[10th February][Sweeney Todd] Two Lives In Shadow, Not Pictured

[athousandwinds.livejournal.com]

Title: Two Lives In Shadow, Not Pictured
Author: athousandwinds
Day: 10th February 2008: "And are forever damned with Lucifer"
Fandom: Sweeney Todd
Character/Pairing: Johanna, Anthony
Rating: PG
Summary: Gossip, fear and tabloid journalism. Three elements which are non-conducive to a happy married life.



They have never been in London since.

Such a blunt statement was naturally only broadly accurate: Anthony's ship had docked in the Thames many a time since the day he left Fleet Street for good. But Johanna never set foot ashore, preferring the illusion of safety aboard ship.

"Hardly refined company, my dear," said Mrs Everton, wife of Captain Everton, who lived in Plymouth and never went aboard if she could help it. "Hardly polite company, I should think." She, a dainty woman, shuddered a little. She found the tongs and dropped a cube of sugar into her tea.

"No," said Johanna. "But it's a comfort to know that if there's an intruder, they'll rip him apart."

Mrs Everton, caught in the midst of raising her cup to her lips, dropped it on the carpet.

"Oh, no," she said, momentarily distracted. "The Axminster." She recovered herself and rang the bell for a servant. She must have misheard, she knew, for a gentle little piece like Johanna would never dream of saying such a thing. Indeed, she was utterly silent now.

Johanna was quite often silent. Insipid, Mrs Everton thought, but not without misgivings. They always did say it was the quiet ones you should watch. Not that there was any reason to watch Captain Hope's wife; such a nice man. But oftentimes the loveliest of men had terrible taste in women; there'd been that time when Commodore Perry brought home a Spanish lady and claimed she was a countess or some such. Mrs Hope had those eyes. Once Everton had mentioned them attending a dinner the Commodore had given.

"He kept looking at her all the way through the meal," he'd said. "As if she were going to vanish between the entrée and the main course."

"Flighty," Mrs Everton had scoffed.

"And he didn't want to stay for the port. Offered to retire with the ladies, but she put a stop to that. Damn good thing, too, else he'd've made us all look fools."

"He should be more of a man," she'd said.

"Don't know if I'd say no to a wife like that," Captain Everton observed. His wife was less than impressed. Perhaps feeling the better part of valour was discretion, he added something to the effect of Mrs Hope's coldness being rather off-putting.

That was the reaction Johanna garnered in Plymouth.

"I hear she was a little minx at home," Mrs Marling said with more pleasure than was seemly. While benevolent towards the world as a whole, she felt that information so generally interesting must be shared. "Her guardian had to keep her under lock and key."

"I always felt she must have a fascinating past," Mrs Trevelyan said. She was somewhat younger than most of the other wives present and was rather more in sympathy with the Hopes. This did not prevent her from leaning forward avidly, enthralled with any scraps of gossip about the Hopes' dealings.

"I hear she eloped with Captain Hope," Mrs Everton said, not to be outdone.

"How romantic," said Mrs Trevelyan happily.

"You don't have a daughter, my dear," Mrs Christie remarked darkly. "I don't wonder at her guardian."

Such conversations were the reason Johanna never went into London. Anthony's mother had kept a scrapbook of all the clippings from the Todd case at Johanna's request and they both knew well enough that it had been a cause celèbre.

HUMAN PIES blared one headline. CANNIBALS OF FLEET STREET. They'd found all the cunning mechanisms, the bloody razors. HANGING JUDGE HUNG OUT TO DRY, shouted another, with more wit than sense. When Judge Turpin's corpse was found, and the Beadle's, they screamed for vengeance. They got it from the little boy who worked at the pie shop. DEPRAVED GIN-SOAKED ENFANTE TERRIBLE TO HANG. But one of the things that not one, not a hundred yellow papers could get their headlines around was where the Judge's daughter had gone.

They'd traced Anthony's friend Mr Todd, in the end. Six months after the case had been half-forgotten, when Anthony was away at sea. Johanna had hoped – even prayed for a moment, which was not something she did often – that Anthony couldn't get the London papers wherever he was.

Anthony had come to his mother's house in Bristol a week later, deeply distressed on her behalf.

"I never knew," he'd said.

"Neither did I," she'd replied. She wondered if Mr Todd had known. He must have, to know whom to kill.

Anthony had kissed her hands and tried to assure her that he loved her, that he did not believe in heredity, that she was safe. He'd stumbled over his words a lot, as if rushing to beat her morbid thoughts. She had acquiesced with everything he'd said and he calmed down a little; she'd remained, stroking his hair, for some while longer.

"Do you think anyone would recognise you?" he'd asked after a short time. He'd thought ahead more and more, in these days. "In London, I mean."

"Yes," she'd said, and they left it at that.

Nowadays, it was still Anthony who grew afraid. Not for his career, surely the first victim if Johanna were ever connected with the Todd case, even less for himself. He was the one who gripped her hand whenever she was introduced to someone new, who avoided the legal profession instinctively. Johanna faced such encounters with such quiet equanimity that the acquaintances she made almost forgot her entirely within moments. Then there were the Mrs Evertons of the world, who Johanna could say the most outrageous things to and be ignored, to her amusement. Anthony was never present at such times; the look on his face would have been enough to stall her.

"You shouldn't be so afraid," she told him.

"I'm not afraid," Anthony said.

In church every Sunday, he knelt for a few moments in their pew after everyone else had moved to go. Johanna would sit and watch him, with no private prayers of her own to make, and today she bent her head closer, caught words that were barely a whisper.

"I have failed her twice so far in our lives and I pray I will not fail her again…"

"You shouldn't try to keep me safe," she said later. Anthony was brushing her hair, running his fingers through it more gently than a maid.

"What?"

"I won't be by your side forever," she said. "One way or another."

"Don't say that."

She looked at his reflection in her mirror. He was hurt; she reached up to take his hand.

"I told you the nightmares never go away."

"Yes." Anthony was silent, twining his fingers with hers. "It is only recently that I – I know what you meant."

"I think we should at least try to make them go," she said. "Let's go to France."

In spite of himself, Anthony laughed. "Just like that."

"Just like that. You have shore leave."

"Where would we go in France?"

"I don't know." She smiled. "Somewhere you won't worry."

"And if you're recognised?"

"Then I'm recognised," Johanna said. There was a streak of fatalism in her that Anthony rarely saw; it was the reason for her unbreakable calm. "Better to have it over with." She turned to face him properly. "Think of the relief it will be…"

He was shaking a little: over-tired and over-tense. Johanna stood up to kiss him, gentle and tender. "I'll pack tomorrow," she said.