Two weeks had gone by since the incident in Mr. Lovett's parlour (now technically Eleanor's as well) and tenant and landlady had all but ignored each other. They greeted each other cordially in front of Albert but apart from that, they bent over backwards not to be in the same room, to the point of Eleanor even feigning a dizzy spell to excuse herself when Mr. Lovett invited his tenant for tea to discuss the possibility of him raising their rent again—fortunately he had a change of heart and decided against it. Despite himself, Sweeney couldn't help but be concerned about her, about her rapidly thinning frame, the darkening bags under her eyes, the hollowness behind her eyes and the lack of mirth in her usually warm smile. It was as if she was withering before his eyes.
During the day, he could manage. Between his work and the errands he had to run now that Lucy refused to go out, he had his hands full. His wife was still mortified over the incident at Albert's shop on his wedding day and she had grown paranoid that the whole neighbourhood knew she'd made a fool of herself and would be laughing at her the second she showed her face. Sweeney knew it would pass sooner or later, it had to, but in the meantime he decided not to put pressure on her. He gladly took over some of her daily duties and tasks, like going for walks with his daughter, even if others like going to the market were not his cup of tea. But the nights were always the hardest. He didn't think he'd ever get used to Eleanor's blood-curling screams of pain. He searched on his mind for any memory, any recollection that proved that Albert had been as selfishly brutal in their coupling in his original timeline, trying to convince himself that this was his tenant's regular proceeding, that it had nothing to do with him. But in reality, he was sure he'd remember if that was the case.
It wasn't hard to connect the dots. Despite the loving front they put up in public, Sweeney knew Mr. Lovett was punishing Eleanor because her lover, Arthur Haide, had stolen his money. The question of why she was simply taking it instead of fighting back like he knew she would did not distract him from his own pathetic realisation: if he hadn't plotted the robbing with Arthur, the lad wouldn't have thought of it and Albert wouldn't have had any reason to punish his wife. Whether he liked it or not, it was Sweeney Todd's fault and he knew it. He tried to convince himself it was for the best. It was perfect, really, to have someone else exact his revenge on her so he could focus on fixing his marriage to Lucy and being a good father to Johanna. And Eleanor, she deserved the pain, didn't she? She deserved everything that was happening to her because of what she did to him and he wanted to see her suffering. So why couldn't he enjoy it? Eventually, the screams-filled nights became rarer and rarer and Sweeney, though glad he could finally rest, wondered what had caused the change. He understood the thrill of hurting—killing— those who deserved it and he knew the tireless viciousness that possessed men like Albert Lovett and himself in their quest to impart what they considered justice. Until their victim was (as good as) dead. He gulped at the thought.
The first night of eerie calmness since the wedding had Sweeney worried sick Mr. Lovett had killed her. It'd be by accident of course, because Sweeney knew the bastard had too much fun with her to willingly kill her. But after what he did to her every night, practically raping her if her screams to stop it were any indication... well he wouldn't really be surprised if things got out of hand. He began to wonder how much the human body could bear, how much pain one could take before their will to keep living weakened. It certainly didn't take Lucy much, the thought regretfully. She'd lost hope in his return, abandoning Johanna in the process. She had always been the weakest of the three, the gentle and soft-hearted one and Sweeney loved her for it, didn't he? But Sweeney himself had survived torture, beatings and penal labours, hoping to see her and Johanna again, even when she didn't afford him the same courtesy. And the Eleanor he knew, she'd survived poverty, loneliness and who knew what other hardships, hoping to see him again, hoping he'd return to her and this time he'd see her. Truth be told, he'd long realised he'd still have seen her had she not lied, because she the one who waited for him. How could he not appreciate that? But of course, she took the route of deceit, vitiating any future they might have had from its very foundations.
The problem was that in this timeline, he was not sure Eleanor had any hopes, any dreams to keep living for. After all, the man she loved was in prison awaiting a trial that would most likely lead to a conviction and she believed he'd betrayed her, and on top of that, she was stuck with an abusive husband until he kicked the bucket in a couple of years, something she couldn't have predicted at this stage. Terrified, Sweeney had ended up going downstairs that first quiet night while his Lucy slept. He hated Eleanor, yes, he hated her with a passion, but he couldn't let Albert Lovett kill her. He would kill that bastard with his own hands first.
The light of the parlour was on and Sweeney tiptoed to the window. Much to his relief, he did not see Mr. Lovett dragging the corpse of his wife but Mrs. Lovett herself, alive and as well as she could be. She was splayed out on the settee, a glass of gin in her hand and a half-emptied bottle on the side table. She was wearing a white, almost threadbare nightgown. Her hair was down, her messy waves were framing her face. He was relieved to see the marks had almost faded, but he knew her husband kept hurting her so perhaps he'd been leaving them in less visible places not to raise suspicions, that sneaky bastard. Despite everything, she looked beautiful, like a portrait. He had to admit he'd missed the sight of her like this, devoid of her abundance of feathers, lace, beads and all those unnecessary ornaments she insisted on wearing when she readied herself in the mornings. She was simply Eleanor, naturally beautiful. And yet the look in her eyes shook him to his core. It was a look that he knew all too well because he'd seen it in his fellow prisoners in Botany Bay once they realised that perhaps death wouldn't be so bad if it put them out of their misery. It was the look of defeat.
These furtive nightly peeps became a regular occurrence in Sweeney's life. As soon as his wife fell asleep, he went downstairs and followed the light, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He would stare at her, sometimes for hours, utterly transfixed by her beauty, basking in the peaceful calm that every night surrounded a woman who was in perpetual motion during the day. He had to admit it was funny, to furtively seek her in the dark when he avoided her during the day, but he supposed he had some practice. Because he did the same in his original timeline; pushing her out during the day, when he needed to think about Lucy and the judge but craving her warmth at night. And yet, he couldn't deny that the sight of her unsettled him, the vacant look that reflected the hollowness of her battered soul. He realised he couldn't bear to see her defeated, not her. But he was not sure whether he wanted to intervene, to willingly involve himself in her life to help her. He wondered when he would finally have enough of her suffering.
He had his answer earlier than expected. A couple of nights into the third week, he made his usual pilgrimage downstairs. It was unusually cold outside even though it was almost June, so he was not surprised to see she'd lit the parlour fire. Her back was to him as she looked into the flames, but he could tell something was off. Her slight tremors gave her away, she was crying. Unaware of what had possessed him, he walked to the side door and used his emergency keys to enter Albert's shop, continuing to the parlour. She visibly jumped when she saw him there, quickly wiping her tears and throwing what looked like a letter into the fire. They regarded each other for what felt like an eternity, the silence around them a surprisingly comfortable one. His raven eyes were fixed on her red teary ones, his heart clenching as he came to a realisation: he would never be happy if she was miserable. It did not matter what she'd done to him, how she'd lied, she still meant something to him. And Sweeney had a second chance to be happy even though he did not deserve it for all the lives he'd taken, why couldn't she have one too? The Watcher knows she too has suffered enough...
"If you came to gloat, you can save it. I'm pretty miserable without your help" she said dismissively, her gaze returning to the fire. She crouched and got closer to it to warm herself, her face adopting an apricot tint. Sweeney averted his eyes. It wasn't long ago that he'd wanted to see Eleanor burn, his child along with her, but he now felt a knot in his stomach at the memory. Was that regret? He did not know, but he suddenly felt uncomfortable with her being so close to the fire. Mercifully for him, she stood back up and walked to the other side of the room, widening the distance between them. She stared at him, daring him to speak.
"Eleanor, I..." Sweeney began, unsure of what to say.
"It's Ms. Price to you!" she corrected him sharply before she realised her mistake and apathetically corrected herself "Or well, Mrs. Lovett now..."
"Mrs. Lovett" he repeated, it did not sound foreign on his lips but he could tell by her slight grimacing that she was still not used to it and didn't particularly want to. "There's something I need to tell you." She feigned disinterest but she slightly raised her eyebrows. He continued, knowing he had her attention. "It's about Arthur."
She huffed, as if he was wasting her time. "Are you going to tell me he's innocent? That he didn't steal the money? I know that, Mommy and Daddy dearest did not forget to mention it." Sweeney was confused because Arthur had stolen the money and been caught red-handed, hadn't he? That was not was Sweeney would call innocent. And what did her parents have to do with it? But before he could process the new information and come with a possible explanation, his heart stopped. He didn't know when she'd approached him but she was suddenly mere inches from him. Her big brown eyes looking expectantly at him, her soft lips pursed into what looked like a pout. She was even more beautiful as he looked at her up close. His pulse raced as she poked his chest, inquiring. "But how do you know? What's your involvement in all this, Mr. Barker?"
"Arthur and I... we planned it. The... the robbery" he stammered but kept going. No one said telling the truth was easy but it had to be done. "He was planning to steal you away and take you to Argentina. He wanted to save you from Mr. Lovett and I helped him."
Eleanor was silent for a while. She stepped away from him and sat on an armchair, quietly taking everything in. He could practically hear the wheels turning in her head as she tried to understand what it really meant. "No one would ever do that for me" she said softly, more to herself than to Sweeney. All of a sudden, she burst into tears. "He loves me; he really loves me. And now he's in prison because he loves me!"
Sweeney tentatively approached her and placed a hand in her heaving shoulder. In a surprising movement, Eleanor grabbed it with her own, bringing both hands to the side of her face. She kept crying and Sweeney could feel her tears burning his hand. That was not the reaction he'd expected. Because those were no tears of frustration, anger, not even sorrow— those were the tears of dreams coming true only to break in the blink of an eye. Sweeney would know, he'd cried those invisible tears as well when he first spotted the little flat on number 186 of Fleet Street over a Lovett-owned business, only to find his wife and daughter gone forever the second he stepped in. He inadvertently stroked her cheek with his thumb.
All of a sudden she dropped her hand and pulled apart as if struck by lightning. She stood from the chair and moved to her previous place in the room, by the window. "I haven't forgot what you did. How you treated me from the moment we meet and how you spied on us. I don't believe you had my and Arthur's best interest at heart"
"I did... and I do" he said truthfully but he could tell she was still sceptical. "Look, I'm sorry for the way I acted, I had my reasons but you would never believe me if I told you"
"Try me" she challenged him, and he was at a crossroads. He couldn't very well tell her he came from the future in an alternative timeline in which they were lovers and were expecting a child. In which she lied about Lucy being dead and he almost killed them in a fit of rage. But he did not want to lie either. He was sick of the lies.
"You remind me of someone I used to know. Our relationship did not end on the best of terms" he said almost in a whisper. She tentatively asked him what happened to her, to which he simply replied "she's dead." Because he didn't know whether life went on in his other timeline, whether she would have finally left his irresponsive body rotting in the bake house and packed up her things to escape London before the authorities caught her. Perhaps she'd gone to the sea, like she always wanted. He would never be with her like she dreamed of but she would always have his child. He didn't know how far along she was when he left them, maybe she could already be showing now... He stopped himself. He wasn't going back, they were as good as dead to him now.
He blinked a couple times when he realised he was lost in thought and that Eleanor was standing before him. But not the same Eleanor. This Eleanor, younger but not necessarily more innocent had yet not done anything to him, perhaps she never would. He stared into her teary eyes and suddenly felt guilty. Eleanor, on her part, seemed to understand it was a painful part of his past and because she did not say anything else. Silence enveloped the two again but this time, Sweeney did not find it comfortable? Why wasn't she chatting his ear off? Or chastising him, berating him, joking with him, flirting... He found this churchbell's silence unnerving. He wanted to see whether she was still the same woman he knew, the one who capable of breaking his heart if he let himself believe in her lies. A she-devil in the making. At the same time, he couldn't say he was surprised. It was obvious that Eleanor was wary of him, didn't trust him or like him enough to really be herself around him. What surprised Sweeney was to suddenly find himself missing something that so used to annoy him.
Suddenly, he had an idea. To make up for what he did and help two people who had suffered unnecessarily because of him. "We have to help Arthur. We have to prove his innocence. He's a good lad, he doesn't deserve to be hanged or worse, banished." He knew that particular punishment was worse than death. But instead of wholeheartedly agreeing and jumping aboard his plan like he expected her to, Eleanor shook her head and smiled sadly.
"We can't. I mean, I can't" she said and he pressed on. She looked at him, undecided as to whether she could tell him or not, as to whether or not she could trust him. Realising she did not have much else to lose, that he was the only one who seemed to care about what happened to Arthur, she opted for confiding in him. "It was my parents, they stole the money. Arthur, although with the same intentions thanks to the ideas you put in his impressionable head, was just at the wrong place in the wrong time. Someone had been faster" Sweeney raised an eyebrow, he'd seen her parents leave with her and Albert and they were there when he was arrested. She seemed to read his mind because she clarified. "They did not do it themselves, of course. It would look suspicious if they weren't at my wedding but they had a chum do it for them, that Collins lad. The plan was for the three of us to take the money and run to America but I guess they decided the less people they had to share it with the better, so they left me here" she smiled in resignation but he could tell it hurt.
How could it not? Her own parents had basically traded her for a life of riches, leaving her with a degenerate husband. They were despicable creatures, vermin and they deserved to die. He imagined the pleasure he'd feel if he got to kill them. A quick slit of their throats would not suffice. Yes, he could cut them all over their body as they bled to death, like he would had done with Turpin had he not been in such a hurry to end his life before Johanna and Anthony got there. But he could think of a better death for them. Fire. Oh yes, he would relish them burning alive, dying in such a painful way, as Eleanor herself would have had the Watcher not stopped him. There was no doubt in his mind, that her parent had helped her make her the woman she knew. The cunning, lying, self-service woman that she became in the other timeline. Because of her parents. But she was also caring, optimistic despite the gloominess that was always looming on the horizon, and she was a maternal, he could tell by the way she took care of the urchin that was nothing to her. In spite of her parents.
All in all, Sweeney could not understand why she refused to join him in saving Arthur. Could she still be loyal to her parents who dumped her as soon as they had the chance? "I can't betray them. You see... my mother really is ill. Syphilis, they fear but I think it's consumption. Her face is not falling apart. Not yet, anyway. It's not surprising, considering the hellhole we lived in. We didn't have enough money for proper treatment. Mother, she didn't have an easy life, grew up in a workhouse, you see..." she kept talking, making excuses for her parents despite what they did. Just like she used to do for me, his heart clenched at the thought. All of a sudden, he came to a realisation.
"Life would be better for you if you focused on those who love you instead of those who will never will" he said, meaning every word. Her parents just used her and here she was trying to save her sorry arses, even if that mean giving the life up of someone who did love her in exchange for theirs. He couldn't help but think back about that last fatidic night in his other timeline. How she was willing to kill Toby, who'd been like a child to her, to save him. She really was obstinate when it came to chasing a love that would never be. But she just looked at him as if he'd grown a third head.
"You don't know what you're talking about. They're my parents!" she protested and Sweeney got the impression she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him. But he was determined not to let her win this one.
"And they don't care about you!" he retorted. "They don't love you, they just used you."
"Shut up! They do love me! It may not always look like that but I know they love me. They love me their own way..." she faltered and Sweeney knew the wall of her self-inflicted delusion was beginning to crack.
"No, they don't! If they did they would have taken you with them instead of leaving you with that fat bastard. Heck, if they loved you they wouldn't have made you marry an abusive prick. You could have married Arthur, for love"
"I'm not that innocent, you know." she began softly, tentatively, fearing that what she was about to confide in seem would only succeed in further tarnishing his already tarnished view of her. "It was actually my idea; finding an older man with enough money but who didn't flaunt it and woo him, the grosser the better and steal all he had. I was so tired of being poor, of leaving off scraps in an illness-infested slum. Mother and Father had been wanting to leave England for a while to start over in America and Albert Lovett, the recently widowed pervert from Fleet Street, was simply the perfect candidate. That wanker had to learn a lesson, for the way he treated everyone as if it were dirt. But of course, it was me who ended up learning a lesson." She smirked, bitterly.
Sweeney came to three realisations. He wasn't surprised she had devised he plan to con Mr. Lovett. After all, it had been her who'd come up with the idea of baking people into pies and everything else, as sordid and opportunistic as it could be, paled in comparison. And yet, he was able to recognise something else. As much as the human meat pies helped bring her decaying business back to life, he knew she also did it for him. To impress him, to keep him by his side as a partner. And how pleased he'd been with her that day, with that wicked mind of hers, aware that the moment he agreed, they would always be bound together but jumping into it nonetheless. This time, it was her parents she wanted to please. She wanted to earn the approval of her twisted family. And the third realisation he came to was that Eleanor, like himself, sought justice; the punishing of the vermin of the world, like her now husband, even if she did not go as far as eradicating them. It was perhaps the most surprising realisation and pleasingly so, for she had never voiced her real reasons she rejoiced when he sent her down some men, usually the ruthless ones around, and he just assumed she enjoyed it out of sadism. But to know that she was celebrating the fact that justice had been served brought him a sense of comfort. Perhaps they were not completely different after all.
"My point still stands. No loving parents would have left you with him" he looked at the closed door that lead to Albert and Eleanor's bedroom. Her husband's snoring could be heard from the parlour. "But Arthur loves you. He does not deserve to rot in jail. Besides, it's not like your parents are going to come back for you, grateful for what you did for them. You are only helping them get away with it."
She was silent again, considering his words. Eventually, she looked into Sweeney's eyes and said: "You're right. Arthur does not deserve it. The only crime he committed was loving me, he did. My parents, on the other hand... "she trailed off and he was glad she'd come to her senses. Her eyes opened wide all of a sudden. "But how are we going to do it? The trial is only two weeks away. We have to act fast!"
"We'll think of something" he reassured her. He had complete faith in her and that brilliant mind of hers, eminently practical. He looked at the clock, realising it was quarter to five. He'd come down shortly after midnight. "But we should go to bed now, it's almost dawn. Catching some sleep will do us good and tomorrow we'll be able to think with a cleared head." She nodded in agreement.
"Thank you..." she whispered. He knew she meant it and his heart warmed at her words and what they conveyed, although he could not understand why. "Good night, Mr. Barker"
He wished her a good night too and watched as she turned around to go to her room. He had the feeling there would be many nights of planning in their near future. After all, they would have to quickly come up with a plan to prove his innocence before his trial in two weeks. His trial... a thought broke into his mind like a bolt of lightning, chilling his blood. "Mrs. Lovett" he called before she entered tiptoeing into the bedroom. "Do you know who is the judge? At Arthur's trial."
"His name is Turpin, I believe. Judge Turpin."