A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper

by Alan M. Clark

  “You were right,” she told Tom after they had made love. “I haven’t felt so close to you since I came here.”

  * * *

  As 1885 finished out and 1886 progressed, Polly’s drinking increased steadily until her consumption matched Tom’s.

  In June, word came from her father that her brother, Eddie, had been involved in a paraffin lamp explosion. He had burned to death. Polly and Tom bought new clothes and attended the funeral. She spoke to her father graveside once most of the mourners had left.

  “I’m sorry to say I hadn’t seen Eddie in over twenty years,” she said.

  “He were happy, I think,” Papa said.

  Polly felt awkward. She wanted to tell her father how sorry she was for setting his home ablaze, yet couldn’t think of a good way to broach the subject. Relief came as Tom approached.

  “You’ve met Tom,” she said.

  “Yes, while you were away. Good evening, Mr. Dews.”

  “Good evening to you, sir.”

  Papa turned back to Polly. “I think he’s done you some good. You look well.”

  She knew he meant that she didn’t look and act like a drunk.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You do too.” She was glad to see that the burn he’d received that terrible night hadn’t left a permanent scar.

  Papa gave her a kiss on the cheek before saying goodbye. For some reason, she couldn’t feel it.

  * * *

  By 1887, Polly and Tom whiled away most nights drunkenly, and she would sleep late each day, neglecting the housekeeping.

  Tom said little about her shirking for a long time, yet in the autumn, the problem began to come between them.

  “You aren’t doing your part,” he said. “I work hard for us both, and you have little to do.”

  “I toil long hours,” Polly said, putting on more outrage than she felt, “keeping our dunnage washed, the larder full, and preparing your meals.”

  “Yes, but you do not sweep. Slops are not cleared away completely. Pots and dishes are left crusted with spoiled food. The floor has not been scrubbed for months. The room reeks of the filth caught in the corners. My clothes fall apart and aren’t mended.”

  “Perhaps you should buy new clothes.”

  “You do not earn a wage. You cannot tell me what I should buy.”

  “You aren’t my husband! With our agreement, I’m not expected to earn a wage.”

  “Please,” Tom said, lowering his voice, “we’re talking about the housekeeping.”

  Polly didn’t want to fight. She relaxed and let go of her anger. “I’ll try harder.”

  * * *

  With the drinking at night, Polly awoke late in the day, hungover and too tired to do her work. She found relief from hangover, as well as some extra vitality, in daytime drinking. Since Tom gave her money to do the shopping, which included buying alcohol, and he didn’t ask for an accurate accounting of funds, Polly easily hid extra spending on gin. She kept a small supply on hand that Tom didn’t know about, hidden in the new boots she’d bought to attend Eddie’s funeral.

  With a glass of gin in the morning, her pain went away, her spirits rose, and, with the short-term energy alcohol gave her, she became motivated to work. Knowing that inevitably her mood would drop quickly once the high began to fade, she hurried around, trying to get as much done as she could. Even on the way down, though, the residual effects of intoxication helped her to care less about not completing her housework.

  In brief lucid moments, Polly felt deep shame, but horribly, her selfish, compelling need drove her like a taskmaster. She found the experience frightening, yet couldn’t seem to turn from her course.

  Polly ate less and drank more, remaining sodden with alcohol, day and night.

  34

  The Lush

  Polly awakened to Tom’s voice. He pulled his hammer from his belt and set the tool on the floor before crouching down beside her.

  She’d become sore lying on the hard floorboards. How long had she been there?

  “Polly, you’re drinking away everything we have,” Tom said.

  She remained groggy and intoxicated from the gin she’d had earlier.

  “I found the bottle of gin you hid in your gallies. I know you’ve been drinking in the daytime. I’d hoped if I treated you well and gave you time to do as you pleased, you’d get over whatever troubles you, and things would get better.”

  Polly didn’t listen carefully. She needed another drink right away to soothe her aching head.

  “I’m sorry I asked you to drink with me,” Tom said, shaking his head. “Now I must take it away.”

  “No!” Alarmed, Polly had a burst of energy and sat bolt upright, then grabbed her head as if to hold her skull from breaking apart.

  Tom got up slowly.

  She had no time to reason with him. Polly picked his hammer up off the floor, and quickly found her feet. She caught up with him as he moved to the table where they left the bottle they shared. The threat was clear. Tom reached for the gin. She had to stop him.

  Polly brought the hammer down on his fingers.

  Tom cried out, cradling his hand. Blood ran from between his fingers as he toppled over onto the floor, howling in pain.

  Polly stepped back, and dropped the hammer. Horrified and instantly sober, she hurried toward him.

  “Get away,” he cried and thrust out his left arm in defense, inadvertently striking her in the face. Polly shrieked as the blow bowled her over backwards.

  She found her feet quickly and turned back to him. “I don’t know what happened,” she said.

  “You broke my fingers!”

  Polly tried to move toward him again. She stopped as he glared at her. Blood dripped from her nose onto her chemise.

  “You’ve done me a great harm,” he bellowed, his eyes bulging and his face red. “I cannot work with this.” He held out his crippled hand, then thrashed in a paroxysm of frustration, accidentally striking his damaged digits against a leg of the table. Tom doubled up with the pain.

  Despite fear that he’d strike her again, Polly hurried to him and held him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why—”

  “It’s the lush, and you know it,” he gasped around the pain.

  Yes, she did, and with the realization that there wasn’t anything she was willing to do about it, her spirit collapsed. While Tom shook in her arms, she was lost to black despair. As he became calm, she returned to herself cautiously.

  Polly touched his white, sweat-slicked face and he didn’t flinch. She helped him get up and they sat at the table. He began to shake again, and she kept her arms around him.

  “I don’t know what should become of us,” Tom said. “I would leave you now, but I have no one else to help me.”

  Polly chose not to think about the future. Against her will, she glanced at the gin on the table to make sure the bottle hadn’t been upset and spilled.

  Satisfied, she turned her attention back to Tom. He’d gone slack. If not for her embrace, he’d have fallen out of his chair.

  Polly heard a delighted humming, and could almost make out a tune. Her heart racing, she glanced about the room, thinking someone had come in while she attended Tom. No one appeared in the open. Then she heard, The soul of you, a hole in you, as what your screams beseech…, yet couldn’t tell if the words came from within her head or without. She didn’t want to believe that Mr. Macklin had come for her again.

  “Tom,” she whispered into her lover’s ear. “Wake up. Help me.”

  He didn’t respond. Polly clung to him, fearful that he had somehow died of his wounds, and left her alone with the intruder. She told herself that her imagination had got the better of her, even as she strained to see within the shadows of the open wardrobe, the darkness to the right of the door leading outside, and to the left of the bed.

  Papa had been right when he’d said that Mr. Macklin haunted those who drank too much.

  Misery craves companions in Hell. How many dru
nkard souls has Mr. Macklin delivered to the devil? How the drink must burn in Hell!

  Tom inhaled sharply and coughed, startling Polly. She hugged him tighter, relieved to know he yet lived. Still glancing about warily, her fear continued to build. She was about to try again to awaken Tom when he groaned and sat up, shrugging her off angrily.

  Polly got up, cautiously inspected the room, and found nothing unusual.

  “Help me,” Tom commanded, and she returned to the table.

  They inspected his damaged hand. His index and middle fingers were crooked, and each had a bloody cut. Polly fetched the ewer, the water-filled basin, and a flannel. She carefully cleaned the wounds.

  Tom bent, and with his left hand, lifted from the floor a small crate in which Polly had carried vegetables back from market recently. “Hold it there, while I break off the side,” he said.

  Polly steadied the thing against the table top, and he snapped off a thin wooden slat. With her help, he shaped the piece of wood into a splint. Polly tore strips from an old chemise and used them to bind the splint onto Tom’s hand so that his fingers wouldn’t move.

  “I’ll pour the gin down the privy,” she said, taking up the bottle. She intended to take the bottle out of his sight and drink the contents all at once.

  “No,” he said, wearily. “I need it for the pain, and I’ll need more.”

  “I’ll go get it,” Polly said eagerly.

  Tom gave her a long hard look before she went out. “Go also to the Spratling Smithy and tell Mr. Hooks I have an injury and won’t be back for some time.”

  * * *

  Indeed, Tom could not work. He drank heavily for the pain. Polly took advantage of the opportunity to drink heavily as well. Although he couldn’t smell the alcohol on her, he knew she staggered about and slurred her words. She gave him bread to eat so she didn’t have to cook. His anger toward Polly remained, but with his level of intoxication, he seemed unable to express his feelings in a meaningful way.

  As he began to come out of his binge, Polly could see that his spirit had been broken. Tom didn’t speak to her unless he had to. His movements were slow, yet not careful. His eyes held a frightening resignation.

  Even when drunk in the past, he’d had a hopefulness; a strength about him that suggested he could get up and find his way in the world. His love for her had been his undoing.

  “Go to the smithy, and tell Mr. Hooks I won’t be back,” he said.

  Tom had given up on everything. Polly imagined him, head hung, entering the workhouse. Her heart turned over in her chest, her breath caught in her throat, and she turned away to hide her tears. She knew that to prevent that terrible vision from becoming a reality, she must speak to Mr. Hooks on Tom’s behalf. Her effort might come to nothing, but she had to try.

  “I’ll go speak to him very soon,” Polly said.

  She spent two days sobering up, nursing from a bottle of gin only enough to keep her from trembling. On the third morning, while Tom still slept, she packed a change of clothes and a half loaf of bread into a carpet bag. She kissed Tom’s cheek and left the room quietly.

  Polly went to the Spratling Smithy in King and Queen Street, and approached the master blacksmith, shaking as she did so. He took her to the side, away from the work area.

  “I’ve come to talk to you about Tom,” she said.

  He was a powerfully built fellow with a head of silver hair. “Yes, Mrs. Dews.”

  Polly didn’t correct him. A week earlier, when she’d first met the man, she allowed Mr. Hooks to believe she was Tom’s wife.

  “Has he taken a turn for the worse?” he asked, with a look of concern.

  “No,” she said. “Well, yes, but it’s my fault, and he shouldn’t suffer for it.”

  His face became lined with concern, the black soot in the creases of his skin accentuating his expression. Polly saw that he struggled to understand.

  “I drink…” she began, suddenly unsteady.

  He reached out a hand to brace her.

  Admitting her crime to a stranger would make the severity of her condition all too real. The prospect took her breath away. Still, gasping, she blurted, “In my drunkenness, I broke his hand.”

  He reached out with his other hand to hold her up as she began to sag. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “He’s done his best for me, and I’ve brought him to ruin. Please don’t give his position to another. He’s a good man.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Hooks said, “he is. He’s one of the best I’ve had.”

  “I must leave him for his own good,” she sobbed. “But he needs help. Is there anything you can do?”

  He seemed to think for a moment. “I can take him in.”

  Polly gripped his hands. “Truly? Do you mean what you say?” She’d thought Mr. Hooks might hold Tom’s position. Polly hadn’t hoped for more.

  “Why, yes. My eldest has left home. My wife, Alexandra, God bless her, fancies herself a Florence Nightingale after her experience helping in the workhouse infirmary for the church. She’ll have him right in no time.”

  The man had a look of surprise as Polly pulled him close and hugged him. She released him and found that his look of concern had returned.

  “You’re in a bad way,” he said.

  Polly shook her head. “I’m well enough for what I deserve.”

  “Please allow me to help you.”

  “No one can help me. I’ve got a demon after me.”

  “You mustn’t believe that.”

  “Yes, but I do.” She handed Mr. Hooks her key to the lock on Tom’s door. “His room is 22 Morecombe Street.”

  “Mrs. Dews, please,” he said.

  Polly turned away and made her way out of the smithy and onto the street. She would cross the river so that Tom might not find her easily if he should look.

  To deaden her dreadful memories, and calm the storm of regret, grief, and shame that built inside her, Polly needed more drink.

  35

  Visitation

  Polly stayed most nights at Gaskel’s common lodging in Endell Street. She returned to prostitution. No emotional qualms stood in her way. On nights when she hadn’t earn her doss or decided to drink away the funds instead, she slept in shrubs among the stands of trees in Saint James’s Park.

  When she’d arrived on the north side of the river in October, there had been hundreds of unemployed people sleeping rough in the park. In the middle of November there had been riots in Trafalgar Square over something concerning employment and Ireland. Afterward, the numbers of those staying in the park diminished, although not by much. If awake and aware enough when she arrived in the park at night, Polly heard many others moving about, also sheltering among the shrubs.

  One night in late November, following three quarterns of extraordinarily cheap gin on an empty stomach, she was making her way along West Strand when she saw a heavy coat fly out of the window of a fine carriage traveling along the lane. As winter came on, she’d need a better coat. To her good fortune, none of the other pedestrians around her seemed to have noticed the fallen garment. Heedless of the manure piles, she hurried into the road, stumbled, and fell in the “mud.” Drivers leaned out to curse at Polly as they struggled to avoid hitting her. She got to her feet, and dodged her way drunkenly into the busier part of the road where the cobblestones were exposed. A hansom cab struck her as she bent to pick up the coat. As she flew backwards through the air, Polly knew she’d met her end, that the clattering hooves and wheels grinding along the road would make short work of her. That was, she decided, a fortunate turn of events.

  Her head struck the hard granite surface of the road and all went black.

  * * *

  Polly found herself standing on the footway beside the road, watching the backside of the hansom cab moving away. A dread feeling accompanied the sight. She didn’t understand how she’d got to safety, yet didn’t have the presence of mind to think it through.

  The black, fur-lined overcoat in her hands, made of fine cotton or
linen, had clearly belonged to a gentleman. A smear of vile-smelling vomitus marred the fabric. She had a vague notion of cleaning that off in the pond in Saint James’s Park.

  With such a fine coat, she didn’t have to spend four pence for doss—she’d be warm through the night, sleeping in the park.

  As she staggered past Trafalgar Square, the dread feeling followed her. She saw a toff moving toward her, a white-whiskered gentleman all in black, wearing a square-crowned bowler and a short top coat or jacket, and no overcoat. He carried a cane. As she moved, so he seemed to move, perhaps a hundred yards away, pausing when she paused, hurrying forward when she did. Polly became certain that the coat she’d picked up belonged to him. Why, then, didn’t he call out to her, approach, and ask her to return the garment? She saw no other reason a man of his obvious social status would take an interest in her. Polly had never had a client of his caliber.

  She hastened west along Pall Mall East to Waterloo Place. Before turning south in the hopes of reaching the park and hiding herself among the trees, she glanced back and saw a glowing red about the head of the figure, a cigar possibly. As the red light brightened and became two embers, she recognized Mr. Macklin’s glowing eyes.

  Polly ran to the west side of Waterloo Place, and looked back. The figure came bounding over the two-story gentleman’s club on the corner and landed with a light step in the road. He changed from the white-whiskered fellow into a thin man with dark hair, a cruel grin, and heavy black eyebrows. His short coat presently extended nearly to his feet. The cane had disappeared. Instead, he held a bottle connected to a chain around his neck. Polly turned away from his jeering face before his glowing eyes fixed upon her own. Her heart leapt up into her throat and escaped in the form of a shriek. The Bonehill Ghost had again stepped openly into her world or had somehow pulled her into another nightmare.