We Could Get By

xvii.

"Really, Nellie, I can't believe you run this shop all on your own!" Abigail Hudson sunk her teeth eagerly through the flaky crust of a piping hot meat pie, leaning comfortably over the counter as though she had known Nellie Lovett all their lives. In reality, she had known Mrs. Lovett for a grand total of fifteen minutes, and even that was a stretch. In those fifteen minutes, Nellie had learned that Abigail Hudson was from "a city", that she was twenty-three years old, that she had just recently moved to town and that she was married to a man she had met at the bank.

Abigail had convinced her husband to purchase the old hatter's shop that Nellie had been so worried about, and it was the two of them that Mrs. Lovett had been seeing over there. They intended, Abigail had relayed with breathless, bright-eyed delight, to turn it into a florist's. Abigail and her husband had been pouring their boundless energy into fixing up "the old place" and making it "presentable". The girl exhausted her.

Nellie waved her hands airily, dusting the counter with a worn white towel and trying to conceal her proud smile. "Oh, well, 's me pride 'n joy, ya know! Spent me whole life buildin' up a nice, respectable business. 'Ow's the pie, dearie?"

Abigail smiled, the fresh-faced newness of someone who had only just begun living the rest of their life. Little pie crumbs dusted the front of her olive green dress. "Delicious. Absolutely divine, but-  If you don't mind my saying, though, Nellie- aren't you tired?"

What Abigail really meant, Nellie realized with a sourness that puckered her lips, was that she looked tired. Mrs. Lovett knew as much; she was certainly not blind. She saw, every morning, the dark eyes that stared back at her from the confines of the bureau mirror, the very faint beginnings of crow's feet stamping the corners. She knew her knees ached from the trips up and down to the bakehouse, that her bones creaked like an ancient house in a strong wind. She hardly needed this near-child to tell her that she was old.

When Nellie offered nothing in the way of reply, Abigail thanked her for the pie and breezed out the door and back down the street from where she had come. Nellie watched from the big front window until the girl disappeared into the old hatter's little white door. Socks stared at her from where he had been napping in the sun on the windowsill, his face as inquisitive as any cat's face could look.

"What, ya think I'm old, too?"

The cat merely rested his head on his paws and closed his eyes.

-

Sweeney Todd was not particularly handy with tools, though he had managed to rig up that terrible chair of his all on his own. He had gone to fix a loose floorboard once, in the kitchen, and smashed his thumb with the head of the hammer. Despite his home improvement misfortunes, he was, much to Nellie's unabashed delight, quite skilled with a paintbrush.

She sat in the dining room chair that she had set up in the corner of the guest room, her chin in her hand. Sweeney had his back to her, his arm stretched above his head, painting long, careful strokes along the curve of the window trim. He had managed to avoid splattering himself with any paint thus far, and Nellie could only hope he would not ruin another of his shirts before he was through. The round window was open and the salty sea breeze wafted up to them. Had the curtains been hung, they would have fluttered delicately. 

Nellie had wanted to paint, too, or to do anything to help, but he had refused to allow it. So she had hunkered down off to the side, where she could still be a part of the renovation process. Initially, Nellie had intended to just wallpaper the room, but she eventually reached the decision that a nice shade of blue might be better. Sweeney had gone along with the choice, probably relieved that he would not end up grappling with the wallpaper glue. Boy or girl, this child would be born with the tides in their little heart, just as she had, and the blue would be very fitting.

"Love, ya haven't even touched your supper," Nellie offered. Sweeney froze, brush in hand, and turned to her as if he was in a trance of sorts and had only just remembered her presence. The characteristic harshenss of her husband's face was blurred and soft in the sun. His eyes slid from her face to the bowl of clam chowder that she had brought up with her what seemed like hours ago and set atop the trunk that had been pushed against the wall to make room for the ladder and the paint buckets. Wordlessly, obediently, he crossed the room and came to sit cross-legged at her feet.

He spooned the nearly-cool chowder into his mouth thoughtfully, eyes fixed firmly on the wall he had spent the last several hours painting. His posture was absent of its usual rigidity or the recent slump he had adopted. "What d'ya think, Nell?"

"I think it's lovely, darling. Very lovely."

And so it was; if you looked at the sky behind the lighthouse in the very early moments of the day, that was the shade of blue that they had started covering the room in. This seemed to satisfy Sweeney, and he rested his head against Nellie's knee instead of returning to the chowder. The warmth of his skin radiated softly through her dress and her stockings and her skin. The late afternoon sun slanted into the room and pooled on the floor in a long yellow oval. Nellie thought they must have looked some sort of unusual portrait, dark and solemn against the cheer of the room.

She threaded her fingers through the messy top of Sweeney's hair. There was no way of knowing what that man was thinking. She could not see his face, but even if she could have studied it for the rest of her life, there was no way for her to make any rational sense of its lines and hollows. Her stomach churned unpleasantly; the smell of the paint was getting to her. It worried her, more than she cared to admit, that neither of them had spoken of the baby in the few days that they had known. It was coming up on a week since they had been informed. Her husband was far from the talking type, but it would do no good if they both closed themselves off, stored their thoughts in some secret room in their hearts. Nellie was happy, really, in spite of the terrible anxieties she had been uncovering in herself, the inadequacies she unearthed at every turn.

"That girl stopped 'round the shop- the one what bought the hatter's."

Sweeney tipped his head back, into the soft palm of her hand, to look up at her. His eyebrows lifted just slightly, which was as close to piquing his interest as Nellie could get. He cared far much more for gossip than he would ever dare admit. "Oh? What did she want?"

"To introduce herself, I s'pose. She's young- says she's a florist. 'Course, I ain't seen a single flower down there. Must 'ave quite a bit of money if she can just go 'round buying up empty shops. An' she was talkin' about her husband an' the city- that's where she's from. 'The city', like 'm s'posed to know where the hell she means."

"At least she's not a baker." He got to his feet, collected the bowl of chowder, and started in his long, loping strides for the stairs.

"Mister T." He froze, mid-step. That was his indication that Nellie could continue, that he was listening. "Are ya angry at me?"

"Angry?"

"We haven't talked about it. 'S been a week- a whole week and ya ain't said a word. I know it wasn't somethin' what we planned, but, love, I'm 'appy. I'm old an', hell, so are you now, but I think it'll do us a nice bit of good. An' I s'pose I jus' want ya to be happy, too." Nellie did not bother to keep the delicate strain of pleading from her tone. Sweeney turned to her slowly, regarding her features the careful way he had gazed at the wall. The very corner of his mouth twitched, but he did not smile. She thought he might laugh, then, or crack some dry joke.

Instead, she imagined she heard the gentle click of some tiny door in his heart opening; and he leaned down, turned his head to accommodate the long, straight slope of his nose, and pressed his lips quietly to hers.