The Whitechapel Girl Read online

  ‘You haven’t mentioned any of this before,’ Ettie said excitedly, and skipped over to him, the parade below and any difficult questions about Paris instantly forgotten.

  ‘It was meant to be a surprise.’ His voice was cold.

  ‘More new clothes!’ Ettie put down her glass on the dressing-table, stood behind him and hugged him. She looked at the seriousness of his reflection in the glass. ‘Blimey, cheer up, Jacob. It might never happen.’

  He ignored her attempts to make him smile. ‘We’d better be getting back to Bow,’ he said, pulling away from her. ‘You need to get some rest and I have to look over the accounts and receipts. And reply to all your correspondence.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, matching his coldness. ‘I could never do with moods and sulking myself, but if that’s how you feel.’

  ‘I’m not sulking and I really am going to be very busy tonight. The letters are pouring in. There are a lot of lonely people out there looking for answers.’

  ‘There’s one here and all,’ she said quietly to herself as she slung her cape carelessly round her shoulders and went to stand by the dressing-room door. ‘Well, come on. You was the one who wanted to get off home.’

  The next day, Ettie woke late to find that Jacob had already gone out. The performance must have taken more out of her than she had realised. She slipped into a cotton housecoat and went into the little kitchen to make some tea.

  She was on her second cup of dark brewed Assam – a taste she had acquired since meeting Jacob, and very different from the brew made from the almost leafless powder that she had been raised to drink – when she heard the key in the lock.

  ‘That you, Jacob?’ she called, determined not to let him carry on with his sulks. ‘There’s plenty of tea in the pot.’

  Jacob walked down the hall to join her at the neatly laid oak table. ‘See if there’s anything there that you care for,’ he said, thrusting a huge brown paper parcel at her.

  ‘The new clothes?’ she asked eagerly, and dashed off to the bedroom before Jacob had even had the opportunity to nod his agreement.

  As Ettie sorted through the new clothes, holding them up to herself in the mirror, she looked critically at herself. She was a grown woman now, good-looking too, yet still Jacob showed no interest in her – not in that way. They had been sharing the same bedroom for almost a year, but still they changed and bathed separately. Jacob’s lack of interest certainly wasn’t what she was used to. Since she was barely fifteen years old, she had had her mother’s various lodgers forcing themselves on her. She had spent all those sleepless hours dreading the return of her mother’s latest ‘friend’; she thought then that she would never want another man to touch her ever again. Although there were always the very special feelings she had had for Billy – but they had confused her, and she’d been shy, not knowing how to react.

  But now she was older, more confident, with a mature longing for Jacob that she certainly understood, even if he so obviously failed to share her feelings. That was how it was, whether she liked it or not.

  She sighed and returned, with only slightly spoiled pleasure, to the clothes.

  ‘Mind you don’t tear anything, Ettie,’ he called from the sitting room as he poured himself another cup of tea. ‘Some of that cloth is very delicate.’

  ‘Delicate! Yer bloody telling me it’s delicate,’ Ettie shrieked back at him through the door. Excitement, like tiredness, still made her lapse into her old familiar way of speaking. ‘Look at it, it’s beautiful.’

  She came dancing into the sitting room, still dressed in her night things, holding up to her a pale blue silk and lace dress.

  ‘I loved what you gave me out of that trunk of yours, and then them things you got made for me before. But this…’ She twirled around the table for Jacob to admire her. ‘These make all the others seem, I don’t know, ugly. It’s like the sun’s come out when you look at this.’

  Jacob looked at her through impassive, narrowed eyes. ‘I’m glad you approve,’ he said.

  Ettie had enough enthusiasm for both of them. ‘Hold this a minute,’ she said, pulling her nightgown over her head. She was about to step into the dress, but impulsively she changed her mind and just stood there, naked except for the gold locket and chain at her throat, the blue gown dragging on the rug like a broken doll.

  ‘Don’t you think I look nice like I am, with nothing on?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I do. You are very lovely. That’s why I chose you.’ He stood up and moved towards her.

  Ettie felt herself begin to tremble.

  He reached out but, instead of taking her in his arms, he lifted the locket, looked at it and said, ‘That’s a very attractive piece. I didn’t know you possessed such a thing.’

  ‘I don’t understand you, Jacob, I really don’t,’ she screamed at him.

  She hoped desperately that he didn’t realise she was crying as she ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  Chapter 14

  ‘Hello, little legs,’ said Billy, bending down and ruffling the hair of his little brother who was parked on the street-door step. ‘What you and yer mates been up to while I’ve been at work? Been a good boy for Mum, have yer?’

  ‘I reckon I have,’ said Tommy, hardly able to speak through the bread and scrape he had jammed in his mouth. ‘I’ve been out playing all day.’

  Billy laughed. ‘That’s a good kid. Keep out from under her feet, eh?’ He put his arm on Tommy’s shoulder. ‘Shove over, let’s get in.’

  Tommy leaned sideways to let Billy into the hallway. ‘Hang on, Bill,’ he said, swallowing the remains of the bread. ‘Guess what’s been happening over there.’ Tommy nodded towards Number Twelve.

  Billy stopped where he was, half in, half out of the passage. ‘No, you tell me.’

  ‘There’s been murders over there,’ Tommy said, eyes wide. ‘Yer should have heard it. Sarah Wilkins and that big ugly lodger of hers.’ He shuddered. ‘Horrible geezer. At it hammer and tongs they…’

  Billy didn’t wait to hear the end of the tale, he turned and started sprinting across the court. ‘Go and fetch Alfie,’ he shouted over his shoulder. He’ll be down the Pan or in the Butcher’s. Go on, move, yer lazy little sod.’

  Billy stood outside Sarah’s room; he had to make his mind up what to do. If the bloke was still inside, his only chance was to surprise him – he’d make two of Billy and he was a mad bastard by all accounts. He knew, from how lop-sided it looked, that he’d have to either lift the door to open it or kick it in. He decided on the latter. He leaned back against the banisters and shoved the full force of his hob-nailed boot into the centre panel. He needn’t have bothered using so much effort. The only remaining hinge gave way and the door fell flat to the floor, making a dull thud on the filthy bare boards inside.

  ‘Shit!’ he gasped and slapped his hand over his mouth. The stench from inside the room was unbearable: it was like something had crawled in there and died. But at least no slaughterman the size of a barge had rushed out to murder him.

  He squinted, trying to accustom his eyes to the gloom. In the corner, he could just make out the shape of a bed.

  ‘Sarah?’ he called softly. Then louder. ‘Sarah!’

  ‘Bill?’ The voice wasn’t Sarah’s, but Alf’s calling up the stairs. ‘You up there?’

  ‘Yeah, up here, Alf. We’re too late, he’s gone.’

  Alf took the stairs two at a time. ‘What happened…’ His words came to an abrupt halt. ‘Jesus Christ! The stink in here.’ He blundered his way over to the window and tried to force it open. All he succeeded in doing was breaking one of the panes. ‘Least it’s a bit of fresh air,’ he said, gasping in a lungful through the gap. ‘I dunno how…’

  ‘Sssh, Alf, listen.’

  A low, pathetic moan came from the corner.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Who’s there?’ The words were barely audible.

  ‘Myrtle’s boys,’ said Billy, swallowing back the
bile that was rising in his throat at the thought that he might have to go near her.

  ‘I’m hurt,’ she whimpered, her words coming in short rasps as she took shallow, agonising breaths in between. ‘The bastard’s bashed me up again.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bill,’ said Alf, still with his head to the broken window. ‘I don’t think I can handle this.’

  ‘Yer ain’t alone there, Alf,’ said Billy. ‘I’ll fetch Mum, she’ll know what to do. And we can go down the yards and see if we can get hold of the slimy… We’ll show him what it feels like to get hurt.’

  ‘Right,’ said Alf. ‘We’ll show the no-good bleeder.’ Relieved to escape, Alf was out of the room and down the stairs to fetch Myrtle before anyone changed their mind.

  ‘He won’t touch yer no more after we’ve finished with him, Sarah,’ promised Billy as he turned to leave.

  ‘No,’ gasped Sarah. ‘Don’t do nothing to him. Yer don’t know him. Don’t get him wild with me.’ Her voice was barely audible. ‘He don’t really mean it.’

  Billy turned back towards her. He could have walked out without saying anything, and he certainly wasn’t one to hurt someone when they were down, but this time he couldn’t help himself. ‘Like he didn’t mean it when he did them things to Ettie?’ he said quietly.

  ‘That was her fault,’ snivelled Sarah. ‘She led him on, she…’

  ‘You disgust me,’ sneered Billy, and leapt down the stairs and into the court outside before he did something he’d regret.

  Chapter 15

  After the debacle in which Stedgely had been exposed in his true colours, Celia knew she no longer needed the likes of him to tell her what to do. She would decide what was of most use in improving the lot of the poor and ignorant. She would make secret excursions into the East End; be brave like the great women explorers venturing into the Dark Continent, making her mark on the map of the slums of London. Her savages would be the slum-dwellers of the tenements. She would show no fear. Fear was for hypocrites who said one thing but practised another – like that charlatan preacher. It was not his example she would follow, but the courageous example of the elderly woman who had spoken out so bravely at the meeting. The woman was obviously misguided in her views, Celia knew that, but she did have tremendous spirit. Just as Celia had spirit. She was proud of herself, proud that not even her father, not Stedgely, nor any number like them could destroy her resolve to do good.

  Mercifully, for the third evening in a row, her father had been involved in committee meetings at the hospital. As was his habit on such occasions, he would stay behind with his colleagues; then they would go to dinner at one of their clubs, probably spending the night there. There would be no silent meal shared with him, no dissections, and no being forced to do the unspeakable things with him afterwards. She was free – for a few hours more, at least.

  ‘Is my father home, Smithson?’

  The butler stood in the doorway of the drawing room, swaying from the effects of helping himself to his master’s brandy. His physical appearance, his movements, even the very sounds he always made Celia think of him as an overgrown, bloodless grasshopper.

  ‘No, Miss Celia,’ he snarled. ‘The master’s not dining in tonight. Club with his colleagues.’

  Celia stood up, smiled, and walked towards the door, trying to hide her impulse to recoil from his presence, but refusing to let him block her way.

  ‘I think I’ll take a turn round the square, Smithson,’ she said airily. ‘It’s such a lovely evening.’

  Smithson didn’t answer her immediately, nor did he attempt to move from the doorway to allow her to leave the room.

  ‘Was there something else, Smithson?’ Celia asked as lightly as possible, hoping that she was succeeding in keeping the tremor from her voice. She never found it easy to speak to the butler, let alone act confidently with him. He was a leering, difficult man, who only ever remembered his position when her father was present.

  ‘I’ll call one of the maids to accompany you,’ he said.

  ‘No, no, there’s no need, Smithson.’ Celia held her breath to avoid the alcohol fumes, and brushed past him into the freedom of the large, marble-floored hall. ‘I won’t be very long. Fresh air, you see. Such a lovely evening.’

  ‘The master won’t be best pleased.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ She hoped that the crack in her voice sounded like a playful giggle rather than the fear he was managing, merely by his presence, to instil in her.

  She took the stairway to her room as quickly as her full skirts and tight corset would allow. Her plan was to collect her cape, a bag, and some money, and then flee from the house before the butler could put any further difficulties in her way.

  At a safe distance from the square, Celia raised her hand to hail a passing cab.

  ‘Where to, miss?’ asked the cabman, respectfully averting his eyes as he looked down at her through the hatch.

  She was already feeling extremely daring: never before had she travelled alone in a hansom. ‘Take me to the docks, driver,’ she said, confidentially, but without looking up at him.

  ‘Docks? You sure, miss?’ Now he certainly was looking at her. From where he was sitting she looked every bit the well-to-do young lady; nicely spoken, too, and in a good neighbourhood – she was hardly a brass pitching for sailors. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. Thank you.’

  ‘Which dock was it you were wanting then?’ he asked warily, not bothering to hide his doubt as to the wisdom of what she was asking him to do.

  This was something Celia hadn’t prepared for. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Well, what road was yer wanting, then?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Any one with tenements or slumhousing surrounding it,’ she answered non-committally. Then, searching her memory for a name from one of the League pamphlets she said suddenly: ‘The Ratcliffe Highway. Do you know the place?’

  ‘Do what? The Highway? You must be mad – begging your pardon, miss. Do you have any idea what it’s like down there?’

  ‘I understand that it has some of the very worst slums.’

  ‘And some of the very worst coshings and all. I’ll take you as far as the edge of St Katherine’s, and drop yer near the dock gates, but no further. This is a new cab, this is.’

  ‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ she said, nervously looking back towards the square for any sign of Smithson or one of the maids. ‘Or would you prefer me to take another hansom?’ she added recklessly.

  ‘Suit yourself, miss. But to tell yer the truth, I don’t think yer’ll find no one from these parts’ll risk going down there. Not unless they belong there themselves. I ain’t getting my hansom bashed in and nor will they. It’s by St Katherine’s or nothing.’

  ‘Close by St Katherine’s will do very well then. Thank you,’ she said primly.

  ‘And I wouldn’t venture no further down there if I was you, miss.’

  ‘I’m quite capable of deciding where I go, thank you, driver.’ Again she flashed a nervous glance back along the street.

  ‘Long as you knows what yer doing,’ he said, shrugging, then closed the hatch, shook the reins and clicked his tongue, urging his big bay mare forward. Women, he thought to himself. He’d never understand them. He shivered, and drew his rug closer round his knees. What had been a lovely day was now growing chill in the cooler evening air. Nice young ladies going down to the docks. Whatever next, he wondered? The world was going mad and that was the truth. And the traffic, that was another thing, that was getting worse every day. Some days he just didn’t know why he drove a cab.

  ‘St Katherine’s Dock,’ the cabman called down through the hatch.

  With all the dignity she could muster, Celia paid the man his fare and, chin held high, stepped down on to the slimy, cobbled roadway. For the last part of the journey she had felt as though she were entering another, previously unknown world, but she was determined not to let the patronising driver see how disturbed she was by her strange sur
roundings.

  She looked round. The roads around were lively with the business of the docks and the river, but the side-streets were darker than any outdoor place she had ever seen in a city. It was as though the scene melted away into blackness. At the sound of the cab pulling away, she turned round and raised her hand to hail the driver, to call him back, to take her home. But she was too late. He was speeding off back to the civilised world she had left. Celia was alone.

  Here the river had its own sounds and smells; it couldn’t be more different from the pleasant, grassy-banked Thames only a few miles up-river where, in distant, happier days, she had gone boating and picnicking with her parents. This was a place of foghorns and stale fish, spices and timber, shouts and whistles, tall cranes and the swirling, dank river mist. It was all such a shock. She had never imagined anything even remotely like it. All her senses were alert and prickling to the unexpected sensation of disgust mixed with terrified excitement.

  Celia raised her skirts as far as she dared to avoid them collecting up the worst of the filth and, keeping as far away as the traffic would allow from the threatening shadows of the high, blank walls of the warehouses, she walked gamely on – further into the Ratcliffe Highway.

  She kept her eyes demurely lowered, yet still attracted the calls and shouts of passing dock-labourers, who made various, but all astonishingly low, offers of money for her favours. As soon as she was able, she took a side-alley away from the main thoroughfare. She wanted to see slum housing, not the busy commerce of the Empire.

  She took a gulp of air and plunged into a narrow gap between two of the huge repositories which held goods she would never see, that would be traded with lands she had never heard of.

  Scuttling noises accompanied her unlit progress, but Celia chose not to think about the source of the scratching and scraping sounds. At the far end of the alley, a gas-lamp burned, giving off a pool of dull yellow light. Quite suddenly the passageway came to an abrupt end. There was no railing or guard to prevent her fall; the ground simply stopped. Her chest rose and fell with the shock of what might have been. Only the gaslight had saved her. Gingerly she edged forward to look over the precipice. She blinked hard, as though her eyes were deceived by the dim illumination of the single lamp, but no, she was right. Incredible though she found it, she was actually standing at the head of a stairway, a flight of steep stone steps, leading down to the muddy banks of the Thames. She had nearly plummeted down on to that disgusting, dark grey sludge. The thought sickened her. For a moment she thought she might faint, but then, at the foot of the stairs, a sudden movement accompanied by sucking, slurping sounds, made her throw herself back against the side wall. She kept her feet firmly planted, but leaned forward as far as she dared to see if she could discover the source of the disturbance. There, far below her, she could just make out the silhouette of a small, crouching figure, groping in the slimy muck below her.