From Whitechapel

by Clegg, Melanie

  I let out my breath in a deep sigh, interrupting him. ‘I have a sister,’ I said. It was time to let it go. ‘Or I had a sister. I don’t yet know which it is.’ I gave a nervous little laugh and finished my brandy, immediately wishing that I had already had another lined up.

  He frowned and his grip on my hands tightened. ‘A sister?’ he said before putting his handsome head to one side and considering this for a moment as I looked everywhere but at him, willing the tears that had welled up in my eyes at the mere mention of Beatrice to abate and leave me in peace. ‘And you think that she might be here? In Whitechapel?’ He was sharp, I’d allow him that.

  I nodded. ‘I have not seen her for six years,’ I said in voice so low that he had to strain to hear properly. ‘She simply vanished one night and I don’t know where she went.’ I remember my hysterical tears the next morning and my parents and aunt telling me that she had gone and not to talk about it any more for it was too distressing. I wondered now if perhaps I should have ignored them and asked more questions, no matter how upsetting it was for everyone else. Surely someone knew something and wasn’t telling? I felt sick with shame for having remained silent for so long. ‘I have no idea what became of her.’

  ‘Until now?’ he prompted me when I fell silent. ‘You think that she might have come here?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think, Mr Mercier,’ I said almost pleadingly. ‘All I know is that her locket, a trinket that I myself had given to her just before she left, was pushed through our front door almost four weeks ago inside an envelope written in her hand and upon which another hand had written ‘From Whitechapel’.’ I was crying now and he looked around in panic, signalling to Mrs Ferrar that she should bring more brandy, which she immediately did, pressing my shoulder kindly with her plump hand before she went away again.

  ’Here,’ Mr Mercier handed me my glass and then, as an afterthought, produced a red cotton handkerchief from the depths of one of his coat pockets. ‘It’s clean,’ he said with a smile as I reluctantly took it. He watched in silence as I took a sip of the brandy then carefully dried my eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually once I was composed once more.

  I looked up at him in surprise. ‘What for?’ I asked. I still had his handkerchief crumpled up in my fist and I offered it back to him now only for him to impatiently wave it away.

  ‘I’m sorry that I misjudged you,’ he said simply. ‘I was wrong and I am sorry for it.’ He sighed. ‘You must be able to appreciate how it must have looked to me though? We get them all the time down here in Whitechapel - spoiled little rich girls looking to shock their parents or attract some man by hanging about the poor and playing lady bountiful until they either get bored or get their own way and off they go again.’ He takes an angry sip of his brandy. ‘I had no reason to believe that you were going to be any different and, damn me, but the people of this area deserve better than the half hearted patronising cosseting of yet another stuck up little brat who’ll move on and forget them once she’s got what she wanted out of the exercise.’

  ‘Is this how you speak to Miss Lawler?’ I asked faintly. I’d gleaned from the gossip over my father’s dinner table that Miss Lawler was in possession of a fortune that would make most peers sick with envy. ‘You don’t treat her the same way as me.’

  ‘That’s because she isn’t the same as you,’ he said wearily, running his fingers through his long hair. ‘She’s not here to make a dash or to cause a genteel little scandal. She’s here to help, to work. No one who has ever met her could ever doubt that.’

  I nodded, agreeing with him. ‘She is remarkable,’ I said before giving a small wry smile. ‘You are correct in some respects, Mr Mercier,’ I said hesitantly. ‘I did come to Whitechapel with entirely my own selfish agenda but that has all changed now and mainly because of Miss Lawler and the sincere admiration that I have for her work. Who could see her and not be inspired?’

  He toasted the air with his glass of brandy and took a deep swig. ‘Who indeed?’ he said, relaxing back into his chair and grinning at me. He looked suddenly very young and I remembered for the first time that he was really not all that much older than me, maybe twenty two at the most.

  ‘Are you in love with her, Mr Mercier?’ I asked suddenly.

  He looked shocked. ‘Me? With Miss Lawler?’ He laughed. ‘No, there is nothing like that between us.’

  ‘She’s very pretty,’ I persisted, feeling suddenly very brave and also like I’d had maybe one too many brandies. ‘And rich,’ I added wickedly.

  Mr Mercier grinned. ‘Too rich for me,’ he said, finishing his brandy.

  ‘She could buy you your own practice,’ I said, warming to the idea now and beginning to wave my arms about in my excitement, ‘and you could help her with the Mission. I think it would be perfect.’

  ‘I think you’ve had too much to drink,’ he said wryly, moving my glass just out of reach and then, to the surprise, I think, of both of us, suddenly reaching across to tuck a stray straggling curl that had fallen across my face in my enthusiasm behind my ear.

  I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment, surprised by how much I enjoyed the touch of his hand against my skin. He jerked his hand away as if scalded and a heavy silence, pregnant with uncertainty and awkwardness, fell between us. ‘I know that you think me stupid and frivolous,’ I said sadly at last, when I could no longer bear the suspense.

  He smiled. ‘I know that you are the sort of girl who thinks that an expensive bar of the finest Parisian rose scented soap is a suitable gift to make to women who can’t even afford to eat on most days.’

  I shrugged, tired now of his relentless disapproval. ‘I did that to annoy you,’ I said wearily.

  ‘It worked.’ He held my gaze for a moment as again that silence fell between us then gave an impatient little shrug and got to his feet. ‘I should take you back now. They’ll be wondering where we are.’ He extended his hand to me.

  ‘Perhaps they’ll think we’ve eloped,’ I said, although the words felt like ashes in my mouth. ‘Or murdered each other.’ I put my hand in his and let him pull me gently to my feet. ‘You won’t tell anyone will you?’ I asked, suddenly anxious.

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ he said so grimly that I did not dare press the matter any further. He was a man of his word though, I had discerned that much and with that I had to be content.

  With a final nod and smile at Mrs Ferrar, we went out again on to busy Commercial Street, where as usual the pavement was crowded with people and carts and carriages rumbled relentlessly down the mud and dust covered road. He planted his hat on to his head then without looking at me offered me his arm. ‘Stay close,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to lose you again.’

  I put my hand on his arm and let him lead me back up the road towards Christ Church. ‘How did you know where to find me?’ I asked when he paused for a moment to point out Thrawl Street, which was not so very far away, I now realised with a pang of embarrassed annoyance from the point where I had stopped and fallen into the wrong hands.

  ‘I followed you,’ he muttered.

  I stopped dead, causing the labourers walking behind us to complain loudly then shove roughly past us. ‘You followed me?’ I said, shocked.

  Mr Mercier nodded, unable to meet my eyes. ‘Oh, I had no designs on your person, Miss Redmayne so you can stop staring at me as if I am some sort of Bluebeard who preys on defenceless maidens. I just happened to see you leave the Mission and thought that perhaps I should keep an eye on you to ensure that you didn’t come to any harm.’ He looked at me then and gave a rueful sidelong smile that made him look boyish again. ‘I had a feeling that you might not know where you were going. Of course, it was not my intention to interfere if my suspicions didn’t prove to be accurate.’

  ‘And yet, I still managed to be whacked over the head,’ I said, trying to make myself angry, ‘so you can’t have been keeping all that much of an eye on me.’

  He sighed and urged me to keep walking. ‘I’m afraid th
at I lost sight of you when one of my former clients apprehended me in the street.’ He gently touched his chin and I saw for the first time that there was a new bruise beneath the stubble.

  ‘He hit you!’ I said with more delight than I ought perhaps to have felt.

  Mr Mercier grinned. ‘Alas, yes, he did. It was one of my less successful cases.’

  I laughed. ‘This is why you need a rich wife, Mr Mercier. She could pay for you to have bodyguards.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ We walked together past Christ Church, which looked much more dignified now in the mellow light of the late afternoon sun. I was shocked to see that it was almost six. ‘How long was I unconscious for?’ I demanded.

  He shrugged. ‘Quite a while. It was very tiresome.’ We were almost back at Hanbury Street and it was at that moment, reminded quite suddenly by a flash of red hair in the midst of the crowd that still hung about the house where a woman had been murdered that morning, that I remembered the girl. ‘I know you,’ I’d said to her.

  ‘Who was that girl?’ I asked trying to hide the urgency in my voice. ‘The one who was with you.’

  Mr Mercier looked down at me, not smiling now. ‘Her name is Cora. Her father is a police sergeant in the Whitechapel station. She’s a sweet girl.’ He took hold of my arm and propelled me carefully but relentlessly between the traffic until we were standing on the other side of Commercial Street. ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought that I recognised her,’ I said vaguely, looking up at him from beneath my eyelashes and jealously wondering if I had detected a trace of softness in his voice when he referred to this Cora as a ‘sweet girl’. No, not jealous. Never jealous. I gave myself a shake.

  ‘I know.’ He led me down Lamb Street to the Mission house. ‘You said so at the time.’

  We were at the door now but neither of us made any move to go inside. ‘Did she run away as well?’ I asked lightly. ‘Like the other girl, Emma?’ I’d almost forgotten about her in the midst of all the fuss.

  ‘Ah, Emma.’ He gave me a curious look. ‘You were looking for her, weren’t you?’

  I considered lying but then gave a nod. ‘I thought that perhaps she might know where my sister is.’ I looked down at my boots, once so shiny and now covered in dust and mud which would no doubt earn me several reproachful looks from Minnie when I got home. ‘After all, someone must know.’

  He considered this for a moment. ‘The person who put the locket through your door knows something,’ he said. ‘Perhaps start with them?’

  I nodded grimly. ‘Perhaps I will.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  I stayed away from the Mission for several days, unwilling to return until both my head and wounded pride had been healed. If anyone, especially keen eyed Miss Lawler, thought there was anything unusual about our absence that afternoon or, more to the point, my distinctly dishevelled state when we returned then they were obviously, much to my relief, too polite to comment on it.

  Minnie was less restrained though and disapproval radiated from her as with pinched lips and downcast eyes, she silently helped me out of my mud stained dress then gingerly put my boots aside to be cleaned. ‘I won’t ask what you’ve been up to for I’m sure I don’t want to know,’ she said reprovingly as she examined the dirt encrusted into the once pristine white hem of my petticoat.

  ‘Oh, Minnie,’ I said, irritable now that the warming comfort of the brandy had worn off. ‘I was attacked and beaten around the head in an alleyway, if you must know.’

  She had the grace to look a little contrite then but I could still hear her muttering when she went off to the bathroom to run my jasmine scented bath. Too tired and aching to be annoyed, I wrapped my pink Chinese silk robe around myself and unlocked the drawer beside my bed where I kept my most precious things. On the very top there lay the photograph of Beatrice and me along with the amber pendant and envelope that it had arrived in. ‘From Whitechapel,’ I whispered, lightly touching the scrawled writing.

  Emma and Cora. I was now more certain than ever that they held the key to my sister’s whereabouts and was thoroughly resolved to smoke them both out and discover the truth. There was something though about Emma’s frightened expression and precipitous flight from the Mission and the look of mingled consternation, fear and guilt that crept across Cora’s face when I said that I knew her that gave me pause for surely they would not have reacted as they had done if all was well. Could it be that..? No, I would not and could not think about it. Beatrice was alive but for some reason determined not to be found and that’s all there was to it.

  I looked again at the envelope, at the dark rusty stains around the edges that could be blood. But of course it wasn’t blood but something else. Rouge perhaps? Or dye. I remembered Cora’s astonishing red hair, the shade sported by Venetian prostitutes in the sixteenth century and made so popular by Titian and then later on Rossetti. Did she dye her hair? Surely not. Emma did though but it was a brassy sunflower yellow that she favoured rather than the colour of fallen autumn leaves. Beatrice’s colouring had been like that of a Boucher nymph, all huge rolling blue eyes, pink cheeks, pearly white teeth and tumbling corn coloured tresses. Had she dyed her pretty hair red and splattered dye on to the envelope?

  ‘Your bath is ready, Miss,’ Minnie called from the bathroom and with a sigh I closed the drawer.

  I kept to myself for the next week, immersing myself in my books, art and music until I was forced back into company again by one of my father’s dinner parties, which thankfully Aunt Minerva had already agreed to preside over so there was no need for me to pin a false smile to my face and play hostess, although it fell to me to oversee the actual arrangements.

  ‘Seems like you do all the hard work and Lady Coudland gets all the credit,’ Minnie grumbled as she laced me into a new Parisian evening gown of pale apricot silk trimmed with lace at the bosom and elbows and with sequinned sunbursts spangled all over the narrow bodice and down the elaborately swagged bustled skirt.

  I laughed. ‘Oh, I don’t mind at all. I’d much rather arrange flowers, order extra ice and decide where everyone is to sit than have to pretend to be pleased to see people that I actually have absolutely nothing to say to.’ Not that I had actually arranged any flowers of course - as usual Papa had insisted upon ordering huge arrangements of hot house white and pale pink lilies and peonies in from his favourite Mayfair florists and all I had had to do was tell the maids were to put them.

  ‘Well, it should be a splendid evening anyway,’ Minnie said as she got down on her knees to arrange the folds of my skirt to her satisfaction. ‘And you’ve got lovely weather for it too so you’ll be able to go out on the terrace later on.’ She was right - there had been glorious sunshine all day which had now settled into a soft orange and pink autumnal glow over the rooftops. ‘Maybe Lord Woollam would enjoy that too.’

  I glared at her. ‘That’s enough, Minnie,’ I said crossly, sitting down heavily in front of my dressing table. I always hated reprimanding her when she had overstepped the mark, hated the way that things would become awkward between us as we slipped back into the roles of mistress and servant again rather than the friends that I hoped we were. ‘I’m sorry. I think I have a headache.’

  ‘That’s quite alright, Miss. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn,’ Minnie said stiffly, starting to do my hair. ‘You haven’t been out much lately. It’s probably doing you no good to be cooped up here for days on end.’ She gave me a curious look in the mirror and I knew that she was wondering what exactly had happened to me the last time I went to Whitechapel.

  If only she knew that even I had no idea what had happened that afternoon or how it had changed me. I could hardly bear to recall the moment that I was attacked, just thinking about the darkness and dancing stars was enough to send me dizzy and sick again and as for the hours I had spent afterwards with Mr Mercier, they were not to be thought of at all.

  I thought of him now though as Minnie teased my hair up into a chignon and decorated it with small diamond
and topaz starbursts that almost matched the ones on my dress and smiled a little to myself as I imagined his intense disapproval should he ever see me all dressed up for one of my father’s parties. It was probably for the best that he never would, even if the thought made me feel oddly sad. Arrogant and impossibly rude though he might well be, there was a tiny part of me that wanted to take him out of Whitechapel and see him in my own world, introduce him to Papa and my friends (although perhaps not Patrick) and let him get to know the real me.

  ‘I don’t think you need any rouge this evening, Miss,’ Minnie said with a knowing look that brought me back to earth with a bump. ‘You’re blushing already.’

  My cheeks were still shamefully warm half an hour later as I mingled with our guests and made the usual perfunctory small talk while waiting for dinner to be announced. Despite Papa’s usual protests that that evening’s dinner party was to be an informal affair for just our closest friends, he had, again as usual, been unable to resist inviting enough people, the usual array of artists, politicians and wealthy patrons, to fill our dining table to its fullest capacity. I gave an inward sigh, remembering how it had been when my gentle, quiet Mama was alive and able to restrain his more extravagant impulses. There had been parties then too but not nearly so frequently or on the same scale as nowadays.

  ‘Wonderful flowers as usual, Alice,’ Lady Brennan murmured to me in passing. Exquisitely dressed as always, she was wearing a jade silk gown that emphasised the marble paleness of her skin and rich dark gleam of her eyes and hair, which she wore pinned with artful carelessness on top of her small head.

  ‘My aunt deserves all the credit,’ I said modestly, mindful that I was not the hostess that evening.

  Lady Brennan laughed, making the emerald and diamond earrings she was wearing glitter wickedly in the flattering candlelight that my father insisted upon employing instead of gaslight on these evenings. ‘Oh come now, I detect your exquisite touch everywhere. I don’t know how your father will manage without you.’ This last bit was said with an arch look and nod across the room to where Patrick was standing beside the fireplace with my father and Lord Brennan.