‘Shut yer gob, granny,’ said Florrie in a low warning voice. ‘This is where she belongs, with her own. With her friends.’ Then she turned to the girl. ‘And you sit back down and all, darling. Don’t let that old cow frighten yer.’
Knowing that Florrie and Milly weren’t to be messed with, the two women filled their cups and retired to a bench near the range.
‘Thank the girl for her milk,’ Florrie instructed them.
The old women mumbled something which might have been their thanks.
‘Take no notice of them old bats,’ said Milly, patting Ettie’s shoulder. ‘It’s being hungry: gives ’em the hump.’
‘I do remember what it’s like, Mill,’ said Ettie, staring into her tea. Then she looked up at her two friends. ‘I don’t know what to do about Mum,’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s so stupid. Now I’ve got the money to help her she won’t let me. There’s something wrong. She must be scared of him. Really scared. She’s never cared before who stayed there, so long as she got her gin money. She knows I’ll give it to her but she still won’t get shot of him.’
‘I’ve heard a lot of talk about him,’ said Florrie, more seriously than she ever usually spoke. ‘He’s a strange one and no mistake.’
‘You don’t have to tell me, Flo. I lived there with him.’
‘Flo’s right though, Ett. I ain’t being nasty or nothing, and no disrespect to Sarah, but what does he want yer mum for? Be honest, love, she ain’t no beauty no more, is she?’
‘Milly!’
‘It’s all right, Flo, Milly’s only telling the truth. And it’s what everyone thinks anyway,’ said Ettie, embarrassed at her friend’s discomfort. ‘Mum’s in a real state. I know that. The only thing I can think of is that he must want a place where he can do as he likes. Where he can lie low. Somewhere that no one bothers him. Ettie shook her head, refusing Florrie’s offer of a pinch of snuff. ‘He knows she’s too weak to sort him out.’
‘Well, why don’t yer get someone to chuck him out?’ asked the girl.
‘I’ve gone over all this before,’ said Ettie, smiling kindly at her. ‘Believe me. But she refuses to let me do anything. Up till now, anyway.’ Ettie searched up her sleeve for her handkerchief. The girl’s eyes widened at the pretty lace-trimmed square as Ettie dabbed at her nose. ‘She actually spat in my eye the last time I tried to persuade her to let me get rid of him.’
‘At least yer tried,’ said Florrie, soothing her.
‘Not hard enough though, Florrie. Why doesn’t she want me to help her?’
‘It’s no good crying, Ett. Be honest with yerself,’ said Milly, tenderly. ‘She’s too far gone for anyone to do anything. She’s been knocking it back for so many years her brain must be pickled by now.’
‘I know, that’s why I’ll have to do something,’ Ettie said. ‘Get my courage together and go there, whether that bastard’s there with her or not. I’ll have to get to the bottom of it.’
‘Why don’t yer ask Billy to go with yer?’
‘I’ve thought of that, more than once, and he’s offered to go with me; but when I said to Mum I’d get rid of the lodger – I told yer, she went barmy.’
‘I reckon she’s scared he’d come back when there’s no one there to help her and finish her off to get his own back,’ said the young girl. ‘Sounds like she wouldn’t be free of him unless someone does for him good and proper.’
‘We’ve all thought that,’ said Milly, angrily. ‘But none of us was stupid enough to say it, was we, when we could see Ettie’s so upset?’
The young girl blushed and dropped her chin to her chest.
‘Leave her alone, Milly,’ said Ettie. ‘It ain’t her fault. And she’s right in a way. Murdering the bastard’s probably the only way to get rid of him for good. And Billy’d sort it out for me as well, if I asked him. He’s got the connections.’ She laughed wryly. ‘Good job I’m not the type to take advantage of my friends, eh?’
‘So yer do still like Billy, then?’
‘Yes, Flo, I do. But it’s not so simple. And now I’m living with Jacob…’
‘How about if we go with yer to yer mum’s?’ asked Milly, brightening at the thought of a row. ‘He could hardly take on the three of us, now could he?’ She studied her nails casually. ‘I’ve got rid of one or two fellahs in me time.’
‘I could help,’ said the girl, sensing an opportunity to get herself back into their good books.
‘Even if we was planning to do anything as barmy as Milly here’s suggesting, we wouldn’t let yer come. Not in your condition,’ said Florrie gently. This is a right hard bastard we’re talking about. Knock a man down with one blow, let alone a little scrap like yerself.’
Ettie took the girl’s hand. ‘Ta, it was a kind thought, but like she said, this one’s no ordinary bloke.’
Living up to her nickname, Mad Milly suddenly lifted her skirts and scrambled across the table top. ‘Look who’s here,’ she shrieked, and grabbed hold of the woman who had groped her way down the dark stairs and into the basement. Milly waltzed her wildly round the room. ‘It’s Polly Nichols, as I live and breathe,’ she said when they finally came to a stop. ‘I ain’t seen yer for months, girl. How are yer?’
‘Pissed as a pudden!’ leered Polly giddily, swivelling her eyes as she tried to fix her stare on Milly.
‘Yer all know Mary Ann – Polly – Nichols, don’t yer?’ said Milly, showing off her friend like she was a prize exhibit at a cattle show.
‘All too well,’ said a voice from the stairway. It was the deputy.
‘I don’t know how yer got past me this time, Nichols, but I’ll tell yer again, yer ain’t staying till I’ve seen the colour of yer money. Got it?’
Polly swayed towards the man and threw her arms round his neck.
He shied away from her boozy breath. ‘Gawd help us, woman, yer’ll suffocate me.’
‘Can’t I give yer the money tomorrow, darling?’ she rasped in what she thought was a seductive lisp. ‘When I’ve done a bit of business. I’m dead on me feet.’
‘No money, no bed. Now out.’
‘Let me…’ Ettie began to offer her the price of a bed for the night, then remembered that she wasn’t even paying for her own lodging.
‘Go on. Yer know she’ll be good for it in the morning, yer bloody tight sod,’ shouted Milly. ‘Let her stay.’
‘Aw no. I know her of old,’ he said firmly. ‘And she’s got more chance of being asked to kip in the bleed’n palace with the Prince of Wales himself than of staying here for the night. And any more out of you, and you can piss off and all,’ he threatened.
The two elderly women sat on the bench tutting disapprovingly, while thoroughly enjoying the free entertainment.
The deputy stuck his hands on his hips. ‘So, what’s it to be? Fourpence or out?’
‘We can’t help yer, Polly, sorry,’ said Florrie shrugging, ‘We’re boracic, the three of us.’
‘It’s all right,’ hiccuped Polly, ‘I’ll soon earn the money for me bed.’ She sashayed round the room, flicking her skirts at the pucefaced deputy. ‘Look how lovely I looks tonight. She tilted her black straw bonnet to a more saucy angle on the side of her rat’s nest of tangled brown hair.
‘Lovely? She must be drunker than she looks,’ sputtered one of the elderly women. ‘She looks a right bleed’n wreck.’
Polly scoffed at the elderly women while scratching savagely at her bodice, doing her best to get at the fleas which fed beneath her thick layers of clothing.
‘I already told you once to shut up and mind yer own business,’ warned Florrie, pointing at the old woman who’d foolishly made the comment about Polly. Then she turned to the deputy. ‘I suppose it’s all right if we give her a cuppa tea before she goes?’
But Polly didn’t wait for the deputy’s answer. ‘No thanks all the same, girl, I’ll have to go and have me bit o’ jolly before I passes out.’ She screwed up the side of her face in a drunken attempt at a wink and went staggering t
owards the stairs which led up to the street. ‘Jolly Polly, eh girls?’ she called over her shoulder as she grabbed hold of the rickety banister rail.
‘Leave some of yer things with me, I’ll look after ’em for yer,’ one of the old women from the bench croaked at her.
‘That’s bleed’n right,’ Polly shouted from the head of the stairs. ‘And have yer nick me drawers?’ She stumbled back down the stairway and into the kitchen so that they could all get a good view, then she lifted up the skirts of her brown linsey frock, exposing her grey woollen petticoat and flannel drawers. ‘Only got these the other day. Nearly new they was.’ Then she did a groggy little jig, striking the metal tips of her boots on the bare flagstone floor, then tottered up and away again, into the darkness of the streets on the look-out for the price of a bed for the night.
* * *
The women sat talking for a while longer, going over yet again what could be done about Sarah Wilkins’ lodger. But still they came to no solutions. No matter what they suggested, Ettie wasn’t convinced that anyone could do much, with her mum or with her lodger.
‘It’ll be a bit of a comfort to know that you two were at least keeping an eye on her for me,’ said Ettie wearily. ‘I’ll treat you both.’
‘We’ll do what we can,’ said Florrie doubtfully.
‘Maybe I should chuck it all in and just come back home,’ said Ettie despondently.
‘I thought I was the one who was meant to be mad,’ chuckled Milly. ‘Don’t act so flaming daft, Ettie Wilkins. What good would that do – both of yers being in the shit?’
They sat in gloomy silence for a few long minutes, then Florrie said, ‘Well, the tea’s all gone,’ and upended the pot to prove her point. ‘Who’s for bed then, girls?’
They made their way to the dormitory with Florrie and Milly walking ahead, arm-in-arm and talking in low, affectionate whispers. Behind them, they heard the rough, familiar voice of one of the other local brides who had just come in after her night’s work. She was shouting, in a drunken, loud-mouthed holler, at the deputy who had stayed in the kitchen to make sure the oil-lamp had been put out and the fire damped down for the night.
‘I saw that Polly Nichols on me way round here,’ they heard her say. ‘Pissed as a fart, she was. I tried to get her to come back here with me, but she wouldn’t. Said you’d told her to bugger off. But she said to make sure I told yer that she was gonna do well for herself tonight and earn a right pretty penny.’
‘She was well gone when she left here over an hour ago,’ they heard the deputy reply. ‘Gawd knows what state the trollop’s in now. Who’d be interested in going with her when she’s like that?’ The woman spoke again. ‘I dunno. And that’s why I said to her, “Yer barmy,” I said, “working in that state.” I mean, anything can happen to yer, can’t it?’
* * *
Celia flinched as her father told the butler to fetch a second bottle of claret from the cellar – alcohol made his moods even more unpredictable than usual. When supper was over and he insisted she accompany him to the drawing room, where he drank several glasses of brandy, her nerves were on a razor’s edge.
She had been hoping that he would go out and leave her alone, but he had been insistent that she go with him. But at least evenings spent in the drawing room didn’t usually finish in the same grotesque way as those in the operating room. More often than not, he wanted his daughter as nothing more than a target at which to fling all his opinions, invective and general bile about what he considered to be the ills of modern times. This night proved to be no exception.
He waved the newspaper angrily at her before tossing it indignantly to the floor.
‘Unemployed?’ he fumed. ‘Unemployed? Bloody newspapermen. Why don’t they say what they mean? Why not tell the truth for once? Why make up a new word when it’s just another damned fancy term for idleness? Damned do-gooders interfering with the natural order of things. Going where they have no business, stirring people up.’
He reached down and picked up a random loose sheet from the paper and waved it menacingly at Celia. ‘Homelessness? Poverty?’ He screwed the paper into a rough ball and flung it across the room. ‘Drunken beasts, more like. Of course they’re poor.’ His voice was rising to an alarming pitch. ‘Who’d give work to those miserable creatures? The constabulary would have done us all a favour if they’d have finished off the lot of them when they had the chance last year in Trafalgar Square. When I walk to the bloody club they’re there in front of me. Sleeping in the park, if you don’t mind. The royal park. How’s a man expected to walk the streets to his club in peace?’
He stood up, swayed unsteadily, and stumbled over to the bell set in the wall to ring for Smithson.
‘Fetch my malacca cane,’ he instructed the ferret-faced man when he arrived in the drawing room. ‘The pearl-topped one.’ He paused and frowned, staring fixedly into the middle distance. ‘I’m off to the club. The vermin won’t stop me going out for the evening.’
‘Shall I summon a hansom for you, sir?’ asked Smithson, inclining his head obsequiously.
‘No!’ he turned on the butler, his face vicious. ‘I intend to walk there. To stroll at my leisure. I won’t be driven off the streets of my own city by scum.’
Smithson nodded and smiled ingratiatingly as he left the room.
Tressing kicked out at the screwed up ball of newspaper, but missed it and fell forward at a stumbling run.
Celia didn’t even think of laughing.
The butler returned with the cane and handed it to his master.
Bartholomew held it at arm’s length and grasped the ornate, pearl-topped handle. Then he withdrew the long slender blade from its secret sheath in the cane and ran his thumb along its length to test its edge.
‘Needs sharpening, man.’ His words blasted out at the butler. ‘Can you do nothing without orders?’
When her father finally left the house, Celia went to her room on the pretext of retiring for the night. She sat patiently on her bed, filling her journal with the day’s trivia, until she was sure that Smithson had started on his own pastime for the evening: his goal being to empty down his throat the contents of the brandy decanter which the eagle-eyed butler – and Celia – had noted her father had forgotten to replace in the Tantalus.
With her blond hair hidden by her hood and her bag of instruments and medicinal compounds secreted under her cloak, Celia slipped out of the front door and into the night, an anonymous figure in black. She waited until she was two squares away from her house before she stopped a hansom.
‘Where to, miss?’ asked the cabman, touching his finger to the brim of his hat.
‘Whitechapel,’ she answered simply.
Chapter 24
George Cross yawned as he dragged himself along on his way to work. Half-past three in the morning, what a bloody life.
‘Shit!’ he swore loudly to himself as he tripped on something. He couldn’t make out what it was he’d fallen over, Buck’s Row was blanketed in the shadows cast from the tall warehouse walls, the only light coming from the single gas-lamp at the other end of the street.
‘Bad enough I’ve gotta go to poxy work this time of the morning.’ He kicked out angrily at the bundle of whatever it was that had tripped him.
‘Christ.’ His earth-soiled hand flew to his mouth and he leapt back. It was a person lying there in front of him and he’d kicked the poor sod.
It was only the arrival in Buck’s Row of another market porter on his way to work that brought Cross back to his senses and made him move into action.
‘Here, mate,’ Cross called urgently. ‘Come and help us. This woman’s pissed and I’ve fallen over her. She might be hurt or something.’
The other man ran over to Cross and knelt down. He looked at the woman then touched her cautiously. ‘She’s right cold, but I’m sure her heart’s still beating,’ he said. Then, before he stood up, he adjusted her clothes, pulling her skirts and underthings down over her legs to restore a mod
icum of decency to the prostrate figure. ‘I wouldn’t want no wife or sister of mine showing herself like that,’ he explained to Cross. ‘Looks like someone might have, you know, had a go at her.’
‘Yer mean she ain’t just drunk?’ Cross began to panic. He’d been the only one there a few minutes ago. They might think he had something to do with it. The times he’d been pulled in by the law – for everything from illegal trading to being drunk and disorderly – flashed through his mind like newspaper headlines.
‘I dunno, moosh,’ said the other man. ‘But we’d better find a copper.’
It was too late to pull out now. Cross and the other man ran to the end of the street, calling for the officer on the beat, one of them hoping more than the other to see the familiar gleam of the police constable’s bull’s-eye lamp coming out of the early morning gloom.
If it hadn’t been so dark, they’d have seen the remains of the life blood of poor Polly Nichols flowing out from her.
* * *
Celia had never dared to stay out so late before, she had always returned from her efforts in the slums soon after midnight. The dawn was already lightening the sky, but she kept close to the railings, feeling safer in the protection of the dying shadows. The time had dissolved, she hadn’t realised how quickly it could disappear. She was tired and she was dirty. All she wanted was to have a bath and go to bed and sleep. The idea of sinking in the deep feather mattress, with its clean linen sheets and pillows, was blissful. She had it all planned: when her father returned from his club she would pretend she felt ill and sleep in until late. She would not only get the rest she craved, but she would not have to spend time with him at the table or in that dreadful room.
As she turned into the square she whispered a soft prayer that, with her father at his club, the servants would still be in bed and she would have no awkward questions to answer, no Smithson to face. But her prayer went unanswered. She couldn’t believe it. Not even the shadows could protect her now. From the street below she could see the lamps burning in the operating room at the top of the house. She hadn’t expected him to be home, let alone working in that place. He’d been so drunk the night before, she was sure he would stay the night at the club. What had made him come home? What could he be doing this time of the morning? She simply had not planned for this, her father being there in that room. She whispered another prayer – that he hadn’t noticed her absence.
The Whitechapel Girl Page 28