I hurried out onto the landing. I was wearing one of Thomas’s hats, a long black overcoat, a white shirt without a collar and a pair of trousers I’d had to fasten around my waist with a scarf. I tried my best to tiptoe down the stairs to stop them from creaking. I had on my own boots with a small heel, but the trousers were long enough and covered them. I convinced myself no one would notice.
I considered going out the front door, but if I was attuned to the noise of it, then it was certain that so was Mrs Wiggs. Instead, I snuck towards the back of the house, down the narrow staircase, past the pantry and into the kitchen. It was dark and empty now that Cook and Sarah were gone. Mrs Wiggs was struggling to keep up with the housework; dust had gathered and a conspiracy of spiders’ webs had sprung up everywhere. The moonlight pouring through the kitchen’s large windows illuminated the web over the back door and I had to clear it away to get out. I left the door unlocked for my return.
I ran around to the front of the house just in time to catch Thomas’s receding silhouette. Tonight he looked like a stickman drawn in charcoal, bobbing across the watery grey flagstones, elbows jutting out at right angles.
I followed him along Chelsea Embankment and then onto Pimlico Road. I hoped he wasn’t about to jump into a cab or go to a station as I had no plan for that – I didn’t even know if trains ran at night. I almost never went out that late and when I did, it was always with Thomas and we always took a cab. I felt exposed being alone on the streets of London. It was dark and gloomy, the rain had turned the black pavement into shiny mirrors, and the yellow moon was reflected in the puddles. It was a relief to be a man. Even so, I could not but think of all the stories in the newspapers, and I walked in exhausted anticipation of being attacked at any second: stabbed, raped, murdered. My only comfort was the presence of my own murderous husband, albeit at a distance.
After twenty minutes, he turned left onto Buckingham Palace Road. The streets were deserted save for a few men who hurried along, huddled in pairs or alone, all of them walking with purpose. I watched the way they bowled along the pavement and attempted to adopt the same gait. I wrapped the lapels of Thomas’s coat around my face and pulled my hat down. I was the same shape and height as any slim young man; only should someone study me with a lamp in my face would they discern that I was a woman in baggy trousers and women’s shoes.
Not long after we’d both passed under the shadow of Westminster Cathedral, Thomas entered a pub called the Duke of Wellington on Victoria Road. I did not know this part of London at all. Because of the cathedral I’d assumed it would be populated by scholarly types, but I have come to realise that such men only existed in my imagination.
The pub was on a corner with a big double door in the middle. There were a few scattered drinkers outside, all men, smoking and drinking in pairs and groups. I approached the entrance but dithered, and instead leaned against an exterior wall with my hands in my pockets. I seemed to be making a habit of this these last few weeks – spying on my husband in one seedy drinking den or another. I couldn’t see much through the window, it was steamed up, so I used my sleeve to rub a space and then felt foolish since it was clear the moisture was on the inside. Mostly what I could make out was a haze rippling with swirls of thick smoke above dark heads like the rooftops of houses, and a low chorus of voices like the rumble of a distant train. Hats, whiskers, smoke and dreary clothes.
Thomas’s head stuck up above all the others. He inched his way to the bar, leaned on it, then turned towards the window as if he’d sensed me there. I ducked, petrified, and stayed low, my back against the cold wet bricks. I watched for the plainclothes policemen, who, according to the politicians, were supposedly enjoying the mild winter too much and drinking with the labouring poor instead of hunting the Whitechapel man.
For some minutes, I was so scared my legs went wobbly, but then I began to relax. Had the papers painted the streets as wilder than they really were? The best thing about London, I reminded myself, was that everyone was so preoccupied with their own narcissistic pursuits that they rarely noticed much about anyone else.
I felt a tug at my sleeve. A doe-eyed, dark-haired girl, short and pretty, had sidled up to me and was now attempting to hang off the arm of my coat.
‘Go away,’ I said, and wrenched my arm free. I was careful to keep my voice a whisper, so I might make it sound a little lower.
The big-eyed girl wouldn’t budge, only gazed up at me and tried to take hold of my fingers, cooing at me in her thin little voice. ‘Come with me! Come!’ she said, and she pulled me towards a dark alleyway down the side of the tavern. ‘Come! Have me.’
‘I don’t want to,’ I told her. ‘I don’t have any money.’
‘That don’t matter,’ she said and began to rub herself against my left leg.
I didn’t know what to do. ‘No! Leave me alone! Please.’ I pushed her off and she took a step back but wouldn’t go.
‘What a fine young man you are, to turn it down. I can give you pleasure. If anyone can, I can.’
She made to rub herself against me again and her hands were everywhere. It was ridiculous. The girl was worse than my husband had been. I didn’t know whether to break out laughing at the absurdity of it or scream for her to leave me alone. I repelled her again and fumbled in the pockets of Thomas’s coat. By chance I found a shilling and threw it at her. It landed on the pavement and as she bent to pick it up, I studied her. She was young, fourteen or fifteen perhaps, a sickly-looking creature with dirty clothes.
When she stood up, she stared at me with a funny expression. ‘You ain’t no boy,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Look at your skin, soft as a baby’s arse.’ She rubbed a dirty hand against my cheek. I slapped it away. ‘Well, takes all types of fancy I s’pose. Why wait outside a mollies’ den? You’s lost, I reckon.’ Then she burst out laughing, exposing her teeth, which were yellow and black, like the keys on an old piano.
‘Why are you on the game?’ I asked her. ‘You should be at home with your mother.’ Susannah the prig hadn’t disappeared quite yet.
‘I ain’t no whore. My mother keeps me. I look after the others all day, and at night I do what I want. I do it for the coins – I spend ’em all on meat pies. I do it for the pies!’ She burst out laughing again, cackling like an old woman.
‘What do you mean, a mollies’ den?’ I asked.
She rolled her eyes, laughed some more and ran her tongue over her piano-key teeth. ‘Is your man in there? I say let him – a girl can always do it one way or the other, can’t she? No need to be lonely.’
She moved to touch my face again, but I caught her wrist. I felt her other hand rifle through the other pocket of Thomas’s coat.
‘There’s nothing in there, you little trollop,’ I said, shoving her hand away and wrapping Thomas’s coat tight around me. I pushed past her and walked to the main doors of the pub.
‘You will come back, won’t you?’ she said. She seemed genuinely disappointed as I disappeared into the Duke of Wellington.
I shouldered my way through the press of drinkers, just as I imagined a man would. I was glad for my experience of the Ten Bells, though it hardly made me an expert. The place stank to high heaven of smoke and I worried about Mrs Wiggs smelling the tobacco on Thomas’s clothes. The stale beer on the floor stuck to my boots and I dragged dirty straw along with me. I tried not to gag as the stench of sweaty men hit the back of my throat.
I looked for Thomas at the bar, but he wasn’t there any more. I searched for him and caught what I thought was the back of his head as he disappeared through a door in the far corner. I squeezed through the crowds and followed him. I had come too far to go home without seeing for myself what he’d been getting up to all this time. My heart pounded and my knees shook, but by now I was too involved to turn back. Going through that door was my one chance to garner the leverage that might win me my freedom.
On the other side was a long corridor, very dimly lit with just one or two flickering wall lamps that
threatened to snuff themselves out at any moment. I let my eyes adjust for a minute. The muffled voices from the bar had quietened. There was no sign of Thomas, though I was certain he’d gone that way, and nor was there anyone else around.
I put my hands on the naked brick walls to either side to work my way along. All I could hear was my own rapid breathing and the sound of water running or dripping somewhere. The walls were damp, covered in slime.
The corridor ended in another door that opened onto a room so light and bright, all oranges and yellows, that it was blinding after the gloom. It smelled of bitter flowers and I could taste the white smoke of opium, acrid and fragrant. The room was busy with men and women standing around, talking. I assumed it was another bar, but everyone was facing the same direction, watching something in the corner. I tried to walk among them as I searched for Thomas, but I couldn’t see him. I worried I’d lost him or missed him somehow.
When I reached the other side of the room, I doubted my eyes at first, thought it impossible that people could be watching something like that. It took me a while to understand what was happening. A couple were having sex on a bed in the corner, in the presence of an older man who was standing by the mantelpiece alongside. He was perhaps fifty or more, with big grey whiskers and wearing a red jacket with medals. I was scared he might be a general or someone of authority, but there was something about his uniform that didn’t look right; it was tatty and worn, like the ones for sale in Whitechapel.
When I looked more closely at the couple on the bed, I realised that the one I’d thought was a woman was actually a man, with whiskers, and clownish rouge smeared across his face. He was on all fours and a man with reddish brown hair and a beard was buggering him from behind. The man dressed as a soldier was watching, along with all the others in the room.
I felt as if I were glowing, that I’d be found out at any second. I was not in a crowd of men and women as I had thought, but only men, some of whom were dressed as women, in old-fashioned crinolines, bad hairpieces, and make-up clumsily applied around facial hair. I was now desperate to get out and moved towards the nearest door as fast as I could. I assumed Thomas had gone that way too.
It took a while to steer through the strange clutter in the room, past the tables covered in cheap jewellery, old fans and tatty bonnets, and the screens hung with wigs and torn and dirty dresses. To the left of the door, a man was sitting on a chair with his trousers round his knees, moaning and sighing as he pleasured himself. The man next to him wore a fair wig with ringlets and was smoking a long pipe. His face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. As I passed, I dipped my hat and realised it was Dr Richard Lovett – Thomas’s best man! The man he’d wanted me to have as my physician. Good God. I had to move quickly before he recognised me.
As I reached the door, the crowd behind me erupted in cheers. I did not bother to look back and find out why but took the chance to exit. I was sweating and my heart was thumping. The next room was less busy, and still no Thomas. It had beds, sofas, a chaise longue and more people puffing white clouds at the ceiling. I nearly died when a chubby man in rouge and black eye make-up brushed past me and whispered ‘Hello’ into my ear. I tucked my chin into my neck as far as it would go and quickly headed out the room and up the flight of dilapidated stairs beyond.
Thomas had to be upstairs somewhere. Now that I knew what the place was, what company he was keeping and what he must have been getting up to, I felt even more compelled to find him, to discover exactly why he was there, and with my own eyes. I still had difficulty believing it. My husband, secretly hiding away in a mollies’ house! Was this where he disappeared to when he wasn’t slaughtering women?
A series of doors, each set back in a small recess, opened off both sides of the landing. From behind the peeling green and blue paintwork came the rustling of busy vermin and the gentle groaning of humans. I listened at the first keyhole, heard nothing, moved on, tried again and was nearly exposed when the second door was suddenly wrenched open. I retreated to the shadows, and prayed.
Thomas stepped out onto the landing! I thought he would catch me, but he was focused on other things. He strode to the far end of the landing, walked through another door and shut it. I was about to scarper – I had come too close to my luck running out – but as I stepped towards the stairs I noticed that the door he’d come out of was ajar.
I probably only had seconds before he returned. I peered through the gap in the door, saw a wooden chair in the corner next to a nightstand and what looked like a belt on it. The decrepit walls were grottier still in the lamplight. Somehow I found the courage to push the door open. I pulled my lapel across my face and took in the scene: a bed, and a young man lying on his back, wearing stays held together with pink ribbon, pearl earrings and red lipstick. I gasped, I couldn’t help it, and the boy looked at me. He was curly headed, fair, and more of a boy, probably the same age as the doe-eyed girl outside. His body was soft and hairless, except for his genitals.
He lifted his head, looked at me and smiled, seemingly not at all startled, and continued to lie there unabashed. ‘Well, aren’t you the nosy one,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the wrong room, sweetheart – mine doesn’t like to share his toys… You’d best clear off – he does have a temper.’ He drew on a long, narrow pipe and lay back on the bed.
I pulled the door to, the way it had been left, and shot off as fast as I could. I flew down the rotten stairs, through both rooms and into the pub. My insides screamed and my ears whistled. I pushed and shoved my way through the bar. I heard swearing and tutting, but it didn’t matter. I had to get out.
I thrust open the doors to the street and in my haste stumbled on something and went flying into the back of a huge man. It felt like I’d been thrown face first into a brick wall. I hit the ground in front of him, scraped my hands and landed on my backside. The man had a shiny bald head like a cannonball and piggy eyes. ‘Watch it, you little ponce,’ he said, and before I could stand or apologise, he knocked me back to the ground.
I fell back, hard, yelped, very much like a girl, and my hat fell off. A group of men gathered round to watch the fight. I was sure I was about to receive a good thrashing, but then my newly acquired doe-eyed girl arrived. She elbowed her way through and knelt at my side with her arms around my shoulders, holding me tight as if I were her sweetheart.
‘Lay off, you bastards! Can’t you see it’s a girl,’ she shouted.
There was laughter and whooping, a ‘Fucking ’ell!’ and the group dispersed. My bald-headed foe appeared most confused, shrugged and walked off.
The girl pulled me to my feet and gave me back my hat. She walked me as far as the cathedral and then left, saying she had to get back to her mother’s, that only whores stayed out later, whores miserable enough to risk getting cut by the Whitechapel murderer. That wasn’t her, she told me; she only went with strange men for the little extras – meat pies, like she’d told me.
‘You’re lucky – you nearly got a black eye for your troubles. Tell me, what man is worth that?’ she said.
‘I’m grateful, I really am.’ I rummaged through Thomas’s inside pockets for what coins I could find.
‘It’s all right. To save you the bother, I already took what you had.’ She grinned and showed me the coins she’d lifted from my pockets.
I laughed. I hadn’t noticed this time.
‘They may be soft and queer in St James’s,’ she said, ‘but you’ll get yourself cut to pieces and tossed in the Thames messing with those boys.’
She took my cheeks in both hands and kissed me. Her plump lips were dry, and she squished them into mine. ‘Goodbye, my love. Come see me again. I’ll wait for you,’ she said.
As she walked away, I noticed she had bare feet. I had no clue how she wasn’t dead from the cold.
*
It took an age for me to get back home. I half staggered and half ran, my feet sore and blistered. A cartman nodded as I passed – I’d forgotten I was dressed as a man. I ne
eded the journey; I had so much going through my head, it was fit to burst with all that I’d seen. All this time, I had wondered what sort of man I had married, but never in my imagination had I anticipated this. To think how my husband and I were the same in some ways. I felt by turns revulsion, and shock, and disbelief, and, believe it or not, sympathy, and then I found the whole thing bloody hilarious. We really did fit together, but not in the way I’d expected.
When I reached the house, I crept round the back and let myself in through the kitchen door. To be met by Mrs Wiggs, who screamed at the sight of me. ‘Murderer!’ she shrieked, standing there in her nightgown, pale as a ghost and brandishing a shovel in her shaking arms.
I screamed back, which brought her to her senses. She let out a huge sigh, lowered the shovel and put a hand to her chest.
‘Thank God Almighty,’ she said. ‘I heard the scraping of the gate and thought the Whitechapel beast had commuted to Chelsea.’
As she looked me up and down, she stiffened. ‘Why are you dressed in Thomas’s clothes? Mrs Lancaster, you stink of… Where have you been?’
‘It’s a long story and I can’t explain. I must go to bed, Mrs Wiggs. I suggest you do the same.’ I walked past her, conscious that I’d need to come up with something, however incredible, by morning.
I must have taken two, maybe three steps when I realised that she’d just referred to my husband as Thomas. I stopped and was about to challenge her when I was struck on the back of the head. There was blinding pain, my knees buckled, and everything went black.
32
‘Good morning, Susannah. How are we feeling today?’ Mrs Wiggs sailed into the room, as she had done every morning since my return from the Duke of Wellington. She was always radiant and cheery these days.
I tended to wake happy enough, being sunny and clear-skied by nature, but then the rainclouds would rush up to meet me and drag me back down. It had been days, perhaps even weeks, since I’d lost my liberty. I’d lost track of time altogether and had long since given up struggling against the restraints that tied me to the bedposts. I remembered being hit on the head and falling to my knees in the kitchen. I remembered the men dressed as women at the back of the pub, remembered being kissed by the big-eyed girl with bare feet, remembered seeing my husband and the boy with pearl earrings and stays. I just wasn’t sure quite when that was.
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