriety as well as of her comfort, had slept.

She supposed it was very sweet of him, but wholly unnecessary. She hadn't slept much at all, between their escape from Fogg's and the frantic hours that followed. She hadn't been set to work like Anthony had, but she did, she thought, have to be told several times over where she was and how she had come to be there, and who these strangely violent people were. And after that, she had been allowed a hot bath while Mrs. Lovett poked about for a clean nightdress that might fit her.

The woman talked constantly the entire time, but Johanna was very grateful.

"Long you stood by the ocean,

Wrapped in grief and devotion,

But now gulls raise a commotion

To herald your love to the sea side…"

She didn't imagine Anthony had slept much, either. He'd been working, helping to drag the police detective out of the shop and to "mop up anything inconvenient," as Mrs. Lovett said. He'd gone with Toby, too, to investigate the wreckage of Mr. Todd's shop. Johanna was afraid he'd been put to far too much use that night. It wouldn't do to overtire him so greatly that he might do something foolish, such as fall down the stairs again.

That was quite worrying, in fact. She had only seen him from her window, but he had never seemed like a particularly clumsy person.

"…See our white sails come winging,

With fair winds sighing and singing,

Longing hearts swiftly bringing…"

At any rate, neither of them seemed likely to get any sleep now. The sheets rustled as she peeked her hands out over the top of the quilt. "Anthony?"

"No more waiting and -" He paused. Johanna pictured him blinking up into the dark. "Johanna?"

"It's alright; you can stop singing."

"Oh." He was silent, and Johanna turned her head, looking at the edge of the mattress above where he lay. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." A clock ticked softly on a cluttered bedside table. She glanced at it. 6:54. "It's nearly seven o' clock, anyway."

Blankets rustled, and Anthony's head appeared as he sat up, his face obscured by bruise and bandages and his long, disheveled hair. He still wore the clothes he had on yesterday. Johanna, less fortunate, had been forced to borrow an outfit. Mrs. Lovett had taken her filthy and bloodied dress to wash, giving her instead a very old dress she had found in the Tonsorial Parlor above. Faded and creased, it smelled as musty as if it had been shoved in a dusty drawer for as long as Johanna had been alive.

It struck her as odd that the barber would have women's clothes lying about, since he didn't seem to be married. But perhaps he had been at some time, since he was, apparently, her father.

Johanna used to daydream that one day she would be reunited with her parents. She knew he had been a barber, and she always pictured him well-groomed, like a butler, with elaborate moustache and whiskers. (What would a barber do, after all, but take pride in his whiskers?) And always he would take her hands, and kneeling down (she had been very small when she had pictured this) would say, "Johanna, my sweetheart, I'm your father, and I've finally found you. Won't you come home with me?"

In fairness, she supposed Mr. Todd may intend to say something like that, still. She hadn't been entirely meant to overhear. Mrs. Lovett, who seemed to be always saying something, had been talking about what to feed the small army that had come to occupy her house. Johanna, resting in the parlor, hadn't been following the conversation. But she did hear the ragged voice of Sweeney Todd growling, "You are not feeding those pies to my daughter!"

"Anthony, would you please turn away while I dress?"

The young man looked up at her, blushing, then, quickly, he scrambled to his feet and dashed to the chair in front of Mrs. Lovett's vanity. In the mirror, she saw him cover his face with his hands like a child playing hide and seek.

Johanna still felt awkward as she rose gingerly from the bed. She was wearing her host's most modest nightgown, according to the baker, but it still felt a little less than virtuous, by the stiff standards she had been raised with. She looked back again at Anthony as she touched the buttons. His reflection showed his hands still clasped earnestly over his eyes. Hastily, she changed out of the nightgown and into the stale-smelling dress.

She looked down at herself, still blushing at changing with a man in the room, before looking back again at Anthony, who was still hiding his eyes. The whole situation was rather uncomfortable. Even in the safety and quiet of the morning, her thoughts seemed chained to the horrors just behind her, though she tried hard to focus on the odd little pie shop and put the madhouse out of mind.

Fogg's Asylum just did not bear thinking on.

Rather, she couldn't bear to think of it. Looking around her again, Johanna felt strangely out of place in a room with no bars and no rats and no screams. She felt strangely as if such a place could not actually be what it seemed. Or she could not really be in it. But she was. Her fingers brushed the fabric of the unfamiliar dress, touched something new, something not of Fogg's.

But even now, what was this place? How precisely her innocent young sailor had brought her into the hands of murderers who inhabited a pie shop, she couldn't guess. She had been frightened by police. She had seen her guardian of fifteen years all but murdered before her eyes. She had found her father in the strange creature named Sweeney Todd. And she had been offered no explanation for any of it. Her mind had no place to even begin to decipher it.

And, Johanna hated how snobbish it sounded even in her own mind, but 186 Fleet Street was far from what she was used to. The dirty windows. The worn and battered and faded look of everything in the house. The fact that the cheerful wallpaper in the sitting room was singed in places. Everything about the place seemed foreign, as if she had travelled not only from one side of London to another, but to another nation, inhabited by the lean and the ragged and the unmistakably poor. Also, a distinct and unpleasant smell lingered about the shop.

But then, they had fed her. Hot, steaming soup with left-over rolls had been heaven after her daily porridge, stale bread and boiled potatoes in Fogg's Asylum. And they'd given her tea, and drawn a hot bath for her, and provided her with clean (if musty) clothes. And Miss Barker was not apt to be ungrateful to anyone who opened their home to her.

Especially if they'd also killed the Honorable Judge Turpin. The dog!

She glanced back at Anthony. "You may look now."

Immediately, his hands sprang from his face and he stood, turning to face her. He blushed slightly. Johanna could feel the heat still on her own cheeks. She seemed always to be blushing around him. Perhaps because he stared at her so constantly. It hadn't seemed so odd when he had watched her from beneath her window, but it somehow became more awkward while they sat in the same room.

She sat carefully on the edge of the bed. Across the room, Anthony fumbled, scarcely looking away, to turn around Mrs. Lovett's chair, and sat facing her. That wistful, uncertain expression, never seemed to change.

The clock ticked quietly in the dim light. Over the clutter, and the teetering piles of possessions that had been moved to make way for Anthony, Johanna watched the sailor watching her. She blinked, then glanced anxiously at the clock. 7:09.

It really was unsettling, the staring. Trying hard to look as if she wasn't looking away, Johanna scanned the room for something else, anything to get those eyes off her. Her glance fell on the dishes from their midnight supper.

Blushing a little guiltily, she looked back at her suitor. "Perhaps you could see whether Mrs. Lovett has prepared anything for breakfast?"

Anthony jumped, but remained staring, dumbstruck, as if startled.

Miss Barker swallowed, dry-mouthed. "Only if it isn't a trouble to you."

Staring another moment, the sailor blinked at her, then sprang to his feet and ran for the door – a little too quickly. His feet caught in the blankets he had been lying in. Johanna winced as he fell, his arms flailing into a nightstand shoved aside for his bed. That too came crashing down.

Johanna gasped.

Then laughed, as she beheld her suitor sprawled on the floor, looking thoroughly befuddled and embarrassed. Their hostess' yarn, and a half-knitted scarf, hung haphazardly over his head, the red strands draping over his disheveled hair and bandage. The two blunt needles stuck up from his hair like some strange headdress and a dog-eared copy of some old Penny Dreadful slid down his chest, so that the highwayman on the cover seemed to ride his galloping horse at a slow, backwards crawl toward the sailor's lap.

Perhaps he was the sort of person who fell down stairs.

But when he looked up at her as if her laughter lit up the whole dark world around them, Johanna couldn't help but think that maybe the two of them would be alright.

XXXXXXX

Thank you all for reading, and for your mighty patience in waiting for an update. I have been dragging my feet because I couldn't decide on an ending... I think I have it now. Though, I do have one more chapter left to waffle my way through...

Anthony's song is a partial rewrite of the Scottish lullaby, "Hush, Hush," sung very nicely by the Corries. Props to my friend Star the Ripper of deviantart who suggested the tune to me.

And thanks in advance to all who click on that lovely little review button. (You know you want to!)