The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack bas-1

by Mark Hodder

  Jenny always arrived at two and worked without a break until eight in the evening.

  Her parents called it training. Mrs. Twiddle called it a job. Jenny Shepherd called it slavery.

  She had to admit, though, that in the six months since she started, she'd learned many skills. She could polish silver until it was as clear as a mirror; she knew how to remove stains from cotton and silk; she could set a tea tray so that it was properly balanced; she could bake bread and gut a fish; she could do a whole host of things that she hadn't been able to do before.

  On this particular summer evening, as jenny left her employer's house, she was feeling particularly exhausted, for she'd spent the entire six hours on her hands and knees scrubbing the floors. She ached all over and wanted nothing more than to be home and in bed.

  It was humid and the air was thick with the clawing stench of the Thames. The sun was low but it was still light enough to cut cross the park in defiance of her father's strict edict that she should always follow the road home.

  She entered through a gate and dragged herself along the path. Her maid's uniform felt hot and uncomfortable.

  Home. Bed, she thought, and timed it to her steps: Home. Bed. Home. Bed. Home. Bed.

  What was that?

  A movement in the bush off to her left.

  Probably a vagrant finding a sheltered spot for the evening; a place where the bobbies wouldn't see him and move him along.

  She started to give the bush a wide berth, just in case. This corner of the park was secluded.

  "You can never be too careful, jenny my lass," she whispered, quoting her father. "Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open."

  Home. Bed. Home. Bed. Home. Bed.

  "Jennifer Shepherd!"

  The voice, a loud whisper, came from the bush.

  She stopped and looked at it. There was someone lurking in there; she could see patches of white clothing.

  "Jennifer Shepherd!"

  Someone who knew her!

  "Who's that?" she demanded. "Is that you up to your tricks again, Herbert Stubbs? Aplayin' highwayman, are we? Dick Turpin is it? I'll not stand and I'll not deliver, my little lad. Ho no! It's off 'ome for me, and a nice long sleep 'twixt cool sheets. So you stay in that there bush and wait for the next mug what comes along!"

  She turned and made to walk away, then stopped and faced the bush again.

  "Hey, Dick Turpin!" she called. "Come and escort me 'ome like a proper little gentleman. Your mam'll be wantin' you back for tea! This is no time for little boys to be out and about!"

  Silence.

  "Herbert! Come out o' there at once!"

  The bush rustled.

  "Even highwaymen have to eat, my boy!" she declared. "And maybe you'll-"

  She stopped dead, her mouth open, her eyes wide. Her legs began to shake.

  A tall, gangling figure rose up from the bush and strode out on long storklike legs. Blue flames played around its big black head. It reached her in three strides, squatted, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  "Is there a mark on your chest?" it hissed.

  She tried to move, to scream, to run, but her body wouldn't move.

  "Answer me, girl!" snarled the creature. "On your chest, over the heart, is there a birthmark shaped like a rainbow?"

  Home. Bed. Home. Bed. Home. Bed.

  Urine trickled down her leg.

  A horrible whining noise suddenly surrounded her. It started quietly but built rapidly until it hurt her ears. The thing raised an arm and swung it down, the flat of its hand cracking against her cheek. The whining stopped and she realised that it had been coming from her.

  "No!" she sobbed.

  "You don't have it?"

  "No!" she said loudly.

  "No birthmark?"

  "NO!" she screamed, and, tearing herself out of the monster's grasp, she hurled herself along the path, running faster than she'd ever run before, the tears streaming from her eyes, her aches and pains forgotten.

  October 9, 1837

  She was aged fifteen and had been living with her employer from Mondays to Fridays since she was twelve.

  It was like being sent to gaol on a weekly basis.

  The first rule of the prison was that she should only ever speak when spoken to.

  The second was that whenever she encountered her mistress or master or their son in a hallway, she must turn to face the wall until they'd passed. When the son was on his own, he always brushed a hand over her bottom as he walked by, which she didn't like at all.

  The third was that she was obliged to pay for anything that she damaged. This was the rule she hated the most, for Mary Stevens was a clumsy girl and the way the year had gone so far, she'd be lucky to have any money left by the end of it.

  The weekends! Goodness, how she loved the weekends! Every Friday night, she left her employer's house on Lavender Hill, walked along Cut Throat Lane until she reached Clapham Common, then skirted around it to Raspberry Lane, where her parents lived, for two happy days at home.

  This Saturday had been her brother's fifth birthday and her mother had sewn together a little soldier's uniform for him from scraps of material which she'd scrimped and saved over the past few months, whilst her father had carved a rifle from a long piece of driftwood.

  As she walked back toward her employer's house along Cut Throat Lane, Mary remembered her brother's expression of pure joy as the gifts had been presented. How proudly he'd marched back and forth! And how eagerly, at her father's barked command, had he stood to attention with his chest out and his shoulders back.

  "Now then, Private Stevens," her father had said in his sternest voice. "I see your uniform is unbuttoned. Her Majesty Queen Victoria may be new to the throne but that doesn't mean she doesn't have established rules and regulations for her brave boys in the Army! Let me tell you, young man, that bright shiny buttons are a requirement for every soldier! What say you?"

  Her brother had glanced uncertainly at his mother.

  "I-I-I-" he'd stammered.

  At which point Mary had stepped forward and said: "I think I might be able to help. Happy birthday, Private Stevens!"

  Her present to him had been six gleaming brass buttons.

  She laughed to herself as she strode along, holding in her mind the image of her brother's delighted expression. Far better to dwell on that than on the week to come.

  "Mary Stevens!"

  The hoarse voice sounded from behind the fence at her side.

  She stopped. "Yes?"

  "Are you Mary Stevens?"

  "I am, sir. And who are you?"

  Something flew up over the fence, over her head, and into the lane.

  She cried out in shock, spun around, and was grabbed by the throat.

  A hideous face glared into hers and Mary's legs gave way. She dropped to the cobbles. The thing holding her followed her down, its grip not loosening, bending over her.

  "Your chest, girl! Is there a mark on it?"

  She tried to scream but only a croak came out.

  "Stop struggling, you fool! Answer me!"

  "Wha-what?" she gulped.

  Suddenly the fear flooding through her galvanised her into action. She started to thrash about, her arms and legs flailing, her mouth opening wide to emit a scream.

  Before any sound could emerge, the thing transferred its grip to the collar of her coat and yanked her upright by it. The garment tore open.

  Finally, the scream came out.

  "Shut up! Shut up!" shouted her attacker.

  But she couldn't stop.

  "Fuck this!" snarled the tall, uncanny figure, and, snatching at her dress, it violently jerked the material, ripping it and the underclothes beneath down from her neck to her waist.

  She fought wildly, twisting this way and that, hitting and kicking, shrieking at the top of her voice.

  The thing, struggling to hold her, lost its grip and she fell backward into the fence with such force that it bent with a splintering crack and collapsed w
ith her on top of it.

  "Oy!" came a distant shout. "What's going on? Leave her alone!"

  The thing turned its black globular head to look along the lane.

  Mary heard running footsteps drawing closer.

  It looked back down at her, its eyes on her chest.

  She grabbed the material of her dress and drew it over herself.

  "It's not you, Mary Stevens," said the thing, and suddenly it bounded high into the air.

  "Bloody hell!" exclaimed a man's voice.

  "What is it?" came another's.

  She saw the thing jumping away, taking prodigious leaps, and then it was gone and gentle hands were helping her up.

  "Are you hurt, love?"

  "Steady now."

  "Pull your coat together, lass. Cover yourself."

  "Here, take my arm. Can you walk?"

  "Why, it's Mary Stevens! I know her old man!"

  "What was it, Mary? What was that thing?"

  "Did you see the way it jumped? Blimey, it must have springs in its heels!"

  "Was it a man, Mary?"

  The young girl looked around at the concerned faces. "I don't know," she whispered.

  January to May 1838

  Edward Oxford waited in the shade of an ugly monument in the grounds of St. David's Church on Silverthorne Road. He knew that Deborah Goodkind attended the Sunday service regularly throughout this year, yet he had been here on three consecutive Sundays in January, two in February, and this was his second in March, and hadn't seen anyone fitting her description.

  "If the information the Original gave to the marquess was wrong, I'll never find the little bitch," he muttered to himself. He laughed. He didn't know why.

  There was snow on the ground. He was cold. The thermal controls in his time suit had stopped working.

  People started filing out of the church. He hadn't seen her go in but he may have missed her in the crowd. He was getting a clearer view of people's faces now.

  He drew back a little, concerned that the sparks from his control unit might attract attention. He pulled his cloak around it.

  Half an hour later, the last straggler left the church.

  "Where the hell are you?" he muttered.

  He crouched, jumped up, and landed one month later and ninety minutes earlier.

  It was raining heavily.

  He banged his fist against the side of the monument.

  "Bloody hell. Bloody hell. Come on! Come on!"

  The congregation started to arrive. Their faces were obscured by hats and umbrellas.

  Oxford swore and leaped to May 25.

  After waiting for just over an hour, he saw her at last, coming out of the church.

  She was a small, mousy little thing; her hair colourless, her skin white, her limbs thin and knobbly. She said a few words to the vicar, then to an elderly woman, then to a young couple, then walked down the path, out of the churchyard, and turned left.

  A strangely warm mist clung to the city but it wasn't thick enough for concealment and Oxford knew that he stood a good chance of being spotted.

  He'd have to risk it.

  He vaulted over the graveyard wall into someone's back garden and went from there to the next one, bounding along behind the houses that lined Silverthorne Road until he reached an alleyway. Striding to the corner, he peered around it back in the direction from whence he'd come.

  Moments later, the girl walked into view.

  Luck was with him; the road was quiet.

  Oxford leaned against the wall and listed.

  Her light footsteps grew closer.

  He reached out as she passed and jerked her into the mouth of the alley, twisted her around, and pushed her against a wall, clapping a hand over her mouth.

  He pressed his face close to hers and asked the question.

  "Is there a birthmark on your chest?"

  She shook her head.

  "None? Nothing shaped like a rainbow?"

  Again, a shake of the head.

  Oxford let go of her and, with a last look at her strangely calm face, strode away and sprang to a different time and place.

  Deborah Goodkind stood motionless, her shoulders against the bricks.

  She shook her head once more and smiled.

  She raised her right hand and banged the heel of it against her ear.

  She did it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And she started to giggle.

  And she didn't stop.

  Not until the year 1849, when she died in Bedlam.

  October 10 and November 28, 1837

  Lizzie Fraser, like Deborah Goodkind, was not where-or when-she was supposed to be.

  Edward Oxford was close to where he'd accosted Mary Stevens the previous day. He was crouching behind a wall on Cedars Mews, a narrow lane leading off from Cedars Road, which crossed Lavender Hill not far to the north.

  This lane was part of the route that Lizzie Fraser walked to reach her home on Taybridge Road after she finished at the haberdashery shop where she worked every day.

  In theory, she passed this way at around eight o'clock each evening, but it was now Tuesday and Oxford had been here seven times so far without seeing her.

  His suit was sending small shocks through him at regular intervals.

  From behind the wall, he could see people passing the end of the lane. Their tightly laced clothing and restrained mannerisms were not real. Their horses and carriages were illusions. The noises of the city were an incoherent mumble scratching unceasingly at his consciousness. He vaguely remem bered how, when he first arrived in the past, London had seemed weirdly silent. How wrong! How wrong! The cacophony never stopped! Nightmare. Nightmare. Nightmare.

  He beat his fists against his helmeted head, burning his knuckles in the blue flames but feeling nothing.

  "Every day at eight o'clock, damn you!" he groaned.

  No.

  He couldn't do this any more.

  "Find her!" he said. Then he looked up at the clouded sky and bellowed: "Find her!"

  He hurdled over the wall and ran out of the mews into the main street.

  Women screamed. Men uttered exclamations.

  Oxford sprang onto the side of a passing brougham. It lurched and veered under his impact. The coachman gave a shout of fright. The horses whinnied and bolted, nearly jerking the stilt-man loose.

  "Where is Lizzie?" he screamed.

  "Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!" cried the driver.

  "Tell me, you damned clown! Where is Lizzie?"

  The horses pounded along the street, with people crying out and scattering before them, the carriage swinging and swaying dangerously behind, its wheels thundering over the cobbles.

  "Get off? Get off!" yelled the terror-stricken coachman.

  Oxford hung on desperately, with one of his stilts dragging along the road.

  The horses stampeded headlong into a small street market and their flanks caught the side of a cheese stall, sending it flying, before they then ploughed head on through a poultry stall. Chickens, geese, feathers, and fragments of wood went spinning into the air.

  Shouts. Screams. A police whistle.

  "Fuck!" said Oxford, and hurled himself from the vehicle. He hit the ground and bounced fifteen feet into the air, landed, and started running.

  A scream of dismay came from the coachman but was cut off when, with a terrific crash, the horses and carriage collided with the corner of a shop. The splintering of wood and bone was immediately drowned by the smash of breaking glass and masonry as the side of the building collapsed onto the wrecked vehicle.

  Oxford sprang through the panicking crowd and started laughing hysterically as men, women, and children dived out of his way.

  "Go away!" he ranted. "You're all history! You're all history! Ha ha ha! Where's my ancestor? Restore! Restore!"

  He jumped over a nine-foot wall into a patch of wasteland, stumbled, fell, and rolled.

  Lying on his back, he dug his fing
ers into the grass beneath him.

  "Where the hell am I?" he asked.

  Shouts came from beyond the wall.

  He sat and pushed himself upright, issued instructions to his control panel, took two big strides, and sprang upward.

  He landed back behind the wall on Mews Lane on November 28 at a quarter to eight.

  Edward Oxford squatted and wept; and he waited.

  She walked past half an hour later.

  Lizzie Fraser was just fourteen years old.

  In the year 1837, she was considered mature enough to work. In Oxford's age, she was just a child.

  The tears continued to run down his cheeks as he quietly called: "Lizzie Fraser!"

  January 12, 1839

  Tilly Adams was seventeen years old. On Saturdays, whatever the weather, she spent the mornings walking in Battersea Fields, picking flowers in the summer and catching insects in the winter. She dreamed of becoming a botanist, though she knew this was an unrealistic ambition.

  "You must learn to cook, to sew, and to maintain a household," her mother insisted. "No man wants a wife who knows the name of every insect but can't grill a lamb chop. Besides, you'll be that much more successful as a mother and wife. What women scientists are there, after all?"

  The destiny that her mother recommended-and which society insisted on-was, she knew, her only real option, but while she still could, she was going to walk in the park on Saturday mornings to do the thing she loved best.

  " Lucanus cervus!" she exclaimed, bending to look at a large black insect she'd spotted crawling at the side of the path. A stag beetle.

  A long thin shadow fell across it.

  "Tilly Adams?"

  She looked up.

  She fainted.

  Later, a young man spotted her, took out his flask, and poured brandy between her lips.

  She regained her senses, coughing and spluttering, looked down at herself, and uttered a cry of shame, for the front of her dress had been unbuttoned and her underwear pushed up.

  "I didn't do it," said the young man, reddening. "I found you like that."

  Tilly Adams stood up, put her clothes in order, and ran all the way home.

  She never spoke about the stilt-man.