The Whitechapel Girl Read online

  Tressing didn’t flinch as the carbolic and mercury solution, in which he cleansed his hands, stung the deep gash on his knuckles. He was more interested in the condition of his well-shaped and manicured nails. Clean, beautifully clean. He took a deep, sighing breath. The final stage in his personal preparation was completed.

  ‘Now, the Venuses.’ Tressing moved towards the coffin-like display cases which lined one side of the room.

  As Celia followed him, her apron crackled spitefully around her legs and the sound of her footsteps rang out in the otherwise silent room.

  Bartholomew Tressing leaned over one of the cases, lifted its glass lid and let down its wooden side to fully reveal its contents. Inside was a recumbent, lovely young woman, reclining provocatively on a pile of plump, red velvet cushions. Her gleaming, raven hair fell in loose curls around her creamy white shoulders.

  And, even though she was naked, save for the single strand of pearls at her throat, she made no attempt to cover her shame, not even the movement of a hand to hide the hair which grew close to her most secret place. It was not modesty she lacked, however, it was life. She was made of wax. An effigy. A sham.

  Then came the moment which Celia hated: hated because it both fascinated and disgusted her – both reactions making her feel guilt of the most unavoidable kind. She watched the creature in the case – which was a woman like her, yet not like her – as he reached for that second lid, the lid of the lifeless stomach. He did so with gloating, unconcealed enthusiasm. There, it was done, the lifting of the lifeless lid, which, paradoxically, revealed the replica internal organs, the repository of the mysteries of life itself. The body itself was a case within a case.

  Feminine modesty’s only representation was in the model’s averted gaze: the lowered lids of the eyes contrasting disturbingly with the raised lid of the abdomen.

  ‘We unveil the body,’ he breathed, ‘and within, behold the mystery which will be revealed through the glory of the triumphs of nineteenth-century scientific discovery, of which I, Bartholomew Tressing, will be the apogee.’

  Celia stood quite still and stared at the Anatomical Venus as her father used the model to outline the procedures they were to follow. She knew better than to argue with him, but she wouldn’t be forced to listen to his ravings. She blocked out the sound of his voice as he handled the lividly painted uterus, the silent aid to his coarse descriptions of the procedure they were to follow.

  ‘So. It will be clear to you that you are going to assist me in an ovariotomy – if the condition of the raw material allows us.’ He replaced the model organs, closed the hinged cover to the abdomen, and then returned the sides and lid of the glass case to the closed position. The Venus was once more at rest in her glass-topped coffin. ‘I intend to perfect this technique to a level far beyond that which that fool Derringer could even contemplate.’ He walked towards the sheet-draped operating table.

  Celia followed him, flinching as he went on.

  ‘I am increasingly unhappy to read in the journals how that charlatan is cornering the market in pelvic operations for the idiot, bored wives of rich industrialists. I mean to present a very real challenge to that man’s position in the profession, you know. I’ll show those frigid bitches how to spend their hundred guineas to provide the answer to their husbands’ fading appetites. They’ll be queuing up for me to open them up.’

  He stopped beside a high side-table where the black box containing the tools of his surgical trade had been placed by one of the servants. Tressing lifted each out in turn, holding the metal objects close to the gasolier, examining first this, then that aspect of its readiness for its task. Sharpness. Strength. Shine. He inclined his head in a gesture of approval for the servant’s work. ‘I believe that soon Smithson will prove to be as good a surgical assistant as he is a butler.’

  Celia was momentarily shocked from her silent dread of what was to come by her father’s unaccustomed acknowledgement of another’s worth.

  ‘Might Smithson then perhaps take my place…’ she began.

  The simple act of Bartholomew Tressing raising his hand returned his daughter to her previously mute state.

  ‘Now you will make them ready and I will observe your efforts,’ he instructed her.

  Celia took a deep breath, fully aware that her failure to remember the exact order in which he expected his tools and materials to be laid out would result in her being punished. His orderliness had become increasingly fanatical since he had become obsessed with the idea of becoming the most eminent surgeon in his field. He seemed to believe that if he had the tools placed correctly, then the technique would follow automatically. Every jar in his pharmacy had to be in its exact position on its shelf. Every book in his library was to be placed in the position he ordained.

  Celia had put out every tool except the last two scalpels – was it length or breadth which determined their place in the hierarchy? She almost put the first blade down, then withdrew it quickly and reconsidered. She could feel his eyes boring into the back of her neck. She took a sharp intake of breath and put the instrument on the left hand space, and the final tool in the remaining gap. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Waiting for his response.

  ‘Let’s see what slum-creeping trollop those fools have found me this time,’ he said, apparently totally unaware of his daughter’s fear.

  Celia let out her breath in a long slow sigh. She was reprieved. The relief of her unexpected respite from her father’s anger must have made her momentarily lose her reason. ‘They may be poor, Father, but they are not objects.’

  ‘Oh no?’ He drew back the sheet, the veil, which covered the body.

  She almost swooned at the stink and the sight of the physical degeneration of the corpse which confronted her. Bloated with alcohol, ravaged by poverty and vice, and covered in syphilitic sores, dark stains, a mixture of congealed blood and Thames slime smeared the bare limbs.

  ‘Now,’ he said in a low, moaning breath. ‘What have those nogoods taken good money off me for?’ He selected a knife and slit open the reeking cloth that had once been a petticoat, exposing the naked torso. He swore loudly. ‘Another damned abortion, I’d stake money on it. How are we going to stop those meddling women doing this to each other?’ He rubbed his forearm over his forehead. ‘Damned amateurs taking away trade from us professionals. The bread from out of our mouths.’

  Though Celia wanted to vomit, she could not let herself. She could not allow herself to displease him.

  He began to laugh, a shallow gurgle in his throat. Celia found his increasingly unpredictable moods almost more frightening than anything else.

  ‘Should be grateful, I suppose,’ he said smirking down at the distended form on the table. ‘It’s their botched handiwork that keeps me supplied with most of the material I work on.’ His face returned to its cool expressionless mask. ‘But I know I would appreciate the opportunity to work on some fresher specimens. How can I rehearse my skills when all I have to work on are these rotting sewer rats dragged from the mud after two days in the river. But, expecting those Neanderthal morons who supply me to show any initiative would be too much to ask, I suppose.’

  ‘Perhaps the women of the slums could be helped.’ Her boldness surprised and horrified her, but it was too late, she had said it, said what she had been feeling for so long.

  ‘What?’

  She had gone this far, why not continue? ‘If they could be helped in some way, perhaps they would not be in such difficult straits and would not need to resort to such measures.’

  He tossed the knife which he had used to cut the petticoat into a metal dish and concentrated on selecting another. ‘Are you insane, girl?’ he snapped, his lip curling contemptuously. ‘Who exactly had you in mind to do such a thing, to help such creatures?’

  ‘Someone like me. I should like to help the women of the slums.’

  This time he looked at her. ‘What do you intend to do: go and cut the unwanted brats out of the whores’ wombs your
self? That would be a very charitable cause. I can see the court case being reported in The Times now.’

  ‘I did not mean that, Father. I meant that I could help them find a better path in life. That was all.’

  ‘That’s all is it?’ He shook his head scornfully. ‘You really are dim-witted.’ As he became more agitated he waved the knife he had chosen closer and closer to her face, emphasising his words with menacing jabs of the glittering blade. ‘This country is on the very edge of revolution. Even Her Majesty the Queen isn’t safe in the streets today. The squares and parks, even of the decent parts of London, are teeming with labouring classes who labour no more. Then there are the Fenians, anarchists and Asiatics.’ He regarded her as though she were an uncatalogued curiosity. ‘Are you saying that someone like you perhaps wants to go into the slums to help the whores find a better path?’

  ‘Why not me?’ she whispered timidly. ‘Others have done similar work.’

  ‘You really are mad, aren’t you, Celia? I always suspected that there was too much of your mother in you.’

  She winced visibly as he mentioned her mother, but didn’t dare say a word in either her, or her own, defence. She had already said too much. She shouldn’t have said anything.

  As though seeing it for the first time, Tressing examined the tool he held in his hand, then discarded it with a loud exclamation of displeasure. ‘You are breaking my concentration with your foolish prattling,’ he complained sternly, then took up another knife. This time it was a slightly curved, heavier instrument which he selected. He prodded at the bruised, tumid flesh with his long, pale forefinger, looking for the place to begin.

  ‘I don’t know what this mania is today for young women having to do things. If you really must do something with yourself, then perhaps Bobby Charnsworth would fit the bill. He’s not long for this world, that’s for sure. And you’d inherit a fair portion, that’s for sure too. But,’ he turned to her and drew a carbolic-stinking finger down her cheek, ‘I’d miss you,’ he breathed, ‘and that is also for sure. Even if you were away for just a few months.’

  He returned to his consideration of the dead woman and, with no warning, plunged in the knife and began the dissection. The pain of the penetration surged through Celia as though he had plunged the blade into her own flesh.

  ‘I…’ she began.

  ‘Enough,’ he silenced her. ‘I don’t know why I even mentioned it. Any ideas about Bobby Charnsworth are out of the question. I need you here with me, Celia. This is your place.’ He spoke between short grunts of exertion as he cut and pulled at the flesh, all his attention now focused on the body before him. ‘Watch, Celia. Watch well,’ he commanded. ‘It is vital to understand the meaning of what one is doing. To understand that there is a ritual to the occasion, as there should be during all times of significance. Note the order of things, the significance of the procedures, the reasons for their existence. Watch, Celia. Watch, and learn well.’

  Chapter 3

  The two friends walked along the Whitechapel Road, the broad, bustling thoroughfare which linked the entry to the City of London to the routes out to the farming villages of the Essex marshes. They were arm-in-arm as always but, unusually, they weren’t speaking. They didn’t even share a giggle over the two wild-haired, drunken women fist-fighting over the ownership of a particularly timid-looking little man standing reluctantly next to the brawling pair. The girls didn’t even chat or speculate about the day’s events in the secret world of the rookeries: the maze of alleyways, courts and narrow, airless streets which was their home; the shadowy world, unknown to strangers, which lay immediately behind the façade of the main highway.

  In contrast to the dark, infamous area which lay just beyond, the Whitechapel Road itself was a lively kaleidoscope of sights, sounds and smells which, even at such a late hour – gone midnight, when most respectable Londoners would be safely tucked up in bed – was illuminated by pools of light coming from the fizzing naphtha-lamps that blazed on the street-vendors’ stalls, and the warm gaslight radiating from pub doorways and over the archways leading to the uncharted depths of the rookeries. The pavement was alive with people, not only cockneys from the surrounding tenements and slums, but foreigners from off the ships which stood almost empty in the docks beyond.

  Food smells permeated everything, masking even the usual stench of the streets. The air was heavy with them: from the sweet, sickly thickness of sugar boiling into toffee in the big copper bowls balanced over fiery braziers, ready to be slapped on to marble slabs to cool and be cut into huge, jaw-aching pieces; to the savoury tang of chilli vinegar lined up next to the salt and pepper pots on the pie-and-eel stalls, there for customers to pour in great, brown pools over their meat pies, stewed eels, mash and liquor that the vendor piled high into cracked china bowls.

  The noises were more difficult to separate: street musicians with tin whistles, drums and hurdy-gurdies vied with the screams of laughter, squabbles and shouts from passers-by; horses’ hooves, wagon and cart wheels scraping over the cobbles on the uneven, filthy road competed with the endless drone of some unseen machinery in one of the tall, blank-walled buildings which lined the side-streets off the Whitechapel Road. But still Ettie and her friend walked on without saying a word.

  It was Maisie who finally broke the silence. ‘We’re not good enough for yer now, I suppose,’ she said self-pityingly.

  ‘Don’t be so daft,’ said Ettie, flashing Maisie a cautious glance to see if her friend looked serious, or if she was just in a sulk about losing her sailor.

  ‘It ain’t me what’s being daft,’ she said bluntly.

  Ettie stopped stock-still in her tracks, jerking her friend to a halt. ‘Listen, May, there’s no need for us to fall out, is there?’

  Maisie shrugged non-committally.

  ‘Have you still got the hump about losing your boyfriend back there?’

  ‘It’s not me boy friend I’m worried about,’ snapped May. ‘It’s me friend. You.’

  ‘How long we known each other? Since when we was born, that’s how long. I thought yer’d be only too pleased to see me making something of myself. And that hardly means losing a friend, now does it?’

  Maisie didn’t reply.

  ‘You ain’t jealous are yer, May?’

  Maisie couldn’t let that go. Her voice showed her disappointment in her friend; she could scarcely force the words out of her mouth. ‘How could yer think that of me, Ett? I’m yer best mate, ain’t I? I’m worried about yer, that’s all.’

  This time it was Ettie who could barely speak. ‘I’m sorry, May,’ was all she managed.

  ‘This is daft,’ said Maisie, trying to sound as though there was no tension between them. Her face brightened. ‘Here look, over there, let’s see what the future’s got in store for yer, Ett.’ May tried to drag her friend over to the Romany fortune-teller. Her booth had drawn a lively and mostly good-natured crowd with its tantalising promise to reveal all by the divination of her brightly coloured birds, who were ready to cast a person’s fortune with a single peck at a tattered playing card.

  ‘I know yer trying to make up with me, May, but no thanks,’ said Ettie, shaking her head vigorously. ‘I don’t need no crooks telling me what’s going to happen to me, thanks all the same. I know what me future is, and it ain’t round here. And I can tell yer that without the help of any flaming parrots.’ Ettie pulled her arm free of Maisie’s and walked smartly away from the seer’s stand.

  ‘Ettie!’ May chased her as far as the boxing booth where, for two shiny coppers, you could watch the Roaring Girl take on all comers of all sizes in bare-knuckle competition. ‘For gawd’s sake, slow down, will yer? If yer going off with that Professor bloke, yer don’t know when yer might see me again. Let’s just have a little look at the stalls for a bit, eh?’

  ‘How about getting home? Myrtle’ll kill yer,’ said Ettie, walking back to May and linking arms with her again.

  ‘In for a penny,’ said Maisie grinning.

/>   They walked along, idly contemplating the stalls and sideshows as though nothing had happened between them, as though the words of distrust, warning and reproach had never been spoken. They paused by a model of Newgate prison with its miniature scene of execution. Maisie made Ettie and the passers-by laugh with her impersonation of its tiny hanged man with the rope still round his snapped neck. Then they moved on and watched disbelievingly at the gulls offering themselves up to be tricked by the thimble-riggers as they foolishly tried to beat the con men at their own so-called game of chance. They were soon back to their old, easy way with each other, but as they looked longingly at a stall selling bright ribbons and pretty feather trims, the friction threatened to return.

  ‘I’ll be able to buy all of them one day, May, just yer wait and see if I don’t,’ Ettie said, running a length of silky, emerald-coloured trim between her fingers.

  ‘That’s more like what you’ll be buying, yer mean,’ said May pointing towards the totter’s barrow, piled high with barely identifiable rags and tatters. ‘Old clothes and cast-offs. That’s our mark.’