The Whitechapel Girl Read online

  Jacob gulped at his coffee and shook his head. ‘You are wrong. So very wrong. They will believe in you, Ettie, they will.’

  Ettie carried on eating in silence.

  ‘Don’t fail me now, Ettie. Don’t lose your nerve.’

  She set down her knife and fork very deliberately, wiped her mouth on the napkin in the way he had shown her, and put it beside her plate before she spoke. ‘Jacob,’ she said, levelly. ‘I’ll tell you the truth. I’m scared. I’ve heard about those blokes who deliberately go spirit-grabbing for a laugh. Say they do that to me? Say I get caught tricking them and they call the coppers?’

  ‘Ettie, they do those things when amateurs make it obvious that they are trying to gull the sitters. When they have their cheap pieces of cloth dipped in substances to glow in the dark, and give themselves away by forgetting that their hands too will be stained. They make mistakes. We will make none. We will be professional. The best. I have so much knowledge, so many skills.’ He clasped his hands in tight fists and threw back his head. ‘Ettie, we will become the greatest.’

  He stood up and moved round the table towards her. She sat very still, bewildered and threatened by his sudden passion.

  He stood behind her, looming over her. His breathing slowed, and he placed his hands gently on her shoulders.

  ‘I have seen what people are prepared to do to have proof of the spirit world, Ettie. I have seen the lengths to which they will go to convince themselves that this world,’ he gestured wildly around him, ‘is not all there is. People want to believe in anything that gives meaning to their dull, inconsequential lives. Let me show you something.’

  Jacob held up his hand to indicate that she should remain sitting while he took down a leather-bound book from the shelves. He held the spine towards her.

  ‘Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ he recited from memory.

  ‘Blimey, what an ’andle,’ said Ettie.

  Jacob was too obsessed with finding the page he wanted to reproach her for her relapse into her old way of speaking. ‘Listen. The man who wrote this – Charles Mackay – certainly knew man’s folly for novelty, Ettie. He tells, here in these pages,’ Jacob held the open book towards her, ‘how on the continent men were once prepared to kill one another over tulip bulbs. Can you imagine?’

  Ettie shrugged, discomforted by his excitement. ‘Can’t say as I can, really. No.’ She paused. ‘So, what’s a tulip then?’

  ‘A flower.’

  ‘And they went mad over these tulips, did they?’

  ‘Yes. They were the latest wonder, just as you shall be, Ettie. The rarest bloom. The wonder whom everyone desires to meet and possess.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Ettie dubiously.

  ‘Let me read you what he says about the tulip bulbs. No, let me read first what he writes on the pursuit of fortune-telling.’ He flipped eagerly through the pages. ‘Right, this is it: “Upon no subject has it been so easy to deceive the world as upon this.” And he’s right, Ettie. We can do it. Together.’

  ‘I don’t know about all this, Jacob. I didn’t realise it was going to be so serious. I thought we were going to do a few shows round the gaffs and then maybe the music halls when we’d practised enough.’

  ‘Would you object to providing a little amusement in the drawing rooms of the idle rich who have nothing better to do with their time and money?’

  ‘It ain’t – isn’t – that. I just haven’t got the experience of nothing like it. How will I know what to do? I know you’ve been teaching me and everything, but I don’t think I could swing it, Jacob. I really don’t and that’s the truth.’

  ‘I have all the experience we need,’ he assured her, his face lighting up as he told her how the public could always be persuaded to want what they never knew they needed. ‘Guaranteed cures from wonder drugs,’ he said, laughing loudly. ‘Gladly purchased after rumours of fever scares had been spread, of course. Games of Three Card Monte and Thimble Rigging in shabby market places in order to get the stakes for bigger games, where rich men can’t wait to throw their golden guineas in my direction. Promises to relieve rich curse victims from certain death.’

  ‘What curses?’ Ettie wanted to know as she grew increasingly tantalised by his enthusiasm.

  ‘The curses I convinced them were on them in the first place.’

  She couldn’t help laughing out loud. Her fears were not entirely forgotten, but she was now excited as well as intrigued. Her head spun as Jacob became more animated in his recalling of his exploits in his journeys around the world.

  ‘And, the wiles I learned from two women from the United States of America – the big one that we can do, Ettie. The Pow-Wow.’

  His eyes glowed with promises of future glory. Ettie could only stare.

  ‘It’s so simple, Ettie, just like I’ve shown you. The seances. They love them. The trance. The distorted voice. Messages from the spirits. Vague words which have significance and meaning for almost anyone. They love the flattery, thinking that the spirits have come to give a message just to them.’ He threw back his head in the uninhibited way which always alarmed her. ‘Ettie, Ettie. We can do what we like. Forget the penny gaffs, they are in the past. We can do anything.’

  ‘Say they don’t believe in us?’

  ‘I’ve told you, Ettie. They will.’

  ‘Say they don’t?’

  ‘Then we blame them. Say it is their fault. They don’t have sufficient faith or mental powers to assist the spirits in their return journey to this plane. Nobody likes to be a failure, Ettie. It’s foolproof. We can never be proved wrong. By the time we have prepared them, with ritual and mystery, they will believe anything we say.’

  He went and stood in the corner of the room with his back to her. Then he suddenly turned round, his chin low to his chest, his eyes hooded.

  ‘There must be no animals within ten yards of this room,’ he chanted. ‘The spirits must not be disturbed. No green silk can be allowed. Oh,’ he moaned in agony, ‘please, your scarf, remove it, madam. For all our sakes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mystery, Ettie, mystery,’ he said in his normal voice, flashing her his most appealing grin.

  ‘Bloody nonsense, more like.’

  ‘So what? So long as it detracts from what is really going on, and builds up the anticipation that something is about to happen.’

  ‘Whatever would my old mum make of all this, eh?’ said Ettie grinning back at him, but shaking her head as though she really didn’t know what to make of it all either.

  Chapter 11

  ‘Myrtle. Myrtle, you in there, girl?’

  ‘Who is it?’ Myrtle called, leaning over the banister and peering down into the dark stairwell below.

  ‘It’s me, Sarah,’ the slurring, disembodied voice replied. ‘I wondered if yer might have a drop of broth or something I could have. I’m a bit short, to tell yer the truth, and I’ve missed the soup kitchen and all.’

  ‘Sleep, were yer?’ Myrtle Bury asked coolly.

  ‘No. I didn’t feel well,’ Sarah shouted back miserably. ‘The lodger’ll be home soon. He’ll be hungry. And I ain’t got nothing to give him, Myrt.’

  ‘Come on up,’ said Myrtle wearily.

  Myrtle stood at her open door and waited for her neighbour to puff her way up the stairs. As Sarah dragged her way on to the landing, Myrtle let out an unintentional gasp and an uncharacteristic expletive. ‘Bugger me, Sarah, whatever’s happened to yer?’

  Sarah ducked her head and shielded her bruised and swollen face with her hand. ‘I told yer, I ain’t been feeling too good. I had a bit of a fall,’ she said, keeping in the shadows away from the window so that her neighbour couldn’t get a look at the real extent of the beating she’d taken.

  ‘Sit yerself down,’ said Myrtle, gesturing with her head to one of the matching wooden chairs that stood either side of the little firegrate where a cast-iron pan of bubbling stew was suspended over the glowing embers.
‘And I’ll dish yer up a drop of this sheep’s head broth to take home with yer.’

  ‘Gawd love and bless yer, Myrt. I smelt that soup from the other side of the court and I knew yer wouldn’t let yer old mate down.’

  Myrtle busied herself wiping out a crackle-glazed china basin, then filled it with steaming, delicious-smelling stew from the big pot.

  ‘Yer must miss your Ettie,’ said Myrtle, taking down a ragged white cloth from the string washing-line stretched across the chimney breast.

  ‘You ain’t kidding,’ said Sarah, sniffing greedily at the big pot over the fire. ‘That bloody lodger of mine wants it off me morning noon and night now she ain’t there to look after him.’

  Myrtle shook her head in disgust and tipped the contents of the basin back into the big pan. Sarah’s look of disappointment soon changed to one of incredulity as Myrtle used the cloth that she’d intended to cover the basin with to lift the cooking pot from the grate. She thrust it roughly at Sarah, not even caring that she spilt some of it on to the floor.

  Sarah’s eyes widened to slighter larger than their usual puffy slits. ‘What?’ she gasped incredulously. ‘The whole pan full?’

  ‘Go on, take it,’ barked Myrtle.

  Sarah took the brimming pan and ran her tongue around the rim and up the side, catching every last spill of the hot stew.

  Myrtle could barely contain herself. ‘Get out, Sarah. Now. Before I say or do something I might regret.’

  Sarah looked at her benefactress, trying to keep her eyes in focus and smiled. ‘As yer like. Ta Myrtle, I’ll fetch the pan back tomorrow.’

  ‘There’s no rush,’ breathed Myrtle, keeping her hands behind her back to stop herself from picking up the breadboard and smacking Sarah Wilkins round the head with it. ‘Now, if yer don’t mind, I’ve got me jobs to get on with.’

  Myrtle stood at the window and watched the woman who had once been her friend stagger across the court towards the dark hallway of Number Twelve under the weight of the pan and the influence of at least a half-bottle of Jacky. Myrtle sat herself down on one of the wooden chairs by the grate, stared into the fire and remembered the old Sarah who had made her laugh with her daft carrying on, and made her proud to call herself her friend when she’d done such a good job of bringing up her baby single-handed. It was different now the drink had got hold of her: to see how Sarah had wound up made Myrtle cry. Two fat, salty tears trickled down her cheeks, but at the sound of footsteps on the stairs she hastily went over and stood by the table and rubbed her eyes dry with her apron. Myrtle wasn’t one to let anyone see her upset or sitting idly by the hearth when there were jobs to be done.

  ‘Watcha, Ma,’ said Billy as he came into the little room. He went straight over to the fire and dumped down a pile of timber offcuts he’d brought home from the workshop. ‘Wasn’t that Sarah I saw wandering about with a big pot of something out there?’ he asked over his shoulder as he piled the wood neatly into piles by the grate.

  ‘Yeah,’ Myrtle said flatly. ‘It was Sarah.’

  ‘What a state,’ said Billy, sadly. He stood up and stretched. ‘So what did she have to say for herself?’

  ‘Nothing about Ettie if that’s what yer want to know.’

  Billy didn’t answer. He sat down in the chair that his mother had just left and started to roll himself a cigarette.

  ‘Driving her own kid away like that,’ Myrtle hissed through her teeth as she sawed angrily at the bread on the table, taking her anger out on the loaf. ‘She was such a good girl to her mum and all. Did all she could for that selfish bitch.’

  Billy looked up at his mother’s unfamiliarly harsh words.

  ‘I’d like to have seen you settled with young Ettie Wilkins,’ Myrtle said, setting about attacking the next slice off the loaf.

  ‘Me and all, Mum,’ Billy said softly, tucking his tobacco pouch into his trouser pocket.

  Myrtle handed him a tin plate with two slices of bread scraped with marge. Billy took it silently.

  ‘I give that wicked cow all the stew. Don’t know what I’m gonna give Alfie and Tommy when they get in.’

  ‘I’ll send the little ’un out down Sclater Street for some pie and mash, Mum, don’t upset yerself.’ Billy stood up and put the untouched bread and marge down on the table, then he put his arms round his mother and kissed the top of her head. ‘Yer’ve always been soft, ain’t yer?’ he said gently. ‘Yer wouldn’t care if yer starved as long as us lot had some grub in our bellies.’

  ‘You’re a good boy, Bill,’ Myrtle said fondly.

  Billy blushed, thinking about the talking-to he’d had from Cyril Reed only a few hours before. ‘Tell yer what, Ma,’ he said. ‘Soon as that room downstairs that the landlord was talking about comes up, you tell him we’ll have it.’

  ‘Do what?’ Myrtle pushed Billy away from her and stared at him as though he’d suggested moving into Buckingham Palace. ‘But how can we?’

  ‘I had a chat with the governor today,’ he said, editing the events for his mother’s benefit. ‘He’s offered me a bit of overtime. Regular if I want it.’

  ‘Billy.’ Myrtle buried her head in her son’s shoulder and thought how blessed she was and how proud his father would have been to see him looking after her so well. ‘Three rooms, all to ourselves.’ She lifted her chin and looked at him. ‘No. We don’t need all that. You keep a bit for yerself, yer work hard enough. Put a bit by.’

  Billy opened his mouth to interrupt.

  ‘No, son, I won’t hear another word. Yer’ll find yerself a nice girl to settle down with, you see if yer don’t. Then yer’ll need a few shillings to set yerself up in a place of yer own.’

  This time Billy couldn’t find the heart to answer her.

  Chapter 12

  A new phase of even harder work had begun for Ettie. Jacob expected so much of her. If Ettie had been tired before, now she was exhausted. She learnt codes: complicated combinations of words; questions; even different tones of voice and sneezes. Sometimes she would lose patience, being unable to believe that she could learn another thing, or could cram another idea into her aching head. But, by the time the cold winter months had taken a grip on the London streets, Ettie could ‘read’ Jacob’s mind. She had become a wonder of telepathy – a sure way to convince even the most sceptical. And she knew how to pick up the slightest cues from an audience, how to fit them into stories which they could – such wonders! – associate directly to their lives. And, even if no one responded to a message, Jacob assured her, it would still work: she would simply point to one of the more timid-looking individuals and say in a low, serious voice: ‘I want you to promise me that you will find out about this. It is very important. The message is very important indeed.’

  After a particularly tiring day of learning and more learning, Ettie went out for a walk, supposedly to buy a newspaper, but really needing to clear her head. Jacob had not seemed to mind that the local agent hadn’t tipped him off about vacant premises for them to set up a penny gaff that week. Lou and the rest of the acts weren’t too pleased about it, but Ettie was delighted, as it meant that the evenings were her own, to do as she pleased, for seven whole days. She wanted no more than to settle down with a pot of tea, a plate of cakes from the baker’s shop on the corner, read for a while, then have another gloriously early night.

  Jacob had recently moved a fold-away cot into the bedroom, but Ettie was still allowed to keep the big brass bed, even though she was the shorter of the two of them by several inches. Jacob didn’t seem to mind discomfort. And Ettie didn’t plan to argue: she loved that bed more than any other change that had occurred in her life over the past few months.

  With the newspaper under her arm, Ettie walked up the steps to what had become her new home and let herself in, pulling off her jacket almost before she was inside the front door, and throwing it on to a chair in the sitting room. She still wasn’t used to having a place to hang her clothes, as Jacob was always keen to remind her. She kicked off her shoes, an
d sat at the table to read the paper.

  ‘Is the kettle boiled?’ she asked Jacob.

  ‘Yes, madam,’ Jacob called from the little bathroom. ‘Tea will be served as soon as I finish in here.’

  ‘Cheeky bugger,’ she scolded him with a laugh.

  Ettie followed each line of the newspaper stories with her finger. Her reading was now much improved, but still she silently mouthed each word.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ she shouted, bringing Jacob rushing in, his chin still half soaped from his incomplete shave.

  ‘Whatever is it?’

  ‘Listen to this,’ she squealed, her voice quavering out of control. ‘A woman in Mile End Old Town has been sent to prison. A month’s hard labour, Jacob. Just for telling some girl’s fortune for a tanner. A bloody tanner. What the sodding hell have you got me involved in? If they do her for asking for a tanner…’

  ‘Don’t concern yourself with such matters, Ettie,’ he said, waving his cut-throat blade around with airy indifference. ‘I will be careful to indicate to our–’ he paused – ‘fellow investigators into the spirit world, that we do not ask for payment, merely that they should contribute some small donation, perhaps, to enable us to carry on our work. And with your charm and beauty that should prove to be no problem at all.’

  Jacob didn’t notice the frown of concern which, though barely discernible, clouded Ettie’s face for a brief moment.

  He seemed so caring and gentle, and genuinely to like her, but Ettie was increasingly bothered as to why Jacob had never made any attempt to touch her – other than a brotherly pat on the arm, a chivalrous helping on with her coat. The worst part of it was that, against everything she would have believed only a few months ago, Ettie wanted him to touch her. Wanted him to touch her very much. She had always believed that the only man who would ever make her feel like that would be Billy; that one day her life would simply sort itself out and they would wind up together, happily married with a whole brood of red-haired babies. Even though they had never even kissed, she had always just taken it for granted that she loved Billy, and that he loved her. Maybe that had been the problem: she had taken too much for granted. And now she hadn’t only admitted to herself that she was falling in love with Jacob, a strange, enigmatic man from who-knew-where, but she had developed a physical desire for him as well.