by Forbes, Kit
So, Sir Cedric’s it had to be.
“I was just about to have dinner,” Sir Cedric continued, oblivious to my clothing. “And I’ll have Wallace set an extra place. I won’t take no for an answer.” He wagged a cautionary finger. “I’ve had some startling thoughts, truly wonderful insights. At least, I think they are. I’d be ever so appreciative of your views.”
I accepted the dinner invitation not only for the obvious reason but, even more because I kind of liked the odd guy’s company. Kind of like how Aunt Agatha was all serious and stuffy until she and her professor friends got together and snarked about colleagues and universities they’d been with.
When Sir Cedric bowed his head for a moment of silent prayer before the meal, I did likewise to ask forgiveness from the parents I was afraid I’d never see again.
Sitting in the warm, dark oak dining room, with the sparkling crystal and silver service, and starting on a second helping of roast beef, vegetables, and potatoes, I found myself drifting into an almost dream-like state as Sir Cedric expounded on his latest theories. I actually envisioned the images of what the he described.
“The problem,” Sir Cedric said, “was how to navigate the oceans of time, you see. It’s quite one thing to cast one’s self adrift but to journey to a specific time and place, well, that’s quite another.”
I nodded and thought back to some of those physics shows with Michio Kaku we had to watch in school. It was great the way he’d used a pizza and ordinary ways to explain long distance space travel. “So it’s kind of like being on ice and slipping along but not quite being able to stop.”
“Excellent analogy,” Sir Cedric agreed. “Because it takes only the lightest push to start you moving. Stopping may not prove so easy.”
Sir Cedric was his usual animated self again after dinner. He bustled me around the sitting room in which his machine waited its final pieces.
The wirework frame with the semi-precious stones was fully assembled and tentatively mounted in the innermost case of the apparatus. Sir Cedric gestured to the contraption. “It appears that acquiring the aluminium and someone to craft it continues to vex me. I’ve yet to secure a suitable sphere for the center.”
I bent to examine the interior wirework and whistled low in amazement. The structure was a gleaming spider web of gold wires holding a rainbow assortment of semi-precious stones, all carefully cut and placed, twisted into the design with an even finer spider web of wire. It was far more impressive than the wirework on the other spheres because it stood on its own, without the distraction of the polished globe.
It was a work of art. At least more a work of art than a lot of what they showed at the Carnegie Museum back home. The notion froze me in place. If things worked out that I had to stay in the past, one thing I knew I could count on was Plan B. Knowing what technologies would take off and which companies to invest and work for might give me the chance to make a fortune. And then maybe I could come back and see Genie.
“Time will tell,” Sir Cedric said suddenly.
I looked up, wondering if I’d spoken out loud, but his attention was focused elsewhere. “Your notion of linear travel makes me wonder, is this entirely necessary? Perhaps a simpler device could work.”
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed.
Cedric looked surprised and checked his pocket watch. “Oh, dear, look at the time. It has completely gotten away from me.” Then he laughed a high-pitched little laugh. “But not for long I warrant you. No, time won’t get away from me forever. Soon I’ll mount its slippery flanks and be its master.”
“I wondered—” I began but Cedric cut me off.
“I’m afraid conjectures will have to wait till the morrow. I must go to bed. Wallace will see to a room for you. I insist you stay the night since it’s still the dark of the moon. You’ll have no luck finding a cab at this time of the morning.”
I breathed a small sigh of relief. A real bed, a warm room. The thought was as attractive as the roast beef had been.
And I wondered how long I could hide out with Sir Cedric before I wore out my welcome.
***
Genie
I carefully rearranged my few things in my room above the tea shop. Although Mrs. O’Connell had removed all of Mark’s possessions, the room was filled with him. If I sat at the table, I remembered the horrible embarrassment he had caused me when I taught him to shave. If I sat on the bed, all the feelings of the night I’d been in his arms, drunk, came rushing back.
I believed it had been a very bad idea to rent his room.
But he was gone, back to America most likely, back where he belonged. And if his ghost inhabited this place, how better to banish it than to face it head-on? Like everything else in my life, I needed to face my problems, not sidestep them. I needed to take hold of life and make it bend to my wishes.
I sat on the bed, running my hands over the fresh bedclothes. Part of me wished he were here. Part of me was glad he’d gone.
Men! They made everything so complicated. If it weren’t for them, the world would be a far better place.
With that resolve, I rose and undressed for bed. I hesitated, turning slowly around the room. Even though I knew it was silly, I blew out the lamp, as if afraid, Mark Stewart’s ghost might see me.
***
The first glimmers of morning light filtered into the room, peeked through the curtains, bringing with it the sounds of business returning to Leman Street and washing away my hazy half asleep state. The delicious scents coming up from Mrs. O’Connell’s shop tempted me even as reality settled around me like an uncomfortable coat.
Mark Stewart was gone. And I was all alone in the world.
No, it was for the best, as if God had somehow seen my foolishness and removed me from temptation, or rather, removed temptation from me.
Mark turned his back on me along with everyone else. He was a man and, for all his supposed liberal thinking, he was little different from any other man young or old. He’d brought me down to his level and then discarded me. Only Mrs. O’Connell and a few of the women had remained steadfast.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. Surely, that’s what this is all about, to remind me never to allow myself to rely on a man for anything ever again.
That realization renewed the steel in my spine. I would get myself dressed, have a quick breakfast down in the tea shop, and go to Church as any good Christian woman did on Sunday morning. No matter what else might be happening, that was one thing over which I did have control. And it was the one ritual I would not forego.
Chapter Twenty-two
Mark
The flickering oil lamps in the Underground car flared and swayed as the train complained around a curve with the sound of a dying cow. At the head of the train, a noisy coal-burning locomotive filled the underground tube with smoke, soot, and steam. The sulfurous air, the orange glare of the lanterns and the dancing shadows made the other riders seem like creatures straight out of yet another Tim Burton fantasy. What made the scene even more surreal was that I was the only one aware of it. My fellow passengers did what little they could to make themselves comfortable but otherwise seemed oblivious to their surroundings.
The car teetered for a moment then continued its rocking motion as it plunged along the darkened track. I coughed again and covered my face with my handkerchief to filter out the thickest part of the foul air. Unlike the electrified lines in the central and better parts of London, the Underground out to Aldgate was still a coal-burning steam train that just happened to run underground. It was dirty, dark, crowded, and uncomfortable. I just hoped I didn’t die from carbon monoxide before the train stopped.
For all its disadvantages, taking the Underground offered me one important advantage. The mob of passengers exiting the station at Aldgate would make me much harder to spot by any of Ian’s men that might still be on the lookout.
I’d have loitered at Sir Cedric’s through lunch if I could hav
e but Hawkesmythe was on his way to church then out to his country estate for a week or so. He’d invited me along to see his main laboratory and while the thought of getting farther from Whitechapel, eating excellent meals, and sleeping in a real bed appealed to me, I knew these were luxuries I couldn’t afford.
I had some time yet before the Ripper struck again, but I needed to spend time in the area. It was the only way to solve the mystery. And I knew I had to be very careful not to become a victim of the panic that gripped Whitechapel. Mom had used that in her book. The hostility against foreigners would only increase. Even though most of this was directed against Eastern European immigrants, I knew it wouldn’t take much for mob psychology to target anyone the crowd considered different. Even me. Especially me.
The only thing that allowed me to keep any hope alive was I knew exactly when and where the next victim would be attacked. And this time, I swore to myself, I’d be ready.
Yet for all my determination, the breakfast conversation I’d had with Sir Cedric had shaken the central theory of Plan A—that catching the Ripper would automatically return me home.
Sir Cedric rambled on in a distracted, scientific tone about the possible consequences of changing the past, something even I worried about. For Cedric, it was just another mental exercise. He approached the topic with the enthusiasm a kid showed on Christmas morning. My enthusiasm on the other hand was like that of an extravagant parent facing a debt beast after opening those credit card bills after New Year.
I didn’t want to think about the alternatives but the horrific surroundings brought my fears all back to the surface. It was like I was on a Train of the Damned, plunging into the darkness towards Fate. For the long minutes of the trip, I was forced to admit all my screw-ups before the ultimate Judge.
Deep down, I worried I might be destined to fail, that somehow I existed in a costumed version of my own past, trapped in some cycle of bad choices and missed chances biting me in the ass over and again.
But I couldn’t accept that possibility. I was certain of only one thing: that if I didn’t at least try, I would fail.
I also feared I might split history into two streams, creating two different futures: the one from which I’d come and the one in which Jack the Ripper had been caught. And I’d stay in the stream in which he played the biggest role.
There was a third possibility I tried not to acknowledge: I might be killed while trying to catch the Ripper. Surprisingly that one bothered me the least. Failure scared me, but not death. Death was at least an end to trouble and missing home.
And thinking about Genie.
***
Genie
I walked all the way to Christ Church. I could not bear the thought of going to St. Boltoph’s even though it was considerably closer. Seeing the huddled masses of the destitute would only make me feel more wretched and frightened at a time when I needed all the reassurance and comfort I could glean from church.
Seated in the pew, I realized I had made a mistake by coming here.
Even as the pastor droned on about redemption and forgiveness, I sat alone, shunned by the respectable women of my acquaintance who attended this church. Not a word was spoken, not a glance exchanged, but I knew I had fallen in their estimation far further than I actually had. I was an outcast even among the lower middle classes.
Some, it seemed, even took a smug satisfaction in my misery. I recognized several of the women in the pew several rows ahead. They had sniffed at my efforts among the poor. At the time, I suspected they felt themselves so superior to the wretched prostitutes and homeless women I’d tried to help. But now I saw they had been disdainful of me specifically, seeing me as an arrogant little girl from a good family who paraded herself around Whitechapel like a benevolent angel. How pleased they must be at my fall from grace.
The only person who shared my pew was a disheveled man in a filthy coat who’d arrived late and found no other seat. He had had no choice but to edge himself onto the very end of my pew. And even he refused to look at me.
I smoothed my skirts and tried to concentrate on the prayer book though I felt so terribly alone and so utterly humiliated. Were it not for the man who blocked the end of the pew, I might have bolted from the church.
The sermon, the hymns, and all the rituals in which I hoped to find some measure of comfortable familiarity all somehow seemed odd, distant, and even threatening. It was as if I stood before the Judgment and ran through my list of regrets and mistakes over and over.
Then, blessedly, the service ended with a swell of organ music and the familiar call and response of the Recessional. I turned to hurry the man at the end of the pew out, but he was already gone as if he, as dirty and tattered as he was, could not bear to have me accidentally brush against his sleeve.
I plunged out of the church and into the overcast day. Not stopping to consider my actions, I hurried down the street, pushing my way past other pedestrians, running blindly across the High Street all the way back to my room.
I curled into a ball on the bed, shivering despite the fact the room was warm. Yet from the depths of agony and loneliness emerged the germ of a plan. I would not let society outcast me.
Tomorrow, I would go to the East End Infirmary and apply for a position. Any position. I knew they were continually short-handed and would welcome my nursing skills.
And it would put me right in the heart of the only place and people my mother cared about.
Somehow, some way, I would confront the dragon in its den.
***
Mark
Cursing my crappy luck, I wound my way through the back streets of Whitechapel, trying to become invisible and wondering what the odds were to have blundered into the same church, to the very pew in which Genie sat. No way would I have put any cash on a bet like this back home and I’d bet on some crazy shit.
By the time I realized it was Genie sitting all alone it was too late to leave without drawing attention to myself. I only hoped she hadn’t looked too closely at me.
Damn, I knew I should have kept to my original idea and gone straight to the Marketplace in Spitalfields to meet with Madame Zharova. But no, I had to hear the music from the church and after that macabre ride in the Underground I followed the stupid urge to go inside and slide into the only available seat on the aisle.
I really hoped Genie hadn’t noticed me. She’d never believe it was purely a coincidence. Considering how things had been left between us, she might think I stalked her. I slowed, then stopped and leaned against a wall. I had no idea what she’d think. All I knew was that every time I was around her I got into some kind of trouble.
I pushed away from the wall and continued down the debris-littered alley. The contrast to the quiet of the church was a big one. Loud voices drifted out from the windows of the tenements. Cries, arguments, and friendly conversations echoed in the alley as kids ran by playing. Down the street, two drunk women attempted a brawl amidst cheering onlookers but neither woman was steady enough on her feet to be a threat to the other. Their blows were mostly verbal.
The market square was almost empty and I wondered why I even bothered to come. Yet Madame Zharova had said to come back in three days. This was the third day. The booth appeared deserted but the woman’s voice called to me as I approached. She stayed behind the curtain and I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
“I need a word,” she said. “For something shiny and silvery but not silver.”
Without thinking, I said, “Aluminum?”
“Yes,” Madame Zharova replied thoughtfully. She repeated the word as if it were some magical incantation in a foreign language.
I tried the British pronunciation Sir Cedric had used. “Aluminium?”
“Yes!” She brightened. Then added, “You may go.” I stood staring at the closed curtain, feeling that sense of unreality the way I had on the Underground.
I’d gone completely nuts. That was the only explanation for it. Th
is whole thing was just a hallucination. I had to be in a hospital somewhere, on life support. And this was all just a bad, bad dream.
A rat scampered over my foot. I jumped back only to stumble into the booth opposite Madame Zharova’s. My head slammed into one of its supports and I swore I saw cartoonish stars before my vision cleared.
Madame Zharova’s voice came from behind the curtain again. “On Monday perhaps you will come again and buy something.”
“Sure. Monday.”
I turned and ran out of the square.
I slunk into the Ten Bells pub and huddled in a booth in the back to try to sort things out. As I nursed my beer, a woman plopped down on the bench beside me. I glanced up. She was kind of young and actually pretty compared to the other hookers I’d met. And she was sort of familiar but not in the I know her way Annie Chapman had been. I was sure I hadn’t seen any pics of this one alive or dead. I guess I’d seen her around at the tea shop or something.
“I’m not buying anything you’re selling,” I said.
She eyed me up and down, then laughed a dirty little laugh. “A bit the worse for wear, are ya, my American friend, now you got your fancy lady living in?”
I half choked on the beer then turned and stared at her. “What?”
She crossed her arms and smirked. “Oh, and you think no one would notice her moving into your room over the tea shop? Made herself quite at home from the look of things.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Too late to play coy. Miss High and Mighty M’lady Trambley,” she said. “That’s the reason her parents put her on the street. The only reason there could be. And all this talk of you gone back to America didn’t fool anyone but them that wanted to be fooled.”