Never Apart, Maybe In Distance, Never In Heart

Chapter Two: Mr Atkins

The sight Mrs Lovett was presented with broke her heart. Toby held onto a figure, beaten and weak. She quickly realised that it was Victoria, her own bloody daughter.

"OH MY GOODNESS!"

She raced across to her wounded soldier, holding her close as she allowed the tears to shed.

"Toby, go upstairs please, I'll sort this out-"
"Mum no I want to help her-"
"Toby now!!!"

She didn't mean to shout or sound angry, but Toby had to understand. With this, Toby left with a stomp, after placing his sister in his mum's chair in the parlour and left saying nothing. He looked very mad for a reason other than what had happened to his sister. Nell didn't notice this as she placed her daughter into the bath, and frantically went running around looking for an ointment.

"Mummy, I'm sorry-"
"Darling there is nothing to be sorry about"

Mrs Lovett tried to sound as calm as possible as she looked at the wounds on Victoria's body. Red and purple marks were painted across her body with a few cuts still bleeding. It pained Eleanor to see her daughter this way, but what upset her most was her face. She had a black swollen eye and bruising across her cheeks adding an unsettling colour to her once beautiful pale skin tone that matched her mother's. Nell quickly tried to clean her up.

"Darling, tell me what happened"
"Mummy I'm scared-"
"I know love, but you need to tell me"

She was in a rush to help her daughter that she didn't hear the rest of the sentence.

"Mummy, listen. I'm worried about you..."

It was in that moment that the demon barber marched onto the landing after emerging from his shop in a fit of rage , followed by Toby. They didn't sound happy or concerned.
Just angry. Very angry.

"I need to know what happened, love..."
"Well I'm not very good at maths and my teacher called me stupid and said I don't deserve to be in school and he....he beat me"

Victoria began to cry. Nell could tell she was trying to hold back the tears, and urged her to go on, as she held Victoria's hand, rubbing her knuckles softly. It hurt so much to hear that someone beat her because of a skill that she was slightly lacking.

"He said I was just like you, Mummy. What did he mean?"

Eleanor knew exactly who her daughter was talking about as she remembered those words being said to her, but decided to ask anyway as she rubbed the ointment onto her scars and washed her hair. She constantly talked about wanting her hair to to look like her mother's and how she'd love to look like her mother. Nell always blushed at this, she never thought she was beautiful, not once. Sweeney and Toby were watching the conversation between the baker and daughter, with Toby continually muttering and Sweeney constantly telling him to shut up. He still wasn't too fond of the boy but they had a better relationship than they did. Nell was now rubbing Victoria's back, looking into her pained eyes, that were now red from the tears.

"What was the name of the teacher...?"
"Mr Atkins, Mummy..."

Mrs Lovett felt herself shuddering at the mention of his name again. She shook her head manically.

"N-no it...it couldn't be...Charles Atkins...."

//authors note// hello sorry it took me so long to edit but I've been so busy this week with school trips and controlled assessments and bla bla bla. Anyway, what is the link between Nellie and Mr Atkins? Will Victoria recover and forget what he did? What will Sweeney and Toby do to protect their ladies? Let me know what you think of this chapter and I'll try and write a new one every Friday and I shall see you soon. Byeeeeee :))