by Tessa Harris
Now I’m half running, half walking down the street, past Spitalfields Market and the Ten Bells and the old weavers’ houses with their glass lofts that let in the light. But there’s not much light today; only a sky the color of watery gruel. The gloom licks at walls and doorways and water stands cold in pools between cobbles.
I glance into a shop as I pass and see a butcher, sharpening his knife on a steel. Ham hocks and sides of bacon hang from the ceiling and I think of Annie Chapman’s body from the other day. Further on, a one-armed bootblack, with a hook for a hand, is polishing shoes. I imagine him plucking out Polly Nichols’s guts with it. He looks up and ogles me and I see his teeth are as black as his polish. I wince at the sight and he catches the fear on my face and raises his hook to me. I break into a run. That’s how I arrive at St. Jude’s with my bonnet slumped to one side of my head and my breath so hot that it burns in my chest.
The church door creaks open, sending me all aquiver, but the darkness inside is pricked by the light from dozens of candles. He can’t be in here. Not even he would venture into the Lord’s house, I tell myself. I feel safer.
The air smells damp and musty, like a coal cellar. I catch a whiff of tallow, too. My eyes quickly adjust to the gloom and on either side of the aisle I can see there are two ladies laying out the hymn books on the pews for the morning service. From the way one is bobbing up and down, I can tell it’s Mrs. Le Bon from Wilkes Street. They say she was run over by a carriage when she was a girl and now her left leg’s a full three inches shorter than the other. No wonder she’s up and down like a Jack-in-the-box, but she manages well enough. The other woman, that’s Mrs. Parker-Smythe. She’s got airs and graces, she has. All prim and proper. I call her Mrs. Snooty. She doesn’t like Miss Tindall, because she’s rumbled her. Emily, I mean Miss Tindall, can see that she’s all show and not a real lady at all. She says real ladies are always sympathetic to the needs of those less fortunate. So Mrs. Parker-Smythe may have a fancy double-barrel name, but I know she’s not well-bred ’cos she always squints at me as if I’m a dog turd on her shoe. And there it is again—that look of disgust as she turns. She’s just caught sight of me and her nostrils flare and her thin lips purse and she pretends she hasn’t seen me. I clear my throat. She carries on laying out the hymnals. I cough again, only much louder. This time, she can’t ignore me. Mrs. Le Bon has heard and bobs over to where we’re standing by a big fat column. She’s a nosey old beggar.
“Well, girl?” Mrs. Snooty speaks in a loud whisper. She smooths her skirts and tugs at her cuffs, like she’s work to do. It’s almost as if she’s spoiling for a fight. Well, she’s met her match in me. I’m in no mood to take stick from her.
I square up to her. “Please, missus, I’d like to see Miss Tindall,” I say in my best voice.
“Miss Tindall?” she repeats slowly as one of her eyebrows shoots up.
“Yes, please,” I say.
I can tell she’s working hard to stop a scowl spreading across her face. She answers me through unmoving lips. “Miss Tindall is not here,” she says. Her voice is raised so that Mrs. Le Bon, who’s hopped over quick as she can, has heard. She’s wearing a frown like a scared rabbit. She sidles up to Mrs. Snooty, who tells her what she already knows, that I want to see Miss Tindall. “But she’s not here, is she, Mrs. Le Bon?” There’s something snide in her voice that grates on my nerves.
Mrs. Le Bon gets a fit of the jitters and shakes her head. “No, no, Constance,” she tells me, all flustered.
“Then I’ll wait,” I tell Mrs. Snooty, and I start to sit down.
“You’ll be waiting a very long time, my girl,” she comes back at me, like a wasp on the attack. “Miss Tindall has gone away.”
I straighten my bent legs with a start. “Away?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Where?” I blurt. “She never said . . .” Suddenly I’m angry and hurt at the same time.
The two women swap knowing glances. “We are not Miss Tindall’s keepers. She is free to come and go as she chooses,” says Mrs. Snooty, her hands crossed over her waist. She wears a large gold cross and chain at her neck and I suddenly want to yank at it. I know she’s not telling me the whole truth. A smile lifts her lips. It’s so forced that I wonder at her gall. She expects me to swallow that?
An old man struggles up the aisle and plonks himself down in a pew on the other side of the aisle. He leans forward and bows his white head in prayer. I know I can’t make too much noise. “Has she gone back to Oxford?” I hiss through my teeth. Then, to soften my cheek, I add: “If you please.”
Mrs. Snooty shakes her head. “As I said, I have no idea.” I glance at Mrs. Le Bon, as if to plead with her, but her eyes are planted to the ground. She wants to avoid my gaze.
“I need to see her. I . . .” But I can tell from Mrs. Snooty’s expression that she’s as cold and unmoving as the big stone pillar that looms up behind her. I feel my shoulders suddenly droop, like my body is admitting defeat. I swallow hard and feel my lips tremble slightly, but I say nothing. I simply turn and start to walk back down the aisle.
There are more people coming inside now. I suppose they must be arriving for the morning service, which starts in twenty minutes. I look at the draggle of men and women, mainly old and bent. I suppose, like me, they’re all looking for something. I hope they find what they want, but I certainly haven’t. I’m coming away confused and frustrated. Why would Miss Tindall leave without saying good-bye to me? I thought we was friends, but maybe I got it wrong. Why would someone like her want to be friends with me? After all, I’m only a Whitechapel flower girl. Course she doesn’t know about Flo’s pickpocketing. Or does she? Maybe she’s asked Mrs. Snooty to tell me she’s gone away because she’s found out about our thieving. Maybe that’s it, but she always says that God forgives sinners as long as they repent. And I always feel bad after Flo’s lifted a wallet or a watch. So, surely, she’d have said something to me, if she knew. Wouldn’t she?
I’m walking back down the aisle, trying to stifle my tears, when I suddenly feel something brush my shoulder. I lift my head to see I’ve bumped into a lady.
“Sorry!” I say out loud. I think she’s going to be angry with me, and I wouldn’t blame her. I wasn’t looking where I was going. But she smiles. It’s a kind smile, the sort that can melt a bad mood, and I like her face. It’s pretty and smooth and framed by dark curls. And I can tell she’s a lady by her silk hat with a rose in it and her plum-colored coat. And she says to me: “The fault was mine.” She tilts her head, all gracious like, just how Miss Tindall does. For a second, our eyes meet and it’s like we’re connected in some way. I get this strange feeling that I know her, but then she moves on and I go on my way, out under the steel press of a gray autumn day, onto Commercial Street, heading toward home.
EMILY
Ah, St. Jude’s—the scene of so many of my small triumphs and joys, and, of course, the seedbed of so much evil. I well recall my first briefing there with the Barnetts. With their support, I was going to change the world—the world of Whitechapel, at least.
It was a chilly spring day when I stepped out of there with a tread as light as thistledown. However, my mind was clearly not on where I was going because that was when I bumped, quite literally, into Robert Sampson for the first time. Raising his hat, he apologized, as any gentleman would, even though, like Constance’s encounter in the church, the fault was entirely mine. I remember he had a mane of dark hair, but it was his eyes that caught my attention. They were deep blue and quite piercing. His smile was wide and unaffected, too. I could tell this, even though his lips were half-hidden under a dark, well-trimmed moustache. I abandoned my normal composure and started to flap and fluster a little.
“I should’ve been looking where I was going,” I rejoined. And that, I thought, was that. He dipped his head in a courteous little bow and bid me “Good day.” He continued on his way and I went on mine. And yet there was something about him . . . but that is a story another time for the telling.
CONSTANCE
I can’t really remember much about the walk from the church because I’m close to tears. The fog doesn’t help, neither. It’s closing in. The outlines of buildings that line the street are blurred. Rooftops and spires dissolve into the gray that envelops the city. The weather matches my mood.
I can’t believe that Miss Tindall would leave without a word. Where would she go? Back to Oxford, I suppose. Or to her parents’ home in Sussex, perhaps? She told me all about them: how her pa was a good man, a solicitor, she said, and that he was always championing the underdogs, the tenants against the big landowners. She chuckled when she said how his conscience was the bane of her mother’s life. I remember her saying to me: “Yes, my mama always fancied me married to the local squire’s son.” Once she referred to her daughter as a bluestocking, too. That’s an insult, a name for a lady who prefers her books to men.
I’m lost in my thoughts when, up ahead, I hear a familiar cry from a street seller.
“Chestnuts. Hot chestnuts.”
Then I remember. We stopped there once on the way back from a class. Miss Tindall bought me a bag of them and I ain’t never tasted nothing so good in my entire life. I stop by the brazier that glows red against the dull street and hold up my hands to feel its warmth. The seller—he’s chirpy with a peak to his cap that he wears on the back of his head—he shoves a bag in front of me.
“Penny for ’em,” he says. I must have looked at him all queer because he repeats himself. “Penny for ’em,” he says again, and thinks it necessary to explain: “For me nuts. Not your thoughts.” He gives me a cheeky grin.
I return his smile. “I ain’t got no money,” I say with a shake of my head. I see his face drop. The smile disappears and I’m about to move on when I feel myself pull back. “You seen a lady lately? That tall.” I raise my arm just above my head.
The seller stokes his brazier as I talk. “Lady, eh? You don’t get many of them round these parts.”
I persist. “She’s a regular. She told me.” I search my memory for something that makes Miss Tindall stand out; then I remember her umbrella. “She carried a brolly. A green brolly,” I blurt.
The seller stops poking the coals and looks up. “The Brolly Lady, I call her,” he says with a nod. I tense before he adds: “Nah. I ain’t seen her these last few weeks.” My shoulders droop. “She your mistress, or some’at?” he asks, looking me up and down. “Run off without paying your wages?” He thinks himself a real clown.
I cast him a haughty look. “She’s my friend,” I say huffily.
“Yeah, right. And I’m Mr. Gladstone!” he chuckles.
I walk on, trying to think of any other places that Miss Tindall used to visit on the regular. I call in at the stationer’s, where I know she sometimes bought paper and pencils. No luck. Then, of course, I recall the mission: Sir George’s Residence for Respectable Girls, in George Yard.
I remember Miss Tindall used to teach there sometimes. I quicken my step. I make a detour and cut through the archway off Whitechapel High Street. The road itself is teeming with people, a lot of them Jews. You can hardly move for them here these days, but they don’t give any trouble. Away from the street, it’s quiet. The covered passage into George Yard is empty. It’s like I’m walking into another world, all dark mysterious, like Alice going down the rabbit hole. Beyond is the warren of slums and rookeries. And there it stands: the ragged school for “respectable” girls. It’s a stern brick building that was only opened a couple of years ago and I feel like a little child again as I gaze up at its front door. There’s a long metal chain attached to a bell and a sign that says, VISITORS’ ENTRANCE. I ring and my stomach churns as I hear footsteps coming toward me from behind the door. It creaks open, like it’s never been used in years.
A red-haired matron stands there and raises a monocle to her right eye to study me like I was a specimen in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. After a second she sniffs and says, “Girls round the back. This entrance is for visitors.” She points to the sign, then adds churlishly, “Or can’t you read?” She’s about to shut the door in my face, when something tells me to stand my ground.
“I can read,” I say. My cockiness surprises even me.
The matron raises one of her brows. “Well, that is something, I suppose,” she replies, but she still makes to close the door.
“I’m looking for a teacher!” I cry.
The matron sets her face into a scowl. “All potential pupils need to register around the back,” she hisses, pointing with her gnarled finger to the left.
“But I don’t want to register,” I protest. “I’m eighteen and I’m looking for one of your teachers. I’m worried about her.”
The door stops moving. “Worried about her?” The matron is frowning. “Is it really your place to worry about a teacher at this establishment?” There’s a spiteful catch in her voice.
I gulp down any fear I felt before. I know I’m getting somewhere. “She’s gone missing.”
“Missing?” The matron tilts her head.
“No one’s seen her these past few weeks.”
“And how, may I ask, is that any concern of yours?” She’s straightened her back and gone all puffed up again.
“She’s . . . she’s . . .” I want to say that she’s my friend, my best friend, but I can’t. “She’s my teacher,” I tell her. “And I know she teaches here sometimes and what with that Leather Apron about and that—”
The old woman suddenly lets out a sigh and rolls her eyes as if saying the fiend’s name irks her. “Very well,” she says, finally opening wide the door. “You better come into the office and I shall ask the secretary if we can find her.”
She leads me into the hallway, as grand a hall as I’ve ever been into, with a stone floor and a wooden staircase that goes up as far as the eye will reach. A gaggle of girls in pinafores walk past us in silence and go through another door into a classroom. I follow the matron into a large office off the main entrance. The room is lined with ledgers and books, and the smell reminds me instantly of my copy of Little Dorrit, only a thousand times stronger.
At one end sits a stony-faced lady, all angles, with sharp shoulders and a pointed nose with a pair of spectacles balanced on it. The matron explains my business to her; and in her surprise, the secretary’s face lifts and her specs take a tumble.
“Most irregular,” she declares. I think she’ll tell me to leave that instant, but instead she rises slowly and turns to pull one of the large ledgers off the shelf. She’s quite frail and I, for a moment, fear she’ll drop it. It wobbles slightly in her grip for a second, then lands safely on the desk.
“The teacher’s name?” she asks, finally opening the pages. I can see the book is full of lists.
“It’s Miss Tindall,” I tell her, arching my neck at the upside-down text.
She jerks up her head and looks at me over her specs. “Tindall?” she echoes. I may be imagining it, but I think she’s just lost what little color she had in her wizened old cheeks.
“Miss Emily Tindall,” I repeat, nervously, like I shouldn’t be saying her name at all.
It’s then that she shuts the ledger with a thud. A cloud of dust flies into the air. She shakes her head. “Miss Tindall left us a few weeks ago.”
“Oh” is all I can manage for a second or two; then I pull myself together. I was half expecting it, to be honest. “Did she give a reason?” I know I’m out of order, but I don’t care.
That arching of her brow again. She thinks me impertinent and her tongue lashes me again. “Young woman, it is not for the likes of you to ask or know matters of a disciplinary nature.”
Disi . . . what? She’s talking gibberish. I’ve not come across that big word before, but I can tell from her face that it’s not a good word, not an easy one. I don’t tarry.
“Begging your pardon,” I say, and I dip a surly curtsy, like I don’t think she deserves it.
The matron, who has been watching silently, rin
gs a bell and stares at me until, a moment later, a girl appears.
“Show this young woman out,” she instructs in a voice as sour as vinegar.
This time, I don’t protest.
EMILY
Constance is on the right path. She grows closer to finding me, dear girl, but before I let her, I must tell you a little more about how certain events came to pass. As we are standing outside the ragged school, I shall relate to you how it was here, on this very spot, that I met Mr. Robert Sampson, quite by chance, for the second time.
It was a pleasant afternoon in early May; the sun was shining. After lessons had finished for the day, many of my freed charges remained outdoors, kicking stones down the street or playing hopscotch on chalked squares on the road. Lines of washing, strung across the cobbles, swayed in a gentle breeze, and women, often with babes on their hips, took a moment to feel the sun on their faces.
I glanced down the narrow row of houses. There was hardly a windowpane that was not cracked, nor a door not loose on its hinges. In these near-derelict dwellings, families would be crammed, sometimes a dozen or more in two rooms. Water was fetched from a pump at the end of the street and there was a privy in the backyard, if they were fortunate. This was the area chock-full of rookeries. A stranger took his life into his own hands walking in this area at night. Daytime was only marginally better, and that is why I was most curious to see a fine carriage parked down at the far end of the street. Two men, one clearly a gentleman, stood on the other side of the road. I assumed the vehicle was theirs, for no resident round these parts had ever even ridden in one, let alone owned one.