AN: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE SWEENEY TODD: DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET FRANCHISE!
Chapter Three: The 'Dearly' Departed,
Over the next few weeks, Mrs. Lovett would direct people looking for the barber to the upstairs room, but failed to notice that seldom ever came out. She was much too busy fussing over her own thoughts and worries on how to catch the attention of Mr. Todd herself. She was either constantly looking in her cracked bedroom mirror, looking for ways to improve herself, or making pastries that were never sold, or even touched by another human being, most of them went to the vermin. As Mrs. Lovett was once more busying herself in the mirror, the clock on the wall behind her chimed ten times exactly.
"Ah me, I didn't realize it was this late in the night..." She said, walking over to the door and changing the wooden sign over so that it read closed rather than open. Sighing at her less than busy shop, she blew out the last candle and set off down the hall and into her house part of the building. She glanced fleetingly over the portrait of her late husband. She did somewhat miss the man, he was after all very good to her, always respecting her privacy, always allowing her independence. Suddenly a noise startled Mrs. Lovett and she turned to find that Mr. Todd had knocked on her door and entered quietly.
"Oh, good evnin' Mr. Todd," She said, giving a slight curtsey. He returned the gesture with an almost imperceptible bow.
"Is there somethin' you need to speak with me about?" She inquired offering him a chair. He took the proffered chair with a certain air of stiffness. She sat across from him.
"Yes, you said you had a husband?" He said, his voice cold as always.
"Yes, I had a 'usband." She said, not quite too sadly. He seemed to pick up on this.
"Divorced?"
"Goodness me, no!" She said a bit startled by his sudden curiosity about Mr. Lovett. "The good man died. 'E was rather old you know. It was 'is time." She had an air of false sadness in her tone.
"Didn't love him, did you Mrs. Lovett?" He said, as if sensing the false care in her words as if they were his own. She sighed.
"Not really, married 'im for the money and the shop. I was poor, 'e was rich, I was needy, 'e had surplus." She said as casually as if the marriage had been a business deal. "Why sudden curiosity if I might ask Mistah Todd?" She asked, cocking her head slightly, some of her more unruly curls bouncing this way and that.
"I was just wondering why I never see the gentleman around, after all, you are Mrs. Lovett for a reason my dear." Mrs. Lovett's heart fluttered for but a moment or two, perhaps her pains to make herself more appealing to her handsome tenant were working...