Note: I bet you thought I was dead. But no, this story will be updated again, just rather slowly. I have ambitions for this story... grand ambitions. Thankyou to everyone who inspired me by reviewing, and a special thankyou to Aithilin, who found the answer to a certain quandry.
If anyone doesn't know what a word means or you need an explanation of some bit of language used, please dont hesitate to ask.
It was half past two. Mr. Todd had not been downstairs all day. He hadn't spoken to Mrs. Lovett since he'd ordered her out of her own kitchen and every time he heard the click of her heels downstairs his palms throbbed. Mr. Todd had soaked his hands in the coldest water he could find and bandaged them from wrist to fingertips. He had seen only two clients all day and had worn gloves so they couldn't see the blisters on his palms and baulk. Burn-blisters looked surprisingly similar to the sores that came with syphillis, and nobody wanted to touch a diseased man.
Mr. Todd sat in his barber's chair now, his bandaged hands lying limp in his lap. He stared across the room at the wall, looking at things that weren't there, ignoring the muffled noises that floated up through the long shaft behind him even though the trap door was closed. Mrs. Lovett was downstairs. From the sounds that drifted upwards from Hell he could tell that she was using her cleavers. He didn't want to hear her.
The heavy tramp of feet coming up the stairs slowly pulled Mr. Todd from his listless stupor. These weren't the measured steps of the well to do, nor were they the lumbering, lethargic plodding of the working man. Whoever came up those stairs was young, and in a good enough mood to be almost running up the stairs. Mr. Todd frowned.
His assumptions of youth and exuberance were proved right when the bell above his door jangled and a familiar, boyish face peered into the gloom of the barber shop.
"Mr. Todd!" Anthony's youth was again realised in his voice. Boyish and smooth, nowhere close to gaining the roughness that came from breathing the London smog or drinking rough liquor. Anthony stopped suddenly, changing what he'd been going to say when he saw the bandages on his friend's hands; "Mr. Todd, what happened to your hands?"
Sweeney Todd slowly raised one of his hands, looking at it for a moment as if he hadn't quite realised that this foreign article was really a part of himself. "A small accident," he said eventually. "Mrs. Lovett needed a little help," Mr. Todd elaborated, knowing that Anthony would only ask more questions if not cut off from the source of his curiosity straight away, "the cloth was not thick enough to prevent a little burning"
A flash of memory made his eyes darken. The pot on the stove, innocently bubbling. A curse from his past. Devil woman!
The sudden change of expression startled Anthony, who had momentarily forgotten exactly why he'd come in the first place. It was beginning to occur to him that perhaps his friend Sweeney Todd was not the happiest or, perhaps, sanest person around. Then again, he supposed that the ordeal of shipwreck and floating nearly lifeless in the middle of the ocean for three days before rescue was enough to send anyone a little loopy. Add to that a couple of strange hints about Mr. Todd's origins (you didn't have to be a genius to figure out that Mr. Todd had served time in a prison colony) and Anthony felt that this more than excused his friend's odd behaviour.
Like always, the dark silence only continued for a few seconds before the barber broke it again. "You were going to tell me something exciting."
Anthony ignored, or perhaps didn't catch, the tiny hint of sarcasm in his friend's voice. He remembered why he had come, and a fanatical light burned in his eyes. "Mr. Todd," Anthony began, unconsciously clutching at the cuffs of his coat, "I may have found Johanna."
Uneasiness warred with Anthony's natural excitement upone Sweeney Todd's reaction. The barber's breath seemed to catch, his eyes growing wide and, for a fraction of a second, almost as fanatical as Anthony imagined his own might have been in that first second he had burst through the door. "Oh?" the man croaked eventually, all he could say.
"I might have," Anthony repeated, stressing the word might over all the others. "You see, Mr. Todd, I have been talking to people and there is a rumour. A man who works in an asylum may know her whereabouts."
"An asylum," Mr. Todd repeated dully. His voice and manner were as dry as ever, yet somehow Anthony got the impression that he was scandalously interested in this tidbit of information.
"Yes," Anthony agreed, ready to overlook Mr. Todd's obscene interest. "Only... I can't speak to him."
"I beg your pardon."
It was a statement, Anthony noticed, not a question. If he'd believed Mr. Todd capable of looking baffled, he might have thought that was the perfect description of the look on the barber's face. "Well," Anthony released his sleeve cuffs, instead clasping his hands in front of him and looking determinedly down at the floorboards, "a lot of blue-collar men do not trust sailors on shore leave. There is too much bad blood between men of my profession and men who do an honest day's work on land."
The way that Anthony spoke gave the impression that he was repeating something that may have been said to him at some point. Either way it got the same result. "I was hoping," Anthony barrelled on, daring to look up, "that you might find the time to speak to him for me. You're an honest man, Mr. Todd. An honest working man. A londoner. A man like Mr. Church would certainly talk to you!"
It took a startlingly short time for Mr. Todd to agree to talk to this mysterious Mr. Church in Anthony's place. Frankly, the young sailor had been expecting more of a struggle.
Mrs. Lovett had been wary of Mr. Todd ever since his outburst. In nearly two days he had not come down to the shop front or the rest of the house once. Mrs. Lovett had taken him supper, breakfast, and lunch, leaving the trays outside his door and trying not to glance back as she descended the stairs. Every time she returned the trays would show signs of being moved, but the food had only been picked at. The barber showed no signs of wanting to speak to her, or even to see her, and she had only just begun to grasp why.
The sauce had been scrubbed from walls, windows and floor without complaint. Toby had passed through at one point and had looked as if he really wanted to say something.
"Ma'am?" he had asked, looking at the congealed rusty-red goo that still marred some of the windows.
"It's nothing Toby," Mrs. Lovett had replied, "just a little accident, that's all."
Toby had opened his mouth as if to speak, but simply sighed instead. His shouldered had slumped a little, and he offered to help her mop up. He was such a good boy, that one.
Mrs. Lovett was a bit wary of the temperamental barber, but she was also a little bit fluttery too. If Mr. Todd was upset with her for the reason that she thought, then it was because some of his old illusions about poor Lucy had crumbled into dust. Mr. Todd was upset with her for accidentally showing him that his wife, while a beautiful person in her own right, was not as good a cook as he had thought. Mr. Todd may very well be upset with her because he had loved Lucy's cooking. Perhaps, if she were very patient, he might come to realise that Mrs. Lovett was much better for him than memories. She could keep him warm at night in ways that memories and portraits could not.
Mrs. Lovett sighed, staring balefully at a stack of pies that she would need to reheat in the small oven before selling. Deep down she knew it was a fantasy. "Maybe I should keep all me prowess for you," Mrs. Lovett said to the pies, "you'll appreciate my sauces, wont you luv?"
The bell above the shop door jingled just as she finished speaking, announcing the arrival of a customer. Mrs. Lovett looked up sharply, expecting to see a young girl or boy, a portly older man, a hard-handed seamstress perhaps, anyone other than who she saw. Mr. Todd stood just inside the doorway, staring at her as if she were crazy.
A rush of heat suddenly peppered Mrs. Lovett's cheeks. "Well you talk to them razors," she snapped tartly.
Mr. Todd blinked. His eyes lowered to the tray of pies, then travelled slowly back to her face. "Mrs. Lovett," he said slowly, "I am in need of direction."
Mrs. Lovett's breath caught in her throat, her heart pounded by she refused to let it show. "Direction, luv?"
"Anthony," Mr. Todd began, "has passed on some information to me." He paused, struggling with some internal wall, or battling against some instinct or other. "I..." Mr. Todd actually managed to look the slightest bit sheepish, "there is a man I must speak with. He resides at the Duke's Fancy, and I... do not know where that is."
Mr. Todd, back when he had been Mr. Barker, had been a respectable man. The area that surrounded the pie shop had been respectable back in those days, it was only in more recent times that the quality of both the people and the buildings had changed. In the years when Benjamin Barker had rented the room above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, he had never ventured into the seedier parts of London - he'd had no need to. Since returning to London, Mr. Todd had not had any need to venture further than the parts of London that he already knew.
Mrs. Lovett was shocked to realise just how sheltered Mr. Todd had been; And still was, in a way. "The Duke's Fancy," she repeated thoughtfully. She knew the name from somewhere. "Oh! Yes, I know that place. It's by the spicers I like to get my pepper from." Sensing an opportunity, Mrs. Lovett smiled. She took off the flour-stained apron that she'd been wearing over her dress, turning to hang the garment from a peg on the wall. "Why, speaking of pepper, Mr. Todd, I do need some. I can take you there right now if you've a mind to wait."
Mr. Todd didn't object. In fact, he didn't move. A look of distaste passed across his face while Mrs. Lovett wasn't looking but he said nothing to contradict her. He winced when Mrs. Lovett shreiked something in the direction of the parlour, realising only when the boy appeared that she had been calling for Toby.
"Yes ma'am?" The boy asked, eyeing Mr. Todd with a cool gaze that made the barber's lip curl slightly.
"Mind the shop," Mrs. Lovett instructed, patting her hair to make sure that most of her unruly curls were still where they ought to be, then patting the top of her bust to make sure her purse was still there, nestled firmly where no pick-pocket would dare to try and take it. "Mr. Todd and I is just going to the markets for a tick."
Toby nodded and voiced another cheerful 'yes ma'am', but his suspicious eyes followed the barber long after the pair had left.
The markets where Mrs. Lovett liked to get her spices from were only slightly more reputable than the establishments closer to her shop. They were by no means the kind of place that catered to the rich, or even the moderately wealthy, but their stock was well enough. Mr. Todd looked like a dog with its hackles raised, his curled lip and glaring eyes just a front to mask how truly lost he was in this new, baffling mazelike part of the city. He followed Mrs. Lovett's steps doggedly, not paying the slightest bit of attention whenever she chattered into his ear. Mr. Todd made the apropriate responses, but he didn't hear a word she said.
Mrs. Lovett didn't care. She was that relieved that he was on speaking terms with her again.
The baker led Mr. Todd to the spicer's shop. She was about to go inside when she noticed that he had pulled up short just by the window. "Mr. T?" Mrs. Lovett asked, "are you alright?"
Mr. Todd turned the full force of those glaring eyes upon his guide, a muscle in his jaw twitching to show his irritation. "The Duke's Fancy, Mrs. Lovett," the barber replied, each word dripping from his lips like acid.
"You'll get there, Mr. T," Mrs. Lovett told him, "I just need to pop in here first and -"
"You can point the way from here," Mr. Todd cut her off impatiently, repressing the urge to tap his foot against the cobbles.
Mrs. Lovett clucked her tongue, placing a hand on her hip. "Now see here, Mr. Todd. I know you, luv. You'll go in there lookin' all dour and that man what you want to talk to wont be a bit of help. What you need is a woman's touch to help gentle the approach." She shook her head sadly and gestured to the window and his reflection, "look at yourself, Mr. Todd. I dont know what you've a mind to talk to this man about, but I can guess. You wont get yourself any closer to your Johanna trying to talk to people when you look like that."
Mr. Todd turned slowly to stare for once at his own relfection, the image not fractured by a broken mirror. Dammit. She was right. He may be a respectable working man as Anthony had said (or he was as far as anyone knew) but he was not the kind of man that inspired friendliness in other men. "Very well," he growled, turning his face away from the reflection in front of him.
The reflection made him feel uncomfortable, like his assessment of Mrs. Lovett was wrong. It made him feel as if perhaps his barber shop were Hell, and he was the Devil. That was not a thought he liked at all.