It occurred to me of course to pick up my heavy apricot silk skirt and give chase but the thought of my father’s dismay should wind of such an exploit ever reach him was enough to make me stay put and just stand and watch in hopeless despair as the girl turned the corner and vanished from view. ‘Damnation,’ I said with heartfelt annoyance, before looking down at the envelope I had crushed in my hand. ‘From Whitechapel,’ I whispered, only now noticing the pencilled writing so hastily inserted after the address.
‘Should I call for a police constable, Miss Alice?’ Swift asked with some alarm as I slowly made my way back up the steps to the house, weighting the envelope thoughtfully in my hand as I went. ‘I expect there is still time to apprehend the young person should we act now.’
I hesitated for a second, tempted by the prospect of putting the entire matter into more capable hands than my own, then regretfully shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Let her go. She must have been frightened, poor thing, to run like that for no good reason and sending the police after her won’t help matters.’
‘As you wish, Miss Alice,’ Swift bowed and went off, taking the offending leaflets with him and clearly thoroughly enjoying the prospect of consigning them to the flames of the kitchen oven downstairs. I almost wished that I could go with him but instead I waited for a moment, listening to his retreating footsteps then lifted my skirts above my ankles and ran full pelt up the stairs to my bedroom on the first floor, a large and very pretty room with floral wallpaper that matched the curtains at the windows and around the bed and which overlooked the well maintained garden at the back of the house. I was relieved to see that the room was empty and closed the door firmly behind me before settling on the comfortable blue silk upholstered sofa in front of the open window. The sun was still up although it was now beginning its slow descent and sounds of children whooping and shouting in the neighbouring gardens floated up to me along with the usual barking dogs, calls of anxious nursery maids and the regular rumbling and whistling of trains slowing down on the tracks at the end of the garden as they pulled into nearby Canonbury Station.
I looked for a long time at the front of the envelope, tracing my finger lightly over the well known and much loved writing that I had seen so often before. ‘Oh, Beatrice,’ I whispered, tears gathering in my eyes before I finally and rather tentatively put my hand inside and pulled the necklace out. I recognised it at once and in fact my mind immediately fluttered back to the day that I picked it out in the jeweller’s shop window, drawn in by the cat’s eye like gleam of the orange amber and ignoring my Mama’s gentle protestations that a pretty sapphire would be far more suitable for my sister’s fair colouring.
‘No, that one,’ I said stubbornly, pointing to the pendant until finally my soft hearted Mama sighed, shrugged and gave in just as she always did. ‘Beatrice will like that one best.’
I was right of course and Beatrice was delighted when she opened my present on her birthday, immediately demanding that I fasten the pendant around her slender neck then turning and giving me a big kiss on the cheek. ‘Sweet Alice,’ she whispered, folding me in her arms and surrounding me with her own warm, fresh scent of violets and roses. ‘You are the light of my life. My own little angel.’
That was six years ago now, when I was just eleven and Beatrice had just turned twenty six, perhaps a little too old to be still at home and unmarried especially as she was so pretty but she didn’t seem to mind about that. She vanished shortly afterwards, just a few weeks after her birthday. I had gone sleepily into her room across the hall just as I always did every morning only to find the bed cold and empty and all of Beatrice’s pretty sugared almond coloured dresses missing from the great wooden wardrobes that lined the wall. I never saw her again, had not even heard from her until this moment when ‘Whitechapel’ had delivered the precious amber necklace back to me once more.
I’d heard of Whitechapel, of course I had. Who hadn’t? It ought to have astonished me, I supposed, that it was from such a hotbed of criminality that I heard the first news of my sister that I had had in six years but really it surprised me not one bit as for all my self admitted ignorance of the world, I had always thought that the dingy, crowded streets of the East End, a melting pot of the lawless, immigrants and the dispossessed, sounded like just the sort of place where people went if they wanted to vanish out of society’s sight.
I played with the chain, which gleamed dully and would need cleaning before I could wear it, twisting it around my fingers then looping it thoughtfully about my wrist so that the pendant drooped against my forearm, its yellow cat’s eye winking sleepily in the dying sunlight that floated in through my huge windows.
Had Beatrice run away to Whitechapel all those years before? Or perhaps she had been abducted away from her family? I had read about such things in the awful gothic novels that my friend Lucasta secretly lent me but had some doubts that such things actually happened in real life to real people like my own sister.
I got up and went to the little bureau next to my bed, which I kept locked with a small key that I hid beneath a loose floorboard. Once inside I rifled through a few yellowing letters and elderly lace and ribbon trimmed birthday cards until I found what I was looking for - an old photograph of two girls, Beatrice and myself, sitting stiffly side by side in front of the usual decorated backdrop, this one painted to look like a country garden with hollyhocks, roses and a few urns.
I was about eight years old at the time and stared out of the photograph with a decidedly mutinous glint in my wide eyes. I had been carefully dressed for the occasion in a pretty pink frock with a huge floppy pale blue velvet bow at my waist, while my strawberry blonde hair had been brushed until it shone then arranged over my shoulders. ‘Don’t move a muscle or your hair will kink,’ Mama had whispered, patting my tensely folded hands reassuringly before backing slowly carefully away, out of the camera’s view.
Beside me, Beatrice shook with nerves and as a result her image was a little blurred so that there was a soft, translucent effect, almost as if she was not really there, like one of the ghosts in those dreadful spiritual photographs that Mrs Snaith was so fond of. She had been there though and even now I could remember the firm feel of my sister’s arm around my waist as we posed unsmilingly for the photographer. When I was little, I had always wanted to smile for photographs but by the time I was eight I knew better and had learned to stare at the camera almost ferociously, as if resenting its intrusion.
There was a brisk knock on the door and I hastily shoved the photograph, envelope and necklace into the drawer and slammed it shut before locking it and dropping the key back in its hiding place beneath the floorboard. ‘Miss?’ It was Minnie, my maid, come to dress me for that evening’s dinner party. ‘Can I come in?’
I sighed and threw myself back down on the sofa as if I had just woken up from a nap. ‘Come in, Minnie,’ I called, resigning myself to the inevitable although it seemed obscene really to be thinking about dinner when the sun was still up.
The maid bustled into the room, carrying a pile of clean white towels. ‘Sorry if I woke you, Miss,’ she said as she carried her load through to the bathroom then began to run a bath, liberally sprinkling the water with rose bath salts as the house’s elderly water pipes groaned and rattled with exertion. ‘Have you had any thoughts about what you want to wear this evening?’ she said, popping her head around the door. It’d been a long day and her white linen mob cap was decidedly askew on top of her mousy curls, which no amount of brushing or coaxing could ever calm down.
I shook my head. ‘I expect that Papa wants me to look impressive so perhaps the new yellow silk?’ I got up and stretched then went to the window. Another train was pulling in to Canonbury and I watched a little wistfully as its trail of grey steam floated above the trees at the bottom of the garden, wondering as always about the people on board and where they had come from.
‘Minnie, have you ever been to Whitechapel?’ I asked almost dreamily, forcing myself to turn
away from the window.
The maid almost dropped the dress she was carrying in astonishment. ‘Course I haven’t, Miss!’ she said with a reproachful look as if she hailed from the most opulent mansion in Mayfair rather than a tenement in Hackney. ‘It’s a right old rough house down there and no mistake.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Why there was a woman murdered there just this morning. Stabbed almost forty times, I heard.’ She sniffed and arranged the dress on the bed. ‘Although she was apparently no better than she ought to have been so what do you expect.’
‘I’ve never fully understood what that phrase means.’ I mused as the maid undressed me, first deftly unfastening my dress then releasing me from my blue watered silk corset. It looked gorgeous but the fine French lace trimming itched so terribly that I was always thrilled beyond measure when I was allowed to remove it.
‘What phrase would that be, Miss?’ Minnie said, going off to turn the bath taps off and carefully test the water with her elbow. ‘Needs a bit more cold,’ she pronounced with authority.
‘No better than she ought to have been,’ I said, following her into the small bathroom, now filled with a warm fug of rose scented steam, which my father had fitted up with all the most modern conveniences, including a sink and matching lavatory embellished with garishly pink and red carnations and roses that swirled ominously around the base like octopus tentacles. ‘I don’t quite understand why not being any better than one ought to be should be a matter of such censure. We are what we are, after all,’ I continued, ignoring my maid’s rather ominous silence. ‘Unless of course we are all living to different standards in which case what the poor woman in Whitechapel ought to have been is less than you and I, which hardly seems fair does it?’
Minnie stared at me with undisguised reproach then gave a tiny shrug. ‘I’m sure that I don’t know what you mean, Miss,’ she said stiffly, turning off the cold tap and helping me remove my linen chemise then step gingerly into the water. ‘Do you need me to wash you, Miss?’ she asked, her unusually formal manner making it clear that she was somewhat affronted.
I smiled and waved her away as usual. ‘No, I can take care of myself,’ I said, reaching for the lily scented soap that rested on a china dish on the side of the bath and thinking that I didn’t know quite what I meant either.
By the time I had climbed out of my now rapidly cooling bath and wrapped a large towel around myself, the sun was beginning to set and Minnie had busied herself closing the heavy taffeta curtains and turning on the gas lamps on the tables, giving the room a warm, cosy glow. She came forward to help me dry myself then handed me a fresh chemise.
‘Why are you so interested in Whitechapel anyway?’ she asked at last while lacing me back into my corset. ‘Begging your pardon, Miss, but I didn’t think it was the sort of place that a young lady like yourself would ever hear mentioned.’
I smiled. ‘I hear all sorts of things that would surprise you, Minnie,’ I said lightly, holding in my breath then releasing it with a gasp as the maid gave the corset laces one last ruthless tug. ‘I was just curious.’
‘My Ma always says that curiosity killed the cat,’ Minnie said, turning away to fetch my dress, a pretty primrose silk trimmed with pearls and French lace.
‘I’m not a cat,’ I reminded her with a grin, stepping into the skirt. I was very fond of Minnie’s Ma’s apparently endless store of proverbs and sayings. ‘And besides your Ma also says that cats have nine lives so even if curiosity kills me once, I’ll still live on eight more times to fight another day.’
‘That’s not the point,’ Minnie huffed, helping me into my silk bodice then fastening it at the back. ‘The point is that it never pays to be curious.’
‘Gracious, Minnie, have you never been curious about anything?’ I asked as the maid straightened the elaborate folds and ruches of my bustle to her satisfaction before hiding the fastenings of the skirt beneath a large bow.
‘Of course not. It’s not my way, Miss,’ Minnie said stoutly, giving the dress a nod of approval before opening my lacquered wood jewellery box which stood on the lace and ribbon bedecked dressing table. ‘Pearl choker as usual, Miss?’
I sighed and rolled my eyes, knowing that there really wasn’t any hope of jollying Minnie along when she was in this intractable mood. ‘Yes, the pearls, Minnie,’ I said, sitting down in front of the dressing table mirror and leaning back a little so that the maid could fasten the six stringed choker of perfectly matched pearls, an inheritance from my mother, around my neck.
‘Well, don’t you look a picture,’ Minnie said then, picking up a brush and beginning to ply it through my hair as I watched her in the mirror. ‘Your Papa will be so pleased.’
I smiled. ‘He has been looking forward to this evening for quite some time,’ I said, idly playing with some cut crystal bottles of scent on the table in front of me. My father, the artist Sir Edwin Redmayne had finally completed his most ambitious piece to date, a painting of Mary, Queen of Scots at her execution which was destined to hang at Balmoral but which he had been graciously allowed to show off at a private unveiling that evening before it was despatched to Her Majesty. I myself had posed as the tragic Queen of Scotland, with my hair hanging loose to my waist in a way that was definitely most inconvenient for a beheading and holding an awkward pose, half kneeling, half fainting for hours as my father sketched and barked orders at me from behind his easel.
‘It must be a relief to him to have it finished at last,’ Minnie observed, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she wrestled with my hair. ‘It feels like he’s been working on that painting for years.’
I laughed and dabbed some carnation scent behind my ears and then, daringly, at the base of my throat. ‘He has been working on it for years,’ I said with a grin. ‘I swear that I was still in short skirts when he began.’
’Surely not, Miss,’ said Minnie, who had no great understanding of hyperbole. ‘There now, don’t you look nice,’ she pronounced, putting the final pearl pin into place and stepping back with an air of satisfaction.
I stared at myself for a moment, thinking as always that I looked far too pale but then gave a smile of pleasure because that was expected of me and I knew Minnie would be disappointed if I didn’t plus I wanted to make some amends for being such hard work that evening. ‘Thank you, Minnie,’ I said, pulling on my long white silk gloves and picking up my favourite ostrich feather fan, which had diamonds set into the resin handle. ‘Have a good evening, won’t you?’
‘Oh I will,’ Minnie said fervently, dropping a curtsey. ‘I like to see everyone coming and going.’
I smiled and left the room then made my way quickly downstairs to the hall, where I guessed my father would be impatiently waiting for me. The staircase was lined with his paintings, but not the best ones for they were elsewhere, in stately homes, galleries and even palaces all over the world, as people frequently liked to remind me. He kept some smaller works back though, mainly rough studies, some landscapes painted when on holiday and family portraits of myself and Mama. The paintings of Beatrice had gradually disappeared over the years, whisked away either to the attics or to auction rooms, I had never dared ask which.
As I had predicted, my father, looking tall and dignified in black with his grey hair brushed back from his broad forehead, was waiting for me by the hall table, his brow furrowed with a frown which cleared as soon as I appeared. ‘Alice, my dear!’ He held out his arm to lead me into the drawing room, where we could enjoy some quiet time together before their guests arrived. ‘You look delightful.’
The maids were busy putting the final touches to the house, giving a final polish to the statues in the hall, straightening the silver and porcelain dishes on the dining table and tweaking the enormous (and rather vulgar, I privately thought) flower arrangements that had been delivered earlier in the evening by the most expensive florist in London and now decorated the hall and dining room. My father adored lilies so there were masses of those along with roses and huge w
hite peonies, their scent filling the air with an almost funereal cloying sweetness that made me feel strangely despondent.
‘Is the painting ready for its grand debut, Papa?’ I asked as my father peered impatiently outside from between the drawn brocade curtains which I remembered with a pang had been chosen because they exactly matched the faded blue of my mother’s eyes. The painting in question was propped against its easel in front of one of the walls of the drawing room and was almost completely concealed by a large crimson velvet cloth that I had never seen before.
He turned and smiled at me. ‘Yes, all ready and waiting,’ he said with great satisfaction. ‘Swift found an old velvet bedspread in the attic which makes an admirable curtain for the unveiling.’ He pulled a face, as always irritated and resentful that his precious time should be taken up with such tiresome matters as cloths and unveiling when he would rather be devoting himself entirely to his art. ‘I was rather worried that I would have to send you out to buy something for the occasion but it turned out not to be necessary.’
I laughed. ‘What a relief,’ I said, eyeing the cloth, which was clearly threadbare in a few places. ‘Although are you sure that an old bedspread has sufficient gravitas for the occasion?’
My father gave me a sidelong look from his small grey eyes. ‘You are poking fun at me again, Alice,’ he said mildly.
I smiled, showing my dimples, which I knew he could never resist. ‘I am afraid that I am, Papa,’ I said, reaching up to kiss his cheek, which as always smelt of his favourite Italian lemon cologne. ‘Anyway, I do believe that I can hear our first guests arriving so we should probably ready ourselves for the onslaught.’
Chapter Five
Impatient as always, my father insisted upon giving a speech and unveiling his painting before dinner instead of waiting until afterwards as had been the original plan. I stood proudly at his side holding a glass of champagne as he gave the velvet covering a tug that brought it to the ground and everyone politely applauded. ‘It really is a most wonderful painting,’ my aunt Minerva, a statuesque and rather terrifying lady in stately black bombazine that was almost hidden beneath huge amounts of of the glittering jet and diamond jewellery made so popular by the Queen, whispered to me as several guests surged forward to congratulate my father and the lady harpist stationed by the window with her tall, finely carved instrument began to play a melancholy Celtic air. ‘Dear Edwin has managed to capture the poor Scottish Queen’s dignity and despair so eloquently.’
From Whitechapel Page 5