castleashorses

[castleashorses]

Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop had been the spot for many a patron as of late, but she sold nary a pie in that same time. The semi constant flow of neighbors had come to gift her their condolences for the loss of her, now late, husband Albert, but none felt the need to buy something.

Most sought her with pity in their eyes, knowing that Albert was the purse strings that held her entire operation together. But the money had dwindled with his health and with it the quality of her goods. She estimated she’d be out of money before the end of the year, a scant 2 and a half months. A hard timeframe to cut a profit and stay viable on the financially bleak Fleet Street. Mrs. Mooney held the market and Mrs. Lovett, well she held the gaze of a few lads who would indulge in her company over a pie or two. So she would smile, wink, let her touch linger a moment too long, just to put a pence or two in the till. Never anything more, but enough to keep them coming back for the promise of it.

Albert never noticed, if he did he never cared enough to say so, they often just lived together alone, except for the nights when they’d share a bed and the very rare romp. In a passive peacefulness with financial security and a life plagued with boredom and little else.

She did have a fondness for him, she wouldn’t have been able to manage if she didn’t but he was twice her age, in poor health, and a lumbering fellow she’d been heavily encouraged to wed. Stability was the goal and it was easily check off with him.

Her family had no prospects, no means to elevate her status, but with Albert she moved up a peg, she could have some control over her life and with it a quaint shop.

But that would soon be taken too if she couldn’t scrape together enough money to keep herself afloat.

After the acceptable mourning period passed, fewer people dropped until they stopped altogether. A month she noted to herself, that’s how long it takes for someone to forget about a pretty, young widow left to hang in her own web.

So it came as a surprise to her when the bell on her shop door chimed one afternoon.

‘A customer?!’ She whispered to herself as she hurried from the parlor where she’d been haunting the cabinets looking for things she could sell for a pence or two.

Before her, in the middle of her shop stood a man surrounded in the afternoon light. She stared, confused, examining him with curiosity, perhaps he said hello, but she didn’t hear it. Her mind somehow wanders back to reality to greet him.

“You must be lost,” she retorts, doing a scan of him from head to toe, he doesn’t seem to get the joke and she deduces quickly he’s not from around here. So she restarts, “What can I get ya?!”

It’s chipper and grating and reeks of desperation.

He seems nervous, cloaked in a black wool jacket, a crisp white shirt, and suspenders. She always liked a fella in suspenders. A handsome man, young, maybe a little older than her, clean shaven, with a brightness in his eyes.

“I had spoken to a Mrs. Talbert about needing a residence and she said you may be able to help.” He sticks his hand out awkwardly, “Benjamin, Benjamin Barker.”

“Nellie Lovett.” And she takes his soft hand with a firm grip. Electricity thrumming through her at the touch. Soft hands, not a laborer.

She is, however, confused. Mrs. Talbert ran a small shop down the street selling hats and other wears with her husband. They weren’t particularly close, a polite hello in the local town square, a few pleasantries. She was successful and a step above her station, a beacon of propriety who had no qualms elevating her image by scandalizing another’s.

Now why would Mrs. Talbert be sending a young man her way… oh.

The young widow needed a young fellow to revive her image. A woman living alone maintaining a business without a husband, scandalous. An easy and quick match if they wished to avoid becoming pariahs. At least she had good taste.

Perhaps she thought she’d be saving her from being pushed onto the streets to service the sailors.

“The room, upstairs. She said you had a room upstairs that may be available.”

She had mentioned it briefly to others who ran in the woman’s social circle. No one keeps a secret it seems. They also likely told her she was running out of money as well. Seems Mrs. Talbert found a way to provide Nellie with some income and a good scandal.

She crosses to him and finds a way to touch him again, giving him a little pat that’s just innocuous enough to pass as friendly. “Oh yes! Yes love of course. Sit, sit, I’ll get some ale and we can chat, eh?”

She takes the seat across from him and offers him the beer, though he doesn’t immediately go for it. Instead he sits up straight and gives her his full attention. Nice to get that without the accompanying bleary eyes for once

“Awfully well dressed for Fleet Street ain’t ya? Mustn’t be from ‘round here.”

He gives her an embarrassed smile, “Close enough.” Though his accent says farther.

It’s quiet as his eyes wander around the room, noticing a painting of a distinguished man on the farthest corner almost out of sight. He assumes her father, perhaps now long gone.

“Do you live here alone?” And he asks with sincerity, more so than most of the others who’d come to ogle, and it sends a sharp pang through her chest as it dawns on her.

“Alone? Yes.” She starts to sink into the feeling before returning to her senses and lightening the mood, “Me poor Albert died this fall, God rest his soul, but I make do.”

“A widow, at such a young age, I’m sorry.”

She would tend to forget her age. Albert being so much older she felt older by proxy, until someone like Benjamin entered her space.

“Tis alright,” she leans further onto the table toward him, “ya never know when a new opportunity will come calling.” Her pointed gaze causes him to drop his eyes to the table.

Too much Nellie, too much.

“How bout a tour?” And stands walking to his corner of the table, a little too close. He considers it, probably wondering about her intentions in having him alone in a private space. The rumors it could illicit for such a strapping young man.

“I don’t think it would be…” and before he can say ‘proper’ or ‘appropriate’ she cuts him off and tugs at his sleeve, “come now love, can’t be setting up without seeing it first.”

She can tell he hasn’t encountered a person like her before. Forward, almost too much, and void of any care for her reputation, or his.

On the contrary she’d love for the gossips to spout off about how she took the handsome young man up the stairs alone.

As they climb the stairs she prattles on, “So, the room ain’t much, there’s a main room, a bedroom, and small kitchen.“ She leaves the door ajar, for his sake, since he still seems uneasy.

“Kinda bare innit it?”

“Oh, no this is perfect.”

He moves around the room mentally placing objects.

She leans against the door frame to start her interrogation.

“What did you say it was ya did?”

“I didn’t. I’m a barber. If it’s alright by you I had hopes of turning this into my own shop.”

Her eyes glow at their shared entrepreneurial spirit. A barber and a baker, she indulges the idea of them running the building as a pair.

“Not at all dear. In fact,” she sidles next to him her shoulder pressed into his as they stand looking down at a vacant spot. “I’d say this spot right here, would be the perfect spot for a barber’s chair.”

He looks down where their bodies meet and then back to her. Whatever fascination may have washed over him is gone quickly as he moves to examine the other corners, but it’s enough to make her feel lightheaded.

“It’s yours then.”

The smile that glosses over his face as he surveys the space a final time is a sight she’ll stamp on this day, and look back on fondly.

He starts for the door, “Should we head downstairs and sort the details?”

“Oh aren’t ya a funny thing!”

And his puzzled look tells her he definitely isn’t from around here, “No details to sort dear, you move in when you like. Rent’ll be on the first of the month.”

He wants it, the room that is, but maybe he’d want her too. But she calms her impatient heart, in good time. She’d work her way into his heart, his life, his bed.

Maybe a small wedding, and a baby, one with her eyes and his crooked smile.

“Well then Mrs. Lovett,” no call me Nellie she wants to say, “I think we have a deal.”

This time when they shake he drapes his other hand over hers and pats. Progress. She yearns to be touched by him over and over, but this will do. Patience.

He’s out the door and on the landing as she fusses with the lock. The space between them minimal. She turns and they’re near flush, she wants to reach up and pull him to her lips, but in a blink he’s descending the stairs and out of sight.

When she catches up she finds him waiting at the counter, “Forget something, Benjamin?” If he won’t call her Nellie, then she won’t call him Mr. Barker.

He’s smiling and lite, “Well now I must have a good sense of the establishment below me, shouldn’t I?” She’s touched that he’s actually going to buy something, that he cares enough to make the effort to start a good relationship with his neighbor. “Two pies please.”

“Quiet the appetite!” She winks at him.

“Oh my wife must sample the goods as well!”

Her heart falls along with the muscles in her face.

“Oh you’re married?”

“Newlyweds actually, last May. She should be coming round from the market soon, I know she’d love to meet you.”

And as if on cue the door bell chimes and in walks a young woman, above her station, in a beautiful gown and bonnet holding a basket of goods and a beautiful bouquet of daisies.

Suddenly she feels old and pungent like a gillyflower discarded on the cobblestone left to rot.

But her lack of cheer doesn’t seem to effect Mr. Barker, it is of course Mr. Barker now, when he rushes to bring her forth and show off his chestnut haired bride.

“Mrs. Lovett this is my wife, Lucy.”

She doesn’t extend her hand, just nods, and Lucy does the same in return. Her hand landing on his chest as she tucks herself closer to his side.

“A pleasure.”

A curse.

—————-

They make quick work of their move and Mrs. Lovett keeps a close eye on the progress as she wanders up from time to time to offer them refreshments and food.

Lucy, while not outwardly annoyed with her, does seem to avoid any unnecessary interaction. Mr. Barker on the other hand always gladly accepts her offerings and she without evidence deduces one of them grew up on harder times than the other. He married up, same as she did.

At night when it’s quiet and she’s alone in her dark room she stares at the ceiling wondering where he may be standing, if it’s above her or in his shop but then the sound of heels dance across her ceiling and her mood sours.

The bitter sting of envy that rolls through her at the fantasy that she could have been the one upstairs if only she’d somehow met a man she never knew right before she knew him. If only she had been born with more to offer.

She buries her head when the noises leave the floor and move to thumping against the wall.

He comes down every so often to chat, spend some money, and then inevitably leave.

She knows Lucy is always lingering close by, keeping a close eye. Mrs. Lovett tries to keep her hands off him but the occasional touch or lingering exchange in money isn’t something she avoids or something Mr. Barker outright rejects, so she indulges.

Lucy only pops down on her own to pay the rent. It’s always a quick transaction smothered in pleasantries and haste.

One day when Mr. Barker takes an extended break from his customers he sits for his meal, a rare occurrence, especially solo. The shop is empty and she takes advantage of the privacy, plopping down in the chair beside him.

He’s sweet, interested, “How’s business?”

She looks around at the empty space, “Never been better.” And it gets a chuckle out of him.

“I do enjoy your company though, nice to see a friendly face voluntarily come in here.”

The smile is sincere and she’s moved by it enough to reach out and grasp his hand and give it a gentle squeeze. He doesn’t pull it away immediately, more finds a new task for it. Lifting a beaker of beer to his lips.

They both startle when the bell chimes and Lucy comes in, that sweet smile plastered on her face. She eyes the beer in his hand.

“My love, there’s a customer who needs attending upstairs.”

He presses the napkin to his mouth before standing and bidding Mrs. Lovett a good day.

Lucy however remains, exasperation closing in around her normally bright demeanor. He is her husband after all.

She conjures up a pitiful face, “He’s too polite to say it, naive even, but I see it so I will say it instead.” She can feel a burn at her feet, slowly rising up her. “I know what you’re doing and it won’t work. I’m sorry Mrs. Lovett, I truly am for your plight and your loss but Benjamin is my husband and you cannot go about indulging in these fantasies.”

There’s sincerity laced in there somewhere but she refuses to see it.

Her silence is met with a heavy, disappointed sigh from Lucy as she leaves without another word.

She spends her day conjuring up hurtful words, water-logging her pillow with the ache of knowing Lucy is ultimately right. She’s not the one he loves, right now at least. That shred of hope that will carry her from now on.

A month passes before she sees him again. She wonders if Lucy told him about their last meeting. Wonders if that’s why he has avoided her.

But she relishes in the sight of him. Her wounds starting to scab as he comes bounding elation. Perhaps he missed her too.

He passes off the rent to her and she’s shocked Lucy didn’t bring it down herself.

“Mrs. Lovett would you happen to have any sweets you could spare?”

“Needing a bit of sugar there Mr. Barker?”

“Oh no, not for me, Lucy’s been having a craving for something sweet.”

She’s not piecing it together and he can tell.

“Surely she’s spoken to you, about… oh well, I guess I can be the harbinger of good news. Lucy and I are to welcome a baby this summer.”

And with a pair of seamstress scissors the finale thread is cut.

She can’t even summon a proper smile, but it doesn’t affect his jubilation.

“Oh,” is what comes out. She forces herself to summon an interest, for his sake, “congratulations are in order then.”

He beams, clearly proud of himself and doting on his wife like the respectable husband he is.

“Let me…” and she’s a little scattered as she turns to find the doorway to the small kitchen behind her, “let me just check in the back, love.” The ache of the word.

As soon as she’s out of view she tips against the wall and just sobs silently. Covering her mouth when she needs to suck in a noisy breath. She can’t go back out there, she can’t let go of the future she imagined for them, him, proud as a peacock, marrying the widow Lovett, parading her around the town square arm and arm with her belly swollen with his child, be taken away. She’ll need time to grieve its loss.

So she calls out, “I don’t seem to have any, dear. Excuse me though I need to check on me pies.”

She waits beyond the threshold until she’s sure he’s gone. Walking back to the counter, exhausted and red eyed, she allows her body to dramatically to fall over the wooden counter.

Her cheek resting along the cutting board. All the tension in her body gone at once.

She hears the bell on the door and without even looking up hurls a pie violently toward whoever dared to interrupt her. Never bothering to look up and see who the lucky patron was.

Despite the finality in his news, it takes her a few days to mentally work around the obstacle of a child and her eventual future with Benjamin. She still can’t tame that small hope that he’d be hers, one day, somehow.

From then on Lucy never brings the rent down, and the only time Mrs. Lovett sees her is when she can summon up a good enough reason to visit upstairs.

“Oh a customer asked if you pomade the hair.” A lie.

“Did ya hear a creaking this morning? I heard a creaking and scratchin’. Maybe the rodents have found a new nest in the wall.” Another lie.

She gets good at lying, cobbling together a world of her own imaginings. Finds that it’s a better place to exist than reality.

Lucy grows tired of her intrusions and starts cutting her off at the door before she can set foot inside. But her stomach grows too big and she’s no longer able to keep her locked out. She tries to become a friend, a confidant to her husband but it becomes apparent after a few hearty conversations that he’s grown unfocused and drifts elsewhere when she chatters. So she eventually locks herself out. Pining from afar.

She keeps his name on the tip of her lips as she rustles her own sheets. Always keeping the image of him at the forefront of her lustful mind.

——————————

Mrs. Lovett is very aware the night Lucy goes into labor, half the neighborhood is. The grunts and screams echo off the stone buildings.

It’s a hard delivery from what she can hear and Benjamin eventually wanders down the stairs after several hours, presumably sent away by the doctor. At this hour the doors are locked so he knocks on the shop door instead. Normally she wouldn’t hear it but she’s wide awake, anticipating the cries of a child at any moment.

“I’m sorry to wake you Mrs. Lovett…” and she doesn’t even let him finish his sentence before she’s ushering him inside, her simple blue robe dragging across the wooden floor, a wisp of cloth underneath. He’s clad in a hastily tucked in shirt and trousers, looking all the worse for wear.

His eyes are red, he’s been crying, coupled with exhaustion he looks a fright. “Come now, don’t get yourself all worked up. How is she doing?” In truth she doesn’t care. She’s yet to decide her feelings on the baby. In a way, that she knows is wrong, she wishes the hardship of her labor might claim her, leaving him a widow with a child she could care for.

He shrugs as she sits him at a table. His head immediately dropping into his hands.

“I don’t know honestly. I’m not terribly familiar with the process.”

“Well coming from a woman, it all seems normal to me dear. These things take time. Come now drink have a little ale, it’ll calm your nerves.”

She sits with him quietly, occasionally checking in between his sips.

The night carries on into dawn and then mid afternoon. The screams die down at last, a tiny wail replacing them.

The baby, at last.

Benjamin is met at the door a few moments later to find the doctor already coming to collect him. A girl she can hear him announce, ushering the new father out.

Mrs. Lovett can’t help herself and follows a few paces behind into the sinking daylight, but stops at the stairs. Even she knows this isn’t her moment to sully.

She stands there for several minutes just staring at the landing before turning to head back inside. The moment she’s at the counter she hears the crazed thumps of shoes rushing around. She peeks back outside in time to see Benajmin being pushed onto the landing of the stairs a tiny white bundle of blankets awkwardly situated invites arms.

“Everything alright up there love?” And he catches her eye in a panic before she bounds up the stairs.

He meets her halfway, begging her to hold the babe as he returns upstairs shouldering the door until he can force it open. She hears him cry out as his daughter gives a rousing yell in return.

She’s heard the cries of grief before, what it likely means.

She immediately regrets her earlier thoughts and wishes she could undo them. Her blinders have dropped in light of the reality of the moment. Her mind shaming her for taking a predatory interest in their life and hopeful dissolution.

She had hoped Lucy would just go away, not die. Never die.

She coos down at the tiny girl and cuddles her close, for once overcome with emotion for Lucy’s wellbeing.

She feels out of place and no one is returning to check on the wee girl so she takes the baby downstairs. Her cries continue as she sets herself down in a corner booth of the pie shop. With her pinky finger scrubbed red and raw washed she offers it to the hungry babe to suckle on.

She’d never been taught what substitutes a breast in these situations, never had a need to, so she gives her a lackluster distraction instead.

She briefly wonders if she herself could persuade her body to dredge up some nourishment, she’d heard tale of such a thing happening from the bawdy Mrs. Craney but the old bat also believed there was a horse living in her attic. So she takes the thought and stows it away for another time.

An hour passes before she hears the bell on the door. She’s surprised to find the doctor standing there, eyes cast downward, covered in blood. For a woman so well acquainted with the messiness of death it churns her stomach a little.

He motions toward the stairs, “Perhaps seeing the child will pull him from his reverie.”

And she nods and starts for the door but the doctor gently stops her, “Cows milk will do if she can thrive, every 3 hours. God help her.”

His passive remark only steels Mrs. Lovett’s resolve. She’ll have none of that talk, shrugging the old man’s hand off her shoulder before heading to the kitchen, grabbing what’s left of the milk, a spoon, and a tea towel.

When she opens the door to the barber’s shop she can see an invisible path of pain to the Barker’s open bedroom door. Peaking in she recoils at the aggressive visual of red stains on white sheets, Benjamin on his knees holding Lucy’s greying hand.

The baby starts to cry, and he turns, eyes red and bloodshot, “Leave me! Leave me now I said!”

And it’s so hard and furious she turns and retreats back to a chair in the barber’s shop careful to stay out of his eye-line.

She sets down the milk and begins to solve the puzzle of feeding the girl. After the spoon fails to produce anything other than a mess she rigs a system with the tea towel where the milk drips down a twisted corner that the baby can suckle. Anything to get her belly full.

She can’t help feeling a maternal swell toward the sight below hers as she lets herself take in the image. So small and warm.

Motherless.

So she hugs her tighter.

The baby drifts off to sleep and she can’t put her down, too afraid her chest will stop rising and no one will notice, so she attempts to breach the threshold of the room again with her in tow.

This time he’s despondent, void of any life. It’s almost worse than the angry grief he sported earlier.

Feeling safe he’s past that, she crouches down beside him, sits on the floor and lays his daughter on her lap, across her billowing skirt.

He looks at his daughter, finally, and his hand reaches for Mrs. Lovett’s. Grabs it so tight it starts to tingle. And gives them both a pained smile. She’ll burn it into her memory.

He says nothing and after several minutes, pulls his hand from hers as they sit on that floor, all together for hours. Mrs. Lovett avoids looking at Lucy, she doesn’t have a right to capture that image for eternity, she saw enough earlier. It isn’t until the child wakes again, hungry that she starts to stand.

She tries to coax him downstairs for a meal. The thick summer air causing the windows of his bedroom to steam and it’s only a matter of time before someone comes to collect the body, but he refuses to leave her.

“She needs to eat.”

“So feed her.” he groans back.

She leaves without another word. If he wishes to disregard the life of his daughter for that of his dead wife then she’d be better equipped to spearhead her survival.

She nestles her close that night, feels maternal for once, a feeling she always thought would accompany warmth on the opposite side of her bed, but such is not the case tonight.

The daylight has gone as her eyes flutter open several minutes after shutting them to the sound of a commotion upstairs. They’ve come to get Lucy.

When the whole ordeal is over he still doesn’t come for his daughter. Not even a day old and she’s really only known the touch of a stranger.

Several days pass, she has no idea how he’s faring upstairs but she allows him his grief.

She cares for the baby, who still has no name, no mother, and by his own choice, no father.

Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep or growing resentment leads that prompts it but she’s reached her limit.

When the little girl becomes colicky and wails endlessly Mrs. Lovett can take no more. With the babe in her arms she ascends the stairs to find him seated in his barbers chair, a horrid smell assaults her upon entry, and from behind she can see a light beard grown over his jaw.

“I understand the grief you must be feelin’ Mr. Barker but your daughter needs her father. Yer the only parent she has.”

When he doesn’t acknowledge her she steps closer, louder, “Benjamin are you listening to me.”

“You’re doing a fine job.” But it’s not a compliment, it’s laced in anger.

“I’m the only one who has cared enough to make sure she lives. Don’t cha think Lucy would want you to as well.”

“You speak like you knew her. I knew her, I loved her.”

“I didn’t need to know Lucy to know a mother would want her child to live.”

He turns his chair toward her and she immediately sees the torn look on his face. Conflicted by grief and joy and the albatross known as Mrs. Lovett weaving them together.

“Thank you for caring for her.”

She’s not sure he means it but the sad smile that ghosts across her lips doesn’t care, he needs reassurance.

“Come now, ya both could use a bath and a warm meal.”

She reaches out and puts her hand on his shoulder to urge him forward and while he tenses he doesn’t recoil.

———-

She feeds them both, him with his head down in he’s from his bowl and her guzzling away on a cloth. He seems slightly curious about the system she’s rigged,

“What is this?”

“Her dinner.”

He quirks an eyebrow, “this is how you’ve fed her?”

“Have a better idea?”

“Well you know… can’t you…”

“Breastfeed her, are you serious?” And she scoff at him, “Men know nothing.”

She rolls her eyes before continuing her lesson, “I don’t think simply wishing makes it happen. You gotta have a baby to feed a baby Mr. Barker.”

“Oh.” And she can hear it. She’s taken away a little more of the light he had finally recaptured.

She knows it’s not so but she attempts to humor him.

“Who knows though, maybe there’s a way, I can quietly ask ‘round.”

He just nods. Nothing.

After baths are drawn she retires to her room with the baby.

“Come along” she tells him but he’s reluctant to follow.

“Oh now dear this is hardly the time for seduction. Come I’ll show you how to put her down.”

She lays her on the bed, it’ll do till they can move the bassinet downstairs. She’s completely given up the idea of moving the child back upstairs. Best to keep her as far removed from that room as possible.

She sits on the edge of the bed and rubs the child’s chest in soft circles. He sits on the other side and watches intently. Imagining she’s an entirely different person she’s sure.

It’s the first moment she sees him truly look at his daughter. His eyes well up with love and tenderness for a change. He loves his little girl in this moment and by association she hopes he loves her too. She always hopes he loves her, just a little bit.

“What will ya call her?”

“Johanna.” He says softly.

“Pretty little Johanna. I think it suits her.”