The Whitechapel Girl

by The Whitechapel Girl (retail) (epub)

  By the time she had finished, Jacob was cradling her in his arms. ‘It’s part of me,’ she sobbed, ‘part of what I was. What I am.’ Jacob let her go and stood up. He bowed his head and then he too began to weep. ‘Ettie. I knew you had suffered, but, God forgive me, what you have told me now, it’s like a madness overtaking me.’ He turned and fell on his knees at her feet. ‘I can’t stand it, Ettie, I want you. I’ve tried to avoid this moment, to stop myself telling you because I know you must hate…’

  Ettie took his head in her hands and kissed him. She pushed him back with her kisses until they fell back on the rug. ‘It’s OK, Jacob. It’s OK,’ she murmured. ‘I want it too.’

  They made love the first time with a wild urgency, taking off and undoing only what would have prevented their coupling; unaware of anything but the need to satiate their desire. But then they discovered a fresh appetite, a need for a more intense and deeper exploration of each other.

  They lay spent, wrapped in each other’s arms, staring into the grey embers of the fire.

  ‘Ettie, everyone will love you,’ he said, kissing the tip of her nose, an affectionate, easy gesture that just a few hours ago would have been unimaginable. ‘How could anyone fail to love you? You will be the biggest star ever to appear in London. In Europe!’

  ‘D’yer reckon?’ She snuggled her head deeper into his chest. He levered himself up and, resting on his elbow, traced the outline of her face with his fingertip, admiring her beauty. ‘You palmed that cut-up cloth from the robe absolutely brilliantly. Do you know that? You’re quite a conjuror. And a very good actress.’

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ she giggled playfully. ‘Well, come on, I’m getting on for nineteen. You can’t expect someone from round where I was brought up to be little Miss Innocent, now can you?’ She stretched luxuriously. ‘You might have done and seen a lot, Jacob, but you’ve still got a lot to learn.’

  ‘So I see.’

  She hadn’t noticed his change of tone. ‘For instance,’ she made herself cosy against him. ‘If you want to see a real bit of conjuring, you want to see how the brides can make a bloke think that they’re, you know.’ She bit her lip, suppressing a laugh.

  ‘Think they’re what?’

  ‘Think they’re still pure little virgins. The girls all do it – well, when they’re still young enough to get away with it. They earn more money, you see.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ His voice was increasingly cool, but Ettie was too relaxed, too happy to notice.

  ‘Blood soaked sponge, shoved up inside them. Works every time, they reckon. The posh ones pay a lot for…’ She felt his body move – just a fraction – away from her. She turned and looked up into his face. ‘What are you looking at me like that for?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like I’m rubbish or something.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘You knew I wasn’t no lady when you picked me up.’ Ettie stared at him as though he was a stranger. ‘I might know all about what the girls get up to, and I might be the daughter of a brass, but that doesn’t make me a bad person.’

  ‘I know. But I hadn’t realised that you would talk of such things with such good humour.’

  ‘What, d’yer prefer me crying?’

  Jacob remained silent.

  ‘I told you, living in Whitechapel’s all about survival, all about…’ She hesitated, then, struggling free of him, she stood up and raked her fingers through her hair. ‘You just imagine, Saint bloody Jacob, living in a world where going with some stinking drunken no-good is most women’s best chance in life. Then get on yer high horse about selling yerself.’

  ‘Ettie, please. I didn’t mean that. I just thought that you would be different.’

  ‘You, you…’ She could hardly speak with anger but the contempt in her voice was clear. ‘I met you in a poxy penny gaff, remember, not in a posh theatre up West. Life gave me the worst deal it could, but I didn’t lay down and die, I didn’t just take it. I wouldn’t. D’you hear me? No, don’t you dare turn away. Look at me!’ She stood over him, naked and beautiful. ‘I ain’t no one’s victim. I choose what I do, and who with. And I don’t have to stay here neither. I can sort meself out. Right?’

  He just lay back on the rug, looking up at her.

  ‘I’m yer equal, Jacob Protsky, whatever anyone might think. Even if I ain’t posh. It’s only cos yer’ve had chances that I ain’t. That’s the only difference between you and me.’

  ‘Have you finished?’ he asked, his voice icy.

  ‘No, I ain’t. Just you listen to me. What difference is there in what the brides do, to what most so-called ladies do every night of their married lives, eh? What difference? It’s all about surviving the best you know how. And yer was all right just now, wasn’t yer? I was good enough for yer then. And least I ain’t no liar. Least I ain’t had to run away from no Paris.’

  He rolled over, turning his back to her. ‘Your voice, Ettie. Remember your voice.’

  ‘Bollocks to me voice!’ she screamed at him.

  Jacob spoke very quietly. ‘Ettie, will you come into the bedroom with me?’

  She followed him through without speaking.

  Chapter 19

  When Celia eventually crawled into bed, she didn’t find the comfort of sleep: the face of the young woman she had, only a few hours ago, watched die from the bodged abortion came back to haunt her, as did Ada’s words: ‘Yer wanna do something useful round here?’ she had said. ‘Find a way of helping poor cows like her. That’ll be doing something, all right.’

  Ada was right, being ‘helped’ was what the women in their dreadful poverty really needed and, by the time the dawn was breaking, Celia’s mind was made up: she would save as many others as she could from needlessly early deaths caused by the ignorant ministrations of untrained old women with their gin and rusty knitting needles. Celia had the skill and the knowledge, she would be the one to give them what they wanted in as safe a way as possible.

  Over the next few days, she made herself ready. She pored over the relevant passages in her father’s anatomy books; she pilfered spare instruments and medicines from her father’s store-cupboards, packing them away in a black leather bag which she kept hidden at the back of her wardrobe.

  Even pretending to be pleasant to her father was easier now she had determined what to do. It was as though she had found a real strength at last, as though she could separate herself from what, in his sickness, he was doing to her, hardly cringing when he stroked her arm or whispered to her how lovely she had become. She even tried to forget how, one day, she too might sicken and lose her reason.

  The first opportunity Celia had to leave the house was almost a week after the young woman’s death. Her father was at a hospital meeting and afterwards going on to his club, and Smithson was harassing the parlourmaid. Celia slipped quietly out of the front door and hastened from the house in the direction of the East End.

  With mounting anticipation, she made her way to the Frying Pan, but when she entered the familiar bar she suddenly felt unexpectedly deflated – she realised that she didn’t actually know what to do next. Patrick, the landlord, had acknowledged her with an unceremonious but friendly enough nod of his head, and the other customers hardly turned a hair at seeing the now common sight of the well-dressed young lady sitting in the corner. But, when all was said and done, she was still an outsider. She could hardly stand up and make a public announcement that she was prepared to perform illegal operations on pregnant women. So it was with relief that she saw Florrie come flouncing into the bar.

  ‘Hello, ducks,’ Flo called, extricating herself from the clutches of a bulky man dressed in the collarless shirt, stock and waistcoat that was almost the uniform of the market costers. Florrie wouldn’t need his trade now that Celia was here to provide her with gin.

  The man didn’t seem to resent Florrie’s disloyalty, however, and he soon found himself some more willing company to take his arm.

  Celia gave Florrie
a welcoming smile and some change to buy herself a drink.

  Holding her glass carefully so as not to spill a precious drop, Florrie slid along the bench, made shiny-smooth from years of being polished by customers’ backsides, and settled herself down next to Celia. The close proximity of a slum-dweller still made Celia gasp for fresh air, but she was becoming better at hiding her distaste at their lack of personal cleanliness. She knew that it wasn’t going to be easy – raising the subject of her helping local women – but if anyone would know what to do it would be Florrie.

  The two women were soon chatting amiably about this and that, with Florrie willingly filling Celia in on any local gossip that Celia might have missed since her last visit.

  Celia grew restless. She was anxious to get to the subject that she really wanted to talk about: how she could help the court-dwellers. ‘Do you know a small boy who makes his living collecting whatever he can find from the banks of the Thames?’ asked Celia – her first step in drawing Florrie away from her rambling tales about the men she and Ada had met at the docks.

  ‘How many mudlarks d’yer want?’ asked Florrie, concentrating more on the string of mutton she was trying to prise from between her teeth with a grimy fingernail than on Celia’s question. She unearthed her prize and examined the piece of meat closely before wiping it down her greasy bodice. ‘There must be hundreds of the little sods working down the Thames. They can be a right nuisance sometimes with their hollering and hooting – puts some of the customers right off doing the business.

  ‘Is there nothing to be done for the families who cannot feed their children?’ Celia could feel she was getting closer to the subject she really wanted to discuss. ‘Ignoring the workhouse of course,’ Celia added. She had learnt something from her trips to the slums.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell yer?’ said Florrie impatiently. ‘Will you never learn nothing? It’s their mothers what wants the help. If they didn’t have to have the kids in the first place, then there’d be no need for ’em to go mudlarking, now would there?’

  Celia bit her lip: she had to find the right words. There could be no mistake this time.

  ‘Mind you,’ Florrie went on, oblivious to Celia’s growing tension. ‘Speak as I find, we was all right impressed when yer went down and tried to do something for Dirty Percy’s sister. That showed yer mean well, more than well. There’s not many would have done that.’ She threw back the last of her drink. ‘Mind yer, shame yer couldn’t have helped her a bit earlier, eh girl? Then she wouldn’t be Uncle Ned now, would she?’

  ‘I’m willing to use my medical knowledge to help the local women,’ said Celia quietly, averting her gaze from Florrie’s suddenly pop-eyed stare. ‘If you really think that that is what is needed.’

  ‘Bleed’n hell,’ said Florrie. ‘Hark at you. Yer’ve changed yer tone a bit, ain’t yer?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well come on, then,’ said Florrie, slamming her empty glass down on the table. ‘No sooner said then done.’

  Within minutes of her making the offer, Florrie was dragging Celia with great enthusiasm up the back stairs to one of the rooms above the pub.

  ‘I’ve got just the girl for you,’ said Florrie, throwing open a flimsy wooden door.

  Inside, the walls of the tiny room were decorated with tawdry drapings of cheap, plum-coloured velveteen with gaudy gold-brocade trimmings, garish even in the dull lamplight. The only furniture was a narrow bed adorned with ragged curtains. On it reclined a pallid young woman, drenched in sweat and thin to the point of emaciation.

  ‘Thank gawd it’s you, Florrie,’ the girl breathed, looking up at them listlessly. ‘I thought yer was another customer. ‘Who’s she?’ Her expression changed to one of concern. ‘She ain’t a customer, is she?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s like that, worse luck,’ chuckled Florrie, looking thoughtfully at Celia. Then she turned back to the girl on the bed. ‘But she wants to help yer out in another way.’

  The girl pulled herself up to a half-sitting position and rubbed her cheeks with red, work-worn hands. She looked scared. Celia noticed the tell-tale green mark left by a brass ring on the girl’s finger – a mockery of the symbolic purity of the gold wedding band affected by many of the so-called brides.

  Where’s your husband?’ Celia asked her gently.

  ‘Dunno, miss,’ answered the now terrified girl. Whatever he’s done, honest, I don’t know nothing.’

  ‘I’m sure he hasn’t done anything to concern you,’ said Celia, feeling more and more out of her depth. Then she swallowed dryly and said. Will he mind if you decide not to have the…’ Celia pointed clumsily towards the girl’s gently swollen belly. ‘If you decide not to continue with…’

  Florrie replied on the girl’s behalf with a hollow peal of laughter. ‘Yer a funny bleeder, Celia.’

  When Florrie eventually led the exhausted Celia back downstairs to the bar of the Frying Pan, it was with genuine affection that the Whitechapel prostitute brought her now undeniable friend a glass of much appreciated brandy.

  ‘There y’are, girl,’ said Florrie, handing her the glass.

  Celia took it from her with shaking hands.

  ‘That was a good job yer did there, girl. The difference between life and death, the state she was in.’

  Celia gulped at the tawny liquid, ignoring the smears and chipped edges of the glass.

  ‘Just let anyone in Whitechapel take the piss out of the way you speak ever again, that’s all,’ Florrie whispered respectfully, ‘and they’ll have me to reckon with.’

  * * *

  Jacob’s and Ettie’s days and nights had soon developed into a continuous round of practice, work and then love-making – with Jacob seemingly inexhaustible in all the three spheres of their life together.

  When they had first met, Ettie had become so worn out by his desire for perfection that she had despaired of ever being able to meet his ambition of turning her into the most sought after medium in London. She would go over and over the complicated codes time and time again, and practise the painful toe-tapping techniques and the rapid sleights of hand which could give them away if she moved just a fraction in the wrong direction. But since they had first made love, his professional demands on her had become almost ceaseless. Then, at night, when they went into the bedroom which they now shared in every sense, he turned from being her rigorous mentor in control of everything they did, into a fiercely demanding lover so full of desire and craving that all thoughts of tiredness were driven from her. Afterwards, she so wanted him to show that she had pleased him, for him to take her in his arms, but he never wanted to discuss what they did together, never wanted to be affectionate or playful like Ettie craved him to be. It was as though another person took him over when they lay together. There was Jacob and then there was the man with whom she shared her bed.

  It was beginning to make her feel even more lonely than she had before he had ever touched her.

  Chapter 20

  ‘Who has written to you, Celia?’ Bartholomew Tressing put down his knife and fork and watched his daughter slit open the envelope as he refilled his coffee cup.

  ‘Sophia, father,’ said Celia, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on the letter. ‘She wants me to attend a League meeting with her.’

  ‘A lovely girl,’ he mused. ‘And no harm mixing with someone from that family.’ He wiped his mouth on his napkin. I don t see why you shouldn’t go.’ He poured himself more coffee. ‘You may attend.’ He looked at her over the rim of his cup. ‘So long as you don’t speak with any male members of the League. And providing, of course, that I’m at my club, and don’t need you here.’ Celia swallowed hard at the unspoken understanding as to what his needing her entailed. ‘Thank you, Father,’ she said. It was ironic, she hadn’t dared mention any interest in the League meetings before – when she was genuinely attending them – but now they would prove useful cover for her other, far more important, expeditions. She was a little surprised at her brav
ery, but now she had taken the first step by ‘helping’ the young woman to whom Florrie had introduced her, she was becoming more daring.

  When he had finished his breakfast, her father rose from the table, kissed her – mercifully perfunctorily – on the cheek, and left for the hospital. Celia remained where she was and, while the maid cleared away, took up her letter again to read the interesting part of what Sophia had actually written.

  I know that, for some inexplicable reason, you do not care to attend the League meetings any more. (Let me surmise, might a certain reverend gentleman be the cause of your dislike, perhaps?) But please, Celia, do make a particular effort to meet me outside the meeting hall tomorrow. My mother is dropping me off there before going on to dinner, but I have something far more exciting planned for us. Something that will be tremendously wonderful fun. Say you will come, please. Please, say yes. You shall be my alibi and my companion!

  As Celia walked along towards the hall, she saw the usual crowds gathering and chattering outside in anticipation as they waited to go into the meeting of the League.

  Sophia rushed up to her, all breathless and bouncing. ‘Celia, you’ve come. I’m so pleased to see you.’ Sophia touched her lips against her friend’s cheek. ‘I thought you had gone into hibernation, it’s been so long since we last met.’

  Celia narrowed her eyes. ‘I sometimes think you could persuade me to do anything you set your mind to, Sophie,’ she whispered, hoping that she would take the hint and lower her voice. ‘You really are the most dreadful exploiter of friendship.’

  Keen to placate her, Sophia said in a melodramatic hiss, ‘I’m taking you to see something a lot more entertaining than what goes on in there.’

  ‘I don’t think they come here for entertainment, Sophia,’ said Celia primly. ‘And must you always be counted on to say something outrageous?’

  ‘Outrageous?’ said Sophia, gesturing with her parasol towards the League members. ‘If you want to be outraged, just look at those old fools and their ludicrous goings on.’