We Could Get By

xxxiv.

"Three-tiered pies," Nellie announced without any sign of her characteristic enthusiasm, wiping her hands on the skirt of her dress. She had flour dusting her face like freckles. "See, the big pie goes on the bottom, there- an' then the smaller one like this-" Her trembling fingers could not quite manage to balance the second pie, and it went crashing to the floor. The flaky crust cracked upon impact and the filling spilled onto the floor.

"Except I suppose you don't drop them like that."

Nellie scowled at him and gave his arm a smack. "Oh, piss off."

She grabbed for a rag and began the laborious task of attempting to bend down. Sweeney snatched it from her and set about picking up the remains of the pie with his fingers. She tsked in his direction and stood to watch with her hands twisted in her frilled skirts. The counters were full of pies of all shapes and sizes, teetering dangerously close to the edges and threatening to fall to the floor much as the first one had. Small pies, hand pies, pies that could feed an entire family- Sweeney could have sworn he'd been able to smell them baking all night, the scent floating daintily into the bedroom in a steady stream that made his stomach churn (and growl, just a bit, though he would never admit it since he knew full well what they were filled with). Now, the entire house smelled of crusts and flour and expertly-baked pie filling. He was just grateful that the final results smelled nothing like the bakehouse.

Mrs. Lovett had been awake for the entirety of the night. That much, he would have been able to gather even if he had not been able to hear the clatter of pots and bowls and her wooden rolling pin in his fitful sleep. She certainly looked as if she had not slept a wink. Her curls stuck out, twisting in every direction, and her face held the wild, red-eyed enthusiasm of a mad woman. She might have crawled right out of bedlam and into the house.

She pushed some of the pies to the back of the table and cleared a flour-sprinkled patch of space for more. Even the burnt pies, their too-brown crusts edged in black, she kept. She beamed proudly at a particularly lopsided pie and gave its top an affectionate pat.

"I been thinkin' I oughtta pop down to town, hand these out. Got enough of em, eh? Might be good for business. I'll say ''Ave a pie!' an' suggest they pop 'round some time."

Nellie started transferring the better-looking pies to their own individual boxes, aware of Sweeney's hooked presence at her elbow. She tied brown string around the box, looping the tops into a messy bow. "And then what?"

She thrust a box into his arms. "Make yaself useful or get outta me kitchen, Mister T."

Sweeney opened his mouth but no words came out, like a fish gaping just below the surface of the water. In the three days that Toby had been missing, bobbing in the ocean somewhere, her only two moods seemed to be "absolutely miserable" or "irritable beyond all reason", and she fluctuated between the two freely.

Her eyebrows knitted together, and she pursed her lips. Nellie paused a moment as if considering something of importance before she stacked a second box into Sweeney's arms. "Or maybe I oughtta get you to take these down an' I'll jus' head on back to bed."

"Hm?"

Nellie recognized the upward tilt of his grunt as a question, an inquiry. "What do you mean, you're going to bed?" He might have asked. Or even, "Why, Nellie, would you go to bed so early?" But Sweeney Todd was most emphatically not one to voice his concern unless he was drunk or temporarily out of his mind. He did not want to Nellie to get the notion in her silly head that he had gone soft, though truth be told, Nellie had seen it long ago. Something had given way within him, something steadfast and stubbornly resolute that had crumbled beneath the persistence of her smiles and unrestrained affection. She pretended, for her husband's sake, not to notice when his eyes wandered to her or when he fumbled through the covers for her hand in his sleep, or even, like then, when the tone of his carefully-constructed noncommittal grunts betrayed him. She turned to box another pie and tucked away a wry smile.