Act III: Fate and Teapots
"Oh, Mr. Turpin!" You need to learn to pick after yourself, you do! Wot do you think I am, your bloody 'ousekeeper? I'm your landlady, and although I appreciate you payin' the rent in time an' all tha, you need to respect me more and wotnot."
Eustace carefully took off his coat and placed it on the rack before gloomily sinking into the armchair.
She ruffled her frizzy, red hair in anxiousness. "So much to do… Wot's wiv you anyway?"
He sighed, "Mrs. Andrews, she left me. For a lord."
"Good riddance, I suppose. She was such a silly little thing."
"But I loved her!" That changed everything. Within a second, Mrs. Andrews was quick to give him her motherly words of solace (despite being his age), and a bowl of her famous soup.
"You know, Mrs. Andrews, you are an excellent cook."
She blushed. "I try."
And so, life went on. Eustace graduated top of his class, and went to work with a firm. He tried for weeks finding out anything about Tabitha, but most of it was all hush-hush. He did discover that Lord Crawford was a gambler, who lost unheard of sums of money at horse tracks, and lost bitterly. He was quite the libertine before his marriage, and Heaven knows if her ever gave up his ways. He tried contacting Tabitha, but he would only receive a reply months later, with only a few lines briefly mentioning about how happy she was that she had never felt so happy in her entire life. Usually the letters were smudged beyond legibility, and Eustace wondered if it was due to the tearstains.
So, he took his revenge in the only sensible way an up and coming young man with a great deal on the line could do, he hired a painter to replicate Lord Crawford's portrait, and he would find time daily to glare at the finished product.
It wasn't until two months later that everything changed. Eustace almost fainted when he read he newspaper that morning in August.
NOTABLE LORD KILLED BY RUTHLESS BARBER
The late Lord Cadmus Crawford was brutally murdered in a duel by the barber Thomas Barker. Barker quite possibly deranged, accused Crawford of having adulterous relations with his wife. He delivered a wound right at the stomach, causing massive…
Eustace inwardly congratulated the man, though he would not have minded doing the sod in himself. Mrs. Andrews was about to pour him more coffee when she too saw the headline. She dropped the pot, causing it to crash into hundred little pieces and send scalding little drops of brown liquid flying everywhere. She screamed.
"Why'd he hafta go do that? Stupid Tommy, I told him bein' so impulsive's gonna get him in trouble one of these days, an' then he goes and shoots someone for that stupid cow!"
"Do you know this man?" he asks idly.
"He's…just a friend. Tha's all. She pauses, and notices the damage her distress caused. "I'm sorry, I'll pick that up." Eustace didn't really care, he went back to his paper until he heard her faintly sobbing as she was picking up the pieces.
"Are you all right, Mrs. Andrews?" Asked Eustace calmly.
"Oh, Mr. Turpin! You hafta help me!" she pleaded, "Please! Tommy's the only friend I've ever 'ad, an' its not 'is fault 'e fell in love wiv a 'eartless shrew, 'e wos just desprate, tha's all, an' irrashnal, 'e is, 'e'd neva 'urt a fly!" She honked ungracefully into her handkerchief.
"I'll see what I can do."