A Murderous Relation

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I had to agree. The fashion for befeathered millinery including heads was a ghoulish one.

  She went on. “No, miss. This suits me well enough. I make flowers for some of the less expensive suppliers when my hands are nimble. When the wind is out of the east, they swell up like Cumberland sausages, they do, and it’s all I can do to button my boots.” She thrust out her hands and I saw they were swollen across the knuckles, marked with rheumatism, one of the innumerable disadvantages of the life of the poor—sketchy nutrition, damp beds, and chilly nights spent in fogbound streets.

  “That’s when I find myself a fellow for the evening and make a little coin that way,” she said, as if it were as natural as anything.

  Stoker returned, subsiding heavily into his seat as Elsie signaled for another bottle. We sipped the vile stuff as if it were vintage champagne. It would never do to insult our hostess, and Stoker’s innate courtesy was the stuff of legend.

  He glanced down at her hands and touched one knuckle lightly with a fingertip. “Rheumatism. November is coming along, Elsie. You need to sleep inside.”

  She bristled. “That don’t always happen, Mr. Stoker,” she told him, her mouth slightly mulish.

  “What about the allowance from the temperance worker you told me about?” he asked gently. Elsie and I exchanged quick glances, neither of us willing to reveal to Stoker that his little fiction had been exposed. (It has long been my experience that men are confused and sometimes upset by the truth. It is a kindness to let them go on believing what they like in such circumstances.)

  “Sometimes I helps a few of the other girls out,” she told him, raising her chin. “Long Bet needed new boots last week, and Mary Jane lacked a few shillings to renting her own room. She’s got a snug little place of her own, just around the corner,” she added. The dreams in this part of the city were as small and pinched as the faces. Four walls to call one’s own. A hot meal, a pair of shoes with sound soles.

  I thought of the little Gothic temple that Lord Rosemorran had given over to me to use as my own, a bolt-hole where I was snug and safe. I had meals cooked in his kitchens, a generous wage. Elsie would be mistaken by many for a drab, and I might be taken often for a lady, but neither of these was entirely the truth. We were, both of us, women who worked, making our own way in the world. I had expertise and knowledge, but my greatest advantage had been the sheer luck of being born into a gentler class. I might fall a little, but Elsie, whatever she did, could never climb.

  Stoker went on, careful not to scold. “Where do you sleep when you’ve given your coin away?”

  She shrugged one bony shoulder. “The corner of a yard, sometimes. A quiet doorway.”

  “Sleeping rough is dangerous,” Stoker told her. “Particularly now.”

  He did not say the fiend’s name; there was no need. Everyone in London knew of the murderous devil who stalked Whitechapel, exercising his brutality upon the women who lived there.

  Elsie gave him a fond look and patted his hand. “Lord love you, I can take care of myself, Mr. Stoker. Don’t you worry.”

  But a line had etched itself between his brows, and I knew he would think of Elsie, stubborn, incorrigible, generous Elsie, sharing her meager bounty with her friends.

  She rose suddenly. “Come on, then, ducks. You cannot go haring about the city dressed as you are. I’ve spoken to a few of my friends. We’ve had a whip-round to see the lot of you dressed decently and a bite to eat.”

  She led the way upstairs and showed us into her accommodation for the night—a small room fitted with a narrow bed and a washstand with a cracked bowl. Eddy managed the stairs under Stoker’s ungentle coaxing and flopped onto the bed.

  Elsie gave him a fond look. “He’s a pretty sort of lad, isn’t he? I imagine he has a mother what loves him dearly. Just look at those moustaches!” She shook her head. “But he cannot hold his drink and that’s God’s own truth.”

  He burbled out a snore just then, and Elsie left to find us clothes while Stoker and I took turns washing with a pitcher of cold water, shivering but happy to be at least marginally cleaner than we were. I stripped off the robes of Boadicea at last as Stoker peeled away the shirt he had lent Eddy, the fine cotton stiff and crackling with dried blood.

  Elsie appeared, her arms full of garments, and clucked over Stoker’s injured flesh. “I brought something for those bruises. Seen it often enough with the sailors who fall to brawling,” she added. She produced strips of bandages and a bottle of ferociously pungent liniment. “This will help.” Without waiting for permission, she bent to her task, pouring a palmful of liniment into her hand and slapping it onto his skin.

  He howled in protest, but she would not let him squirm away, holding him firmly until the nasty stuff had penetrated his flesh. “Now, isn’t that just like a man?” she demanded. “Kicking up such a fuss over a little good horse liniment. I made less noise when I was in labor.”

  “You have children?” I asked as I shook out the petticoats she had brought for me.

  “Aye, miss. A pair of them. Molly is in service with a wine merchant and Jemmy is a deckhand on one of them great ships with Cunard,” she said with unmistakable pride.

  “Do you see them often?” I stepped into the petticoats and tied them firmly about my waist.

  “Heavens no, miss. That would never do,” she said with no trace of regret. “They’re my flesh and blood and I love them, but I’ll not have them living a life like mine. They need better, and if I catch them in this part of the city, I’d tan them properly.” I did not doubt it. Most mothers in her situation were content to let their children follow in their footsteps, their future bound by the limitations of poverty and lack of imagination. But Elsie had glimpsed a bigger world, and I marveled that she had managed to launch her children into it.

  She bossed Stoker into a set of borrowed clothes, down to the boots. “Got those off Tom from the bar,” she said proudly. “He reckons he can sell them to you for three shillings.”

  Stoker handed her Tiberius’ empty notecase, a fine affair of bottle green leather set in silver. “It hasn’t a tuppence in it, but I can promise Tom will get far more than three shillings in pawn for it.”

  She hurried away to make the trade whilst Stoker wrestled Eddy into a moderately clean shirt of striped cotton, tying a jaunty scarf around his neck for warmth. He dropped the slumbering prince back onto the bed as Elsie returned several minutes later with word that Tom had accepted the barter, and just then another figure appeared, a young woman, blond, with her hair piled high in an attempt at glamour.

  “This is my friend,” Elsie said, “Mary Jane.”

  The girl thrust out her hand. “I prefer Marie Jeanette,” she said with a touch of reproof. Elsie gave her a light push.

  “You’re Mary Jane Kelly, and don’t you go putting on airs, my love,” she said in an indulgent voice.

  The girl thrust a dress at me. “Elsie said as you needed something to wear. It’s my second best,” she told me.

  “That is very kind of you,” I began, but she waved me off.

  “Any friend of Elsie’s. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have my room,” she said proudly. The dress she had brought was rather too short and in a virulent green hue found only in the more lavish jungles. But it was a far sight better than anything I could call my own at the moment, and I thanked her again.

  Mary Jane busied herself buttoning me up the back as Elsie plucked the violet-strewn hat from her own head and pinned it firmly into place. “There you are, miss. Proper dressed you are now, although I cannot like those boots with that dress. You ought to have had black kid.”

  I peeped down at the audacious scarlet boots she had found for me. “Never mind. I am very grateful to you, Elsie. And you, Mary Jane. You must let us pay for the clothes.”

  She waved me off. “Never you mind, miss. We were happy to do it, all of us.”
>
  I was deeply touched. The people who made their living in Whitechapel had little enough, but they shared it willingly. It was the sort of place where tea leaves once brewed would be gladly handed to a friend for a second go. I knew better than to insult her by speaking again of money, but I gave Stoker a significant look and he nodded almost imperceptibly. He understood, as did I, that nothing makes a person feel so rich as the ability to give to another, and to rob Elsie of her generosity would be no kindness. In time, Stoker would ensure Elsie received some little sum more and she would share her bounty, we had no doubt. Clothes were a commodity in that quarter and might be sold or pawned for the price of a meal or a bed. To have been given such riches was a testament to how generous Elsie had been with her friends in their own times of need.

  But the clothes were the least of what we were given that night. Elsie sent a boy to the cookshop in the next street and he brought back two covered plates, still steaming.

  “I got none for your man Ed,” she said, nodding in satisfaction as she presented the plates, a delectable smell wafting from the thick gravy bubbling through vents in crusts of golden pastry. “He’ll not want food for a while, I’m thinking, but the pair of you should eat up now.”

  Stoker stuck a fork into the pastry, sending a river of rich gravy spilling onto the plate.

  “Eel pie,” he said happily, falling on the food with gusto.

  I ate mine almost as swiftly—as much from hunger as from the fear that Stoker would help himself to it if I did not. We had a little bowl for spitting out the bones, and as we ate, Elsie bustled about, neatly folding our own clothes into a basket.

  “Mind you,” she fussed, “I would rather have had the chance to wash them properly, but I think that tunic of yours is fit for nothing but the rag basket,” she warned me.

  “I cannot think of when I would possibly have need of it,” I assured her. “Keep them to sell to the ragpicker.” The items were hired and Tiberius had given surety for them, but they were little better than remnants at this point and the tiara was rolling around somewhere in the darkness of the Club de l’Étoile. At least I would be able to return the armillae, I reflected grimly.

  Elsie clucked and fretted, as fastidious as a spinster as we mopped up the last of the eel gravy with the bread she had brought. The meal was filling and hot, and that was all that may be said in its favor. In spite of its delicious aroma, the eel pie was greasy and even the bread was unsavory, with a strange, gritty quality.

  “That’s the plaster of Paris,” Elsie said when I remarked upon it, pronouncing it “Paree.”

  “Plaster?” I asked.

  “The bakers add it to the flour to make it stretch further,” she said with a matter-of-factness that told me she expected nothing better.

  “They adulterate the bread?”

  “And the milk and the meat and the preserves,” Stoker put in. “There’s not a pail of milk between here and Guernsey that doesn’t have chalk mixed in.”

  “Lord only knows how I managed to keep my little ones alive on it,” Elsie agreed.

  “Unconscionable,” I said firmly, making a note to send her a loaf of the good white bread always at our table in Marylebone. There were many things I took for granted, living in an earl’s household. We ate few meals with his lordship, but his kitchens provided our food, and it was beneath Cook’s dignity to send out anything less than first-rate, even to his lordship’s employees.

  Elsie shrugged. “’Tis the way it has always been, miss. No need to get into a bother over it. Now, Mr. Stoker, you eat up the last of that pie and I will take you down the back stairs.”

  Stoker shoved the last bite of pie into his mouth and got to his feet. The borrowed boots were clearly too small and painful, but at least he no longer had to traverse London in his stocking feet. He roused Eddy by the expedient of an application of cold water to his face.

  Eddy came to with a start, blinking furiously, but he caught sight of Elsie and smothered his protests in the nick of time, contenting himself with a scowl until he noticed his clean shirt. He smoothed it appreciatively and Elsie gave him a smile.

  “You’re welcome, lad. That stripe suits you, it does.”

  He inclined his head with all the graciousness his breeding had instilled. Elsie hurried us down a narrow staircase clearly meant for the maidservants. A single guttering candle illuminated the dingy enclosed space, and we groped our way carefully down to the bottom, stopping at a small door. Elsie turned to Stoker. She reached beneath her skirts and drew out a long, slender blade. “You’ll want a weapon, Mr. Stoker,” she said flatly.

  He shook his head. “Keep it. If you insist on sleeping rough, you will need some means to defend yourself.”

  “Lord love you, sir, I’ve got one better,” she said with a grin, producing a wicked-looking knife with sharp serrations. She tucked it away again and gestured.

  “Now, this passage leads to the yard. Cross it and in the back wall you will see a door opening onto Flower and Dean Street. Close the door firmly behind you, mind, and turn hard to the left to take you to Brick Lane. Follow that towards the river to Whitechapel High Street. There will be plenty of folk still about so you shouldn’t attract much attention, but keep to the shadows just the same.”

  We promised we would and with many thanks on our side and many protestations of embarrassment on hers, we were away, moving into the darkness. We followed her instructions, crossing the yard of the gin palace and finding the little door set into the wall. We slipped through it, into the street. It was a small thoroughfare, scarcely more than an alley, connecting two larger roads, and here and there it was pierced with a pool of warm yellow light from a lamppost. The lamps flickered and I saw that a soft, veiling mist was rising off the river on the cooling night air. It swirled and thickened as we walked, muffling some noises and bringing others startlingly close.

  Wordlessly, I joined hands with Stoker and Eddy. It was an eerie walk through the London streets that night, moving from shadow into golden light and back again, the fog rolling in, obscuring faces and figures of those we passed. The changing weather had driven some folk inside. It was quieter than I would have expected, with footsteps sounding only occasionally near us. Ours clipped sharply against the pavement, Stoker’s reassuring and solid next to my quicker, lighter step, Eddy’s almost silent in his evening shoes. I began to identify those who passed us by the sound of their stride. The hesitant, birdlike noises belonged to an old woman, bent with age and rheumatism, while the slow and ponderous stride that came after was a hefty fellow, well into his cups but not entirely drunk, stepping with the exaggerated care of one who is certain only of his uncertainty.

  They walked by, the mist parting only long enough for us to glimpse a snippet of a lined face or a portly figure, and we were alone again in the darkness, ears pricked like a pointer’s, straining for any sound of pursuers.

  We made another turn but must have got it wrong, for instead of the broad main road of Whitechapel High Street, we found ourselves in a narrow and evil-looking alley, its broken curbstones and filthy gutters barely visible in the light of the single streetlamp.

  “Stoker,” I began. I did not have to finish.

  “I know. We had better retrace our footsteps,” he said. His tone was one of thorough annoyance, but I knew better than to imagine it was with me. “I wasn’t paying careful enough attention,” he told me. “These bloody boots are strangling my feet. Give me a minute.”

  He stepped to the side, bending double to tug them from his feet. He withdrew the knife that Elsie had given him, turning the blade to the boots to slash the insteps. Eddy chose that moment to be lavishly sick in the gutter, heaving out the remainder of the cheap gin he had imbibed. I moved a little distance away and waited, standing alone under the light of the guttering streetlamp.

  I felt his presence before I saw him, just another shadow in the darkness.
But he detached himself from the gloom, moving towards me, a deeper blackness than the nothingness behind him. His height was unremarkable, his coat black as a raven’s wing. His hat was pulled low over his features and a muffler wound tightly about the lower half of his face concealed the rest. He moved with purpose, coming closer as I turned to see him.

  I realized how it must look—a lone female figure, standing under a streetlamp in that particular quarter. I wore a conspicuous dress, cut low and edged in cheap lace, fashioned to draw the eye. My face still bore traces of paint from the costume ball, and the hat upon my head was gaudy with violets meant also to draw the eye.

  For many years I have thought of that moment. I have been menaced countless times, faced death upon more occasions than I care to number. But never in the whole of my life have I felt a presence as predatory as that one. He made no motion to harm me; said nothing; threatened nothing. I did not even sense violence in him; that was not what made my marrow cold. I sensed only anticipation, rising excitement in the quickening of his step, the sharp intake of breath.

  Just then, Stoker straightened from behind me. “There, that ought to take care of the bloody things,” he said, his voice ringing through the mist. Eddy joined us, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

  “I do apologize,” he said, sounding haggard. “I think perhaps that bottle of spirits may not have been of the highest quality.”

  The shadowy man did not slacken his progress. He merely changed his course, turning swiftly aside, but still coming so near to me that his hand brushed my skirts as he passed. And as his glove lingered on the tawdry fabric, there was a breath, a single slow, moaning exhalation that ruffled the hair at my cheek.

  And then he was gone, moving into the shadows. Stoker and Eddy had not even noticed him passing, so subtle and quiet were his movements. But I would never forget him for as long as I lived, and I knew that evil had touched me that night.