Annie Phillips opened her mouth, and that way it silently stayed.
“Her spirit haunts the London Hospital where I am a maid,” I said. “During her visitations, she says one thing, and one thing only.”
“That so?” She kept her tone quite flat, so I couldn’t tell what she made of my claim. “And what does she say?”
“‘I’m sorry.’”
Annie stayed quiet for several moments. “You say that as if it’s the truth.”
“It is,” I said.
“It is,” Charles said, finally reaching us. “It is your mother’s ghost, Mrs. Phillips. Down to the tattoo on her arm. TC.”
“Are you a medium?” she asked me, but before I could answer, she said, “I have known some Spiritualists, and they have always struck me as believable. But I never thought … May I see her?”
“What?” I asked.
“May I see my mother’s spirit?”
That was not an outcome I’d anticipated, and I didn’t know how to reply.
“I will pay you,” she said. “But I must speak with her. I can’t help but feel if I hadn’t turned her away, if I’d but opened my house to her, perhaps she wouldn’t have … perhaps it wouldn’t have ended this way. It’s my fault, and I must ask her forgiveness.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Might be worth a try,” Charles said to me. “Maybe her daughter can bring the ghost some peace.”
“Please,” Annie Phillips said.
I saw then how Spiritualists and mediums and charlatans successfully preyed upon others’ grief, for I doubted there existed a person who would not feel some secret regret upon the death of a loved one and wish they could converse with them but one more time. “I cannot promise she will appear for you,” I said.
“I understand,” Annie Phillips said. “But if she appears for you, I believe she will for me.”
It seemed a better notion than anything I had arrived at. “Come to the hospital at one o’clock tonight,” I said. “There is a gate on East Mount Street. I’ll have the porter let you in.”
“Thank you,” she said, clasping my hands. “Thank you, I will.” With that, she hurried on her way, while Charles and I took the road more slowly.
“I hope you’re right, Charles.”
“I haven’t seen her ghost,” he said, “but from what you say, that Catherine Eddowes or Conway or whatever her name is needs to eat the leek before she can move on, and it won’t do, her apologizing to you.”
At the bottom of Golden Lane, we turned west on Barbican and returned to the Aldersgate Station. With our descent below the streets, my fourth such subterranean sojourn, the railway proved to be not as disquieting as it had been. I began to understand how so many travelers had grown accustomed to it and made use of its convenience each day, for Charles and I were back at the hospital before dinner.
He walked me to the East Mount gate, and there I thanked him and bade him good evening.
“Wait, Evelyn,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d given any thought to what I said.”
“You mean, when I visited you on the ward?”
“Precisely that,” he said.
I’d given it no direct thought, but his words had echoed about me since then, along with Mr. Merrick’s, and to a lesser degree Dr. Tilney’s, all of them challenging my doubts about myself. “I’m sure you’ll understand that my mind has been quite preoccupied,” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “Of course. But might you give it some thought now?”
“Charles, please—”
“You confound me, woman,” he said, each word a stamped boot. “I’ve never met your like.”
“But you don’t know me,” I said.
“Surely I do.”
I shook my head. “Our familiarity over Mr. Merrick is one thing, but I feel I barely know you at all. I don’t even know where you live, or how you live—”
“I’ll show you,” he said. “Come out with me, and I’ll show you whatever you wish.”
I was about to rebuff him again, but the way he stood there, bruised, swollen, and favoring his rib, summoned my pity toward him, as well as a measure of guilt over his condition. I thought perhaps I should ignore my own warnings and listen to Professor Sidgwick and Dr. Tilney and Mr. Merrick. A thundering sounded in my ears as I fought through the terror over going out into the city again, not on some errand, but with Charles. Perhaps it was time to take that risk.
“When the spirit of Catherine Eddowes is gone,” I whispered, “I will go for an evening with you.”
“Truly?”
“Yes,” I said.
He laughed, and immediately grunted and doubled over, clutching his side. “You please me so it hurts,” he said.
“Perhaps we should wait until you’re mended,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I’ll not wait that long. Don’t you fret a whit about me. Just send that ghost on home.”
“I’ll do my utmost.”
“I knew you couldn’t resist me.” He tipped his cap to me. “G’night, then, Evelyn.”
“Good night, Charles,” I said, and watched him go with a flurry of fear and excitement, but that blew away almost as soon as he’d turned the corner onto Whitechapel, and I was left with the same dreadful uncertainty I’d felt before, and even then regretted having said yes to him.
I left all that on the stoop, though, and went in to tend Mr. Merrick as I always did. I brought his dinner, helped with his bath, and then ate my own evening meal with the other maids. Beatrice hadn’t yet recovered her previous bluster, for which I—and I suspected the rest of the servants—was grateful.
After dinner, I told Mr. Merrick about the inquest, and that Annie Phillips would be coming that night to see the ghost of her mother.
“All did not seem right between them,” I said. “I think there was a great rift in their family.”
“What if the spirit doesn’t appear?” he asked. “They didn’t for Professor Sidgwick.”
“I’m hopeful that she will appear to her daughter.”
“Does this Annie Phillips know about me?” he asked. “Does she know who I am?”
I was surprised to realize I’d neglected to mention Mr. Merrick to her. But a few weeks ago, I could not have forgotten him. “No. She doesn’t.”
His nod was nearly imperceptible. “I do not want to alarm her,” he said. “Perhaps I shall sit in my bathroom while she is here.”
“Mr. Merrick, I’ll speak with her. I’m sure it will be all right.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But I would rather not have my appearance jeopardize our purpose. What if she should see me and flee?”
Since I knew that had happened to him, likely many times, I understood his fear and decided against challenging him further. “All right,” I said. “But let’s put your armchair in there so you have a place to sit.”
“Yes, thank you. Let’s do that.”
Of course, that meant me doing it, but I didn’t mind, and after some heaving and shoving, I’d managed to get the odd piece of furniture through the bathroom door and situated next to the bathtub. As the night approached one o’clock, I helped him out of his bed and made sure he was comfortable in his chair before I left to meet Annie at the hospital gate.
As I waited for her, I noted how pleasant the night air felt, and in fact it had been an unseasonably warm autumn. Had it not been for the scourge that then brought the spirits to me, I might’ve noticed it sooner. When Annie arrived, I had the porter let her in, and we silently crossed Bedstead Square to Mr. Merrick’s room.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“A patient’s residence.”
“You have patients residing in the hospital?”
“Only one that I know of,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t pursue the matter too closely.
We entered the room, the appearance of which struck me as wrong, due to the absence of Mr. Merrick and his chair.
“Who lives here?” Annie Phill
ips asked.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss our patients,” I said.
“What is that smell?”
She must’ve been referring to Mr. Merrick’s odor, which I hadn’t noted at all when we’d come in, so accustomed had I grown to it.
“The room is due for a cleaning,” I said.
She wandered over to the mantel and glanced across the photos and cards. “Gracious, that’s the princess!” She reached for the portrait, but I interrupted her before she’d taken it in hand.
“Please leave those be,” I said. “I’ll get in trouble. I’ve taken a risk bringing you here.”
She stepped away from the mantel. “Yes, of course. My apologies.” Then she frowned and looked around the room. “Why are we here?”
“This is where the ghost of your mother comes,” I said.
“It is? Why here?”
I could not easily answer that question. “You would know your mother better than I.”
“Those cards on the mantel. They’re written to Joseph Merrick. That name is familiar to me, but I can’t think why.”
It seemed she hadn’t yet given up her pursuit of the matter, but I decided not to give her any aid. “I feel I should prepare you in some way. Your mother’s spirit will come soon.”
“How do you know?”
“She comes at the same time every night. The time of her death.”
“The time of her murder, you mean,” she said, touching her stomach. “May I sit down?”
“Of course.” I had no desire to shock her, but I decided it would be easier if she knew ahead of seeing her mother what to expect. “When she comes, she … injures herself.”
She took one of the chairs at Mr. Merrick’s table. “What do you mean?”
“She—she claws at her tattoo, doing great damage to her arm.”
“I see.” She inhaled with a shudder, and a few moments passed. Then she noted the objects resting on the table with a nod, the phonograph and the model church. “These are fine and swell,” she said. “This Joseph Merrick have time and money, then?”
I was conscious that Mr. Merrick sat just in the next room and could likely hear our conversation, and I didn’t like to think of her saying something that would upset him. “Please understand,” I said. “I’m truly not at liberty to discuss the patients.”
“You can understand my curiosity, though,” she said. “My mother’s spirit chose this place, it seems.”
“That she did.”
“I just want to know—”
A sudden pain stabbed the roots of my remaining teeth, even as Annie’s eyes widened, and I knew Catherine had arrived. I looked toward the fireplace, and there she sat, hunched over as she always was, grunting. Annie looked to me, and the fear I saw there suggested she hadn’t really understood what it would mean to see her mother’s spirit.
“Go to her,” I whispered. “Say what you wish to say.”
Annie shook her head, pale-faced, and I thought she meant to bolt.
“This is what you wanted,” I said firmly. “Go to her.”
She swallowed. Then she nodded and rose from her chair, crossing the room with hesitant steps.
“Mum?” she said.
The spirit stopped doing what I knew she was doing to her arm and looked up. “Annie?”
“Yes,” Annie said, and a sudden sob erupted from her. “Oh, Mum, it’s me.”
Catherine cried out, too. “Annie, my girl!”
Annie dropped to her knees beside the spirit. “Wh-what are you doing? Good Lord, your arm …”
Catherine looked down and tipped her head as though in confusion. “Them’s your pa’s initials,” she said. “I weren’t a proper wife to him, nor mother to you and your brothers.”
“That’s all done with now,” Annie said.
“But I’m sorry, you see. So sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Annie said. “I shouldn’t have turned you away. I should have opened my door to you.”
“No, it were my doing,” Catherine’s ghost said. “I ain’t done nothing right in me whole life. When you was but one year old I sold gallows-ballads at me own cousin’s hanging. I ask you, what kind of judy does a thing like that? I ain’t never been right with myself, nor right with you.”
“Oh, Mum,” Annie said.
“I’m sorry, Annie. So sorry. Will you let me make it right? I swear I’ll make it right.”
“Yes,” Annie said. “Of course, Mum. Of course.”
Catherine opened her arms wide, whatever wound she’d given herself now vanished, and it seemed Annie lost the years of her womanhood and fell against her mother as a little girl. They embraced for some time, and the pressure of it filled the room. I found myself wishing in that moment for my own mother with an ache that took my heart in its fist. But I yearned for my father, too. I longed to hold him and beg him to stay with me, to leave the drink by and come home.
Then, without warning, bye, or leave, Catherine vanished. The pain in my jaw ceased, and Annie sat on the floor hugging herself.
“Mum?”
“She’s gone,” I whispered, wiping my eyes.
Neither of us spoke for some time.
“Was that real?” Annie finally asked.
“It seemed so to me,” I said. “They’ve all seemed real.”
“All?”
“Each of Leather Apron’s victims has come here. I’ve done what I could to bring them all peace. For your mum, that meant bringing you, it seems.”
“I needed peace, too,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ve found it, but it’s a start.” She rose to her feet. “I thank you. Tomorrow, I’ll probably doubt my own senses about what happened here tonight. But I thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Annie,” I said.
“I should get home,” she said, and walked to the door. As she reached for the handle, her gaze flicked up and she said, “Hang on … he’s the Elephant Man. Isn’t he?”
Again I thought of Mr. Merrick listening in the next room. “He is,” I said. “He didn’t want to frighten you, so he stayed away.”
“That’s right considerate of him,” she said, and then gestured toward the mantel. “He must be quite the gentleman to have the princess sending him a portrait.”
“That he is,” I said, smiling.
“You tell him thank you for me, won’t you?”
“I will,” I said, and then she was gone.
The next morning, Mr. Merrick seemed even more improved, well enough that Dr. Treves reported he no longer felt it necessary to examine him quite so regularly. That day, Miss Doyle and Miss Flemming also reverted to their normal duties of simply bathing him, and I resumed the pattern I’d begun before the first ghost appeared, tending to his meals and his room. All morning, I worried the matron would seek me out and sack me, now that it seemed Mr. Merrick had recovered, but she didn’t, though Charles came in the afternoon, eager to know what had transpired the night before.
“Did the ghost get sorted?” he asked.
“She did,” I said. “I think so did her daughter, in a way.”
“Right bang up to the elephant, that is,” he said. “Well done. Well done, indeed.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I knew his enthusiasm to be for more than our successful resolution of the hauntings. By my own word, Catherine’s departure meant I would now be free to go out with him, though I wished for a way to undo my promise.
“Do you suppose this maniac is finished with his evil?” Mr. Merrick asked.
“Who knows?” Charles said. “Even if he is, I’m sure another will come along to take his place. This is Whitechapel.”
Though there was no doubt some truth to what he said, I didn’t like to hear such pessimism, and I didn’t believe Mr. Merrick liked it, either, but he said nothing more on the subject, and Charles moved on to the subject of our outing.
“Do you think you could get tomorrow night off?” he asked.
“It might be possible,” I said, without an
y eagerness.
“What is this?” Mr. Merrick asked.
Charles puffed up, the effect of which was somewhat lessened by his battered face. “Evelyn has finally consented to an evening on the town with me. We shall go to a coffeehouse, and a night market, and perhaps a music hall.”
Mr. Merrick stared at Charles.
“You have it all planned out,” I said.
“You gave me plenty of time to think on it,” Charles said.
“Perhaps the matron won’t give her the night off,” Mr. Merrick said.
“Perhaps,” Charles said. “But now you’re on the mend, I can’t see why she wouldn’t allow it.”
My thoughts went to her promise to sack me, which would make time off rather irrelevant. It also put me in mind of the workhouse, and the freak show, and the other possibilities before me if I was to live out there again. I doubted Charles would have any further interest in me once my state had fallen.
“What if Leather Apron murders again?” Mr. Merrick asked. “And another ghost should appear?”
“I’ll return her to you in good time,” Charles said. “You’ll not even miss her.”
“I think I shall miss her a great deal,” Mr. Merrick said. “I am not comfortable with this. I do not want you to go, Evelyn.”
I couldn’t decide what had agitated him. It may have been simple jealousy, or perhaps and more likely he had come to depend on me and felt anxious without me near. I leaned toward him. “Mr. Merrick, I told Charles I would,” I said, and patted his arm. “It’s just one evening. I’ll be back before you notice I’m gone. You’ll be all right.”
“I will not,” he said.
“Easy, my ugly bloke,” Charles said. “We’re good friends, ain’t we?”
“Of course,” Mr. Merrick said.
“You wouldn’t deny your good friend an evening with the girl he fancies, now would you?”
I tried to believe he meant that, though I still found it difficult.
“Good friends cheer their blokes on, see?” Charles said. “Are you my bloke?”
Mr. Merrick stared at him. “I suppose so.” He paused, and I noted a minute crease in his brow. “But is it not dangerous? With Leather Apron still on the loose?”
That was a fear of mine, too.
A Taste for Monsters Page 23