Although the food she prepared was spare, she was accustomed to eating little. She read to Hortense in the evening and remained dutifully by her side.
Elizabeth wrote to her sister, at the address their mother had provided, telling of her situation and expressing a desire to see her. At first she got no reply from Kristina. She kept writing, and, after a few weeks, a letter came.
Dearest Elizabeth,
Please forgive me for the delay in writing to you, but my life is too full for correspondence. With the children, I have too many responsibilities at this time to visit with you. I hope you find a good home in the city.
Please write again next year.
Most heartfelt regards,
Fru Kristina Gustavsdotter
Elizabeth had no desire to write to her sister again.
She became restless and bored, and wanted to leave Hortense to find a new home, yet she couldn’t bring herself to abandon the old woman who so obviously needed help.
If you’re more diligent in your care, Fru Andersdotter will recover her health, Bess said.
The old wretch is beyond help, Liza said. Still, she might have money tucked away that she’ll give you if you’re a good enough companion.
Elizabeth didn’t believe either suggestion, and could see no way out. She had no time to look for a proper job, and she knew she would not feel good about herself if she left Hortense in the unfortunate position in which she’d found her. Apparently the old woman had no family to help out.
By mid-October, Hortense had noticed Elizabeth’s restlessness. “You must leave the house and see something of the city.”
“I go to market for our food,” Elizabeth said.
“Going to market and back is not enough. You should go out and have a good meal. I would go with you myself, but I fear I might not return. There’s a nice young man who helped me one afternoon when I fell in the garden. I believe his name is Herr Lydersson. Klaudio is his given name, if I remember. He lives with his uncle in the green house across the lane. You’re a pretty girl. If you spent time in the garden—”
“—And perhaps fell,” Elizabeth said with a laugh. “I believe I’ve seen him—a handsome blonde fellow?”
“Yes,” Hortense had a mischievous look in her eye. “Look out for him when you leave and return from market. You might like him.”
The old woman’s suggestion surprised Elizabeth—a young woman her age should have a chaperone for an outing with a young man.
She trusts you, Bess said. You’re mature for your age. She must trust the young man too.
Although Elizabeth blamed Hortense’s doddering mind for the neglect of propriety, she liked what Bess suggested. Elizabeth was currently responsible for herself, after all, since the old woman represented no reasonable adult protection.
~ ~ ~
In October, Elizabeth met Herr Lydersson much the way Hortense had suggested. Of medium height and build, he appeared to be about twenty-five years old. He had a prominent nose, square, clean-shaved jaw, blue eyes, and light blonde hair worn a little long. Handsome, Elizabeth thought. They’d struck up a conversation in the lane between the houses. He’d asked Elizabeth to call him Klaudio, then invited her to have a meal with him at The Siren’s Promise, a local tavern.
She accepted the invitation, prepared Hortense’s dinner early, and walked with Klaudio about a quarter of a mile to the tavern.
“I work the docks for now,” Klaudio said as they began their meal of herring, potatoes and vodka, “but will sail for England when I’ve saved a bit of money. My mother is English. When my Father died a few years ago, she returned to her family there. Everything in London is bigger and better. I visited as a child, and saw the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. Soon I’ll return to England and build a new life.”
Klaudio continued talking about England for some time, allowing for no interruption.
He’s not interested in anything you have to say, Liza said. He’s up to no good.
As one always seeking something better, however, Elizabeth listened with great interest to his tales of London. The English city sounded much better than Gothenburg. While he spoke, she ate all her dinner and gulped her vodka. Although she had frequently wanted to indulge, she hadn’t had any of the drink since the time of her broken leg. Klaudio had bought a bottle and she allowed him to pour her a tall drink.
At first, the alcohol gave her a giddy vitality. The images that filled her head as he talked set her imagination ablaze. He spoke about the English capital as the center of a vast global empire and a thriving mix of peoples from all over the world.
“The railway network,” he said, “much greater than what we have in Sweden, links every corner of the British nation. Soon the steam-powered locomotives will also run through tunnels under the city of London. Everyone in the capital will ride a train wherever they want to go.”
Klaudio’s words stoked her desire for adventure, and a need to see more of the world. She smiled with delight, but suppressed her giggles for fear that Klaudio would look upon her as a silly child.
She craved more vodka, and as she kept drinking, the giddiness passed and was replaced by a sluggishness. Then, she no longer heard Klaudio’s words. The tavern had become hot and over-crowded. She grew dizzy and nauseated. Elizabeth wondered how she could gracefully get away from Klaudio’s monotonous rambling, which seemed to increase her discomfort by the minute.
Abruptly, she became certain she would vomit in the tavern if she didn’t get out immediately and find some air.
“Is something wrong?” Klaudio asked, as she rose and headed for the door to the street, holding her hands over her mouth.
Patrons looked at her with surprise, concern, contempt.
Elizabeth made it to the street before her dinner came up. She crouched in the gutter to retch, the juices of her stomach, the food, and the drink burning her throat as it came up and kept coming in fits for several minutes.
Klaudio had not emerged from the tavern. Patrons going in or coming out gave her a wide berth. Elizabeth's vision swam in a confusion of light and shadow. She’d never been so intoxicated and disoriented. Her mother had never given her enough to do more than provide a soft euphoric feeling. Elizabeth didn’t think she could stand without falling. Still crouched in the gutter, she kept her face down, her arms draped over her head in shame as the minutes passed and her intoxication deepened.
She heard footsteps, and then a hand gripped her left arm.
“They wouldn’t let me leave until I’d paid,” Klaudio said.
Elizabeth didn’t care. She wanted to go home.
“Let me help you,” he said.
She rose and was aware that she stumbled along beside him for a time as the night became darker and quieter.
~ ~ ~
Elizabeth awoke in a strange, musty bed. Morning had come.
Her head ached and throbbed. Some of the dizziness remained. Her thoughts came through a fog. She felt a separation from herself.
Asleep, Klaudio rested naked beside her.
She discovered her own nakedness just beneath the grayed bedclothes. The bedding beneath her felt wet.
Elizabeth tried to remember what had happened, but there was nothing after the memory of him leading her away from the tavern.
She found wetness between her legs. Something had dried in the hair of her crotch, leaving it matted and stiff. She touched the sticky wetness and saw red on her fingers.
Surely she dreamed! Or had she been stabbed?
Of course you have, Liza said. Klaudio did this to you.
Elizabeth sat bolt upright, her senses suddenly too keen. The world around her pressed in with a reality that belied the suggestion of a dream. A small room with a single window surrounded her. The walls were a faded blue. The furnishings were spare; a table beside the bed, an old beaten-up wardrobe. Clothes littered the floor—her clothes!
No, he could not have taken advantage of her as she slept.
No one would
do that, Bess said. He must be in love with you.
Ridiculous, Liza said.
Elizabeth shook her head and the throbbing pain worsened.
I might become pregnant! If she became a mother so young, she’d be like so many women she’d known in life who were tied to one small community, increasingly dependent on others for her well-being and with little to look forward to but a dull existence of hard work.
Surely in a large city like Gothenburg, Liza said, there are those who know how to take care of such things.
Even in the small Hisingen farming community where she’d grown up, women whispered of methods of ending a pregnancy.
Elizabeth got up to fetch her clothes, and Klaudio stirred. She quickly slipped into her skirt and covered her breasts with her blouse and stockings.
“Why so shy?” Klaudio asked, sitting up in the bed.
Elizabeth backed up against the wall. She looked for a way out. The door, her only escape, lay beyond his side of the bed.
“I—”
“You’re frightened?”
“Yes.” The word was barely a whisper as her shame roared in her head with the throbbing pain.
“No one will harm you.”
“May I go home?”
“It’s right next door.”
Elizabeth realized she was at his home, next door to Fru Andersdotter’s house.
“Your uncle—”
“Gone to sea.”
Klaudio got up, donned his clothing while she watched. Increasing her unease, she noticed he was handsome without clothes too.
“I must go to the privy,” he said. “If you are not here when I return, I hope to see you soon.”
He exited the room and left the door open.
Elizabeth donned her clothing and walked in the late autumn chill across Ösp Lane to Hortense’s house.
She discovered that morning had, in fact, long since passed. The house was cold since the fires had been allowed to go out. Hortense sat in the kitchen, bundled in the blankets from her bed. She had missed a meal because Elizabeth had not been there to prepare it for her. After hurrying to build a fire in the kitchen stove and in the fireplace in the parlor, Elizabeth sat the old woman down in the kitchen and fed her.
“I’m so sorry to have abandoned you,” she said, but out of shame, she made no effort to explain further.
Hortense remained silent and thoughtful for a moment, then said, “As long as you’re happy, I’m not concerned. I know you needed to get away for a while.” She smiled. “You are forgiven.”
Thankfully, Hortense asked no questions about the matter. The poor old woman had every right to be angry. With her gracious response, Elizabeth’s task of forgiving herself became more difficult.
Chapter 4: For Her Trouble
Elizabeth’s horror at finding she’d lost her virginity to a relative stranger came less from moral outrage than from a sense that she’d been tricked out of a formative first experience. She wished she’d been awake and aware for the event. Although angry with Klaudio, and somewhat afraid of him, she’d been thinking about his naked body ever since.
As a child, Elizabeth had been baptized and confirmed in the Swedish Lutheran Church. She had studied the Small Catechism of Martin Luther, and taken the examination conducted by the Church, but her commitment to the religion was only as strong as that of her parents. They had shown no fervent belief through the years. Too busy perhaps making ends meet and raising their children, they had exhibited the bare minimum of devotion to the church required to get along with others of the community.
One afternoon after a bath, she looked at her body in a mirror in her room, trying to determine if Klaudio had seen something in her he might want again. She stood about five and half feet tall, and had light-brown curly hair and grey-green eyes. Her long neck, small breasts and a thin face gave her a willowy look. She still had the lips and nose of a young girl, but her eyes were quite attractive. Her right shin, slightly lumpy where her broken tibia had not been set properly, bowed forward a bit. At certain angles that could not be seen. Despite liking most of what she saw, she couldn’t know if Klaudio had found her especially appealing.
He didn’t come to see her. When coming and going from the house, Elizabeth hurried past his uncle’s house to minimize the chance that she’d see him. As the cold, lonely months of November and December passed, though, her restlessness grew and in early January, she sought his company again.
Klaudio wanted to introduce her to a British merchant seaman friend, Mr. Robert Turner. The friend met them at The Siren’s Promise. Mr. Turner was introduced to her as Robert.
Elizabeth had balked at the idea of returning to the tavern after her last performance there. Klaudio put her at ease, telling her the establishment served so many people that surely no one working there would not remember her. When the two men and Elizabeth arrived at the tavern, she noticed that the establishment was much busier than the last time she visited. The smoke-filled air burned her eyes. As they looked for seating, Klaudio and Robert shouted their words to be heard over the raucous laughter and conversation. Finally, they found a table in a cramped corner a bit less noisy.
When a child, Elizabeth had learned to read, write, and speak some English from her aunt Tirtza, her father’s older sister. The aunt had served as a domestic servant in a British household when a young woman. Even so, she could not keep up with the conversation between her two male companions. Klaudio made little effort to include her in their discussion.
He is still not interested in what you have to say, Liza said.
Yes, but you’ve caught the eye of the Englishman, Bess said. Perhaps he will become fascinated with you, and carry you off to London where you can travel the city by rail.
Robert stood six feet tall, had dark-hair, a thin face, side whiskers, and a turned up, boyish nose. He smiled for Elizabeth, glanced at her warmly, and made an effort to speak with her. She understood many of the words—although he did not speak them with a Swedish accent, as Aunt Tirtza had—and they came too fast for her to keep up.
Again, during dinner, Klaudio poured tall drinks from a bottle of vodka he’d ordered. Elizabeth wanted the exuberant feeling she’d got at first during the last meal at the tavern. She would avoid, however, going too far with her drinking and becoming ill. As she ate her meal, she sipped her drink even though she wanted to gulp it. When finished eating, she wanted more vodka, yet she decided to quit for the night.
Klaudio poured more in her glass before she could stop him. She didn’t drink from it. He seemed to notice, and made a toast in English she couldn’t understand. When she didn’t respond, he nudged her in a friendly manner, and said “Skål!”
“Cheers,” Robert said, as Elizabeth reluctantly raised her glass. He downed his vodka, a couple of ounces. When she took only a sip, both men balked and gestured for her to turn the glass up and drink it all.
Elizabeth wouldn’t have them think she didn’t know how to have a good time, so she took a larger drink. Still, vodka remained in her glass.
Klaudio wants you drunk, Liza said. He will molest you again when you’re helpless.
Elizabeth didn’t agree. The Englishman was with them. They were having a good time. The warmth of the drink spread through her in a comfortable manner and with it came an amorous feeling toward Klaudio. She thought of his naked form, the taper from his shoulder to hips, the muscular shapes of his legs and buttocks. Robert would eventually leave them—preferably sooner than later—and then she’d be present and aware when the lovemaking began.
Klaudio poured a new round of vodka. When he got to Elizabeth’s glass, she held her hand over it.
He smiled and set the bottle down.
“You’re a pretty girl,” Robert said, and he raised his glass. “Cheers.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, but she made no move to take a drink.
The two men were insistent. She looked at the liquid in her glass, a larger amount than she’d thought.
Perhaps the effect will be less if you drink it quickly, Bess said.
~ ~ ~
Short of becoming ill, Elizabeth was so intoxicated she had difficulty focusing her senses and maintaining her physical coordination. She mistook one man for the other several times as they both helped to support and guide her through the cold, wintry air back to the house in Ösp Lane.
When finally she and her lover made it to bed, she passionately accepted him inside her. Their lovemaking, a slow exploration of the odors, flesh, and fluids of life itself, revealed a warmth of human touch finer than anything her hopeful daydreams had offered. Love for Klaudio swelled inside Elizabeth as a thrilling sensation gripped her, one that ebbed and flowed in waves of physical bliss before fading. Then, she lay spent until the dim world around her faded as well.
~ ~ ~
Elizabeth awoke much the way she had before, in the blue room with the table and the beaten-up wardrobe, but beside her slept Robert. She leapt from the bed and scrambled after her clothing on the floor.
Klaudio had tricked her again!
In wonder, she thought about her amorous feelings toward the man the previous night. That tenderness had fled.
Robert stirred and looked at her with a smile. “Good morning,” he said, an English phrase she readily understood.
Elizabeth had nothing to say to him. She dressed, left the room, and sought Klaudio elsewhere in the house. She found him asleep upstairs in a bedroom, presumably his uncle’s.
“What have you done?” she shouted.
He awoke with a start, a confused look on his face. She waited for an answer as he shook his head and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
“You had a good time last night,” he said. “Did you not?”
“No!”
Jack the Ripper Victims Series: The Double Event Page 3