by Mark Hodder
In my regular evening debates with Clarissa Stark, I again and again tried to legitimise my infatuation by dwelling on theories of female beauty, oblivious to the fact that this may have been a painful subject for my disfigured friend. I proposed, as the ancient Greeks had done, that perfection of physical form was somehow an expression of well-balanced internal virtues, and it was to these that I was drawn in Alice.
“Then I am obviously entirely without virtue,” Miss Stark observed.
“Heavens above! I didn’t mean to imply that!” I objected. “Your physique was damaged by your terrible accident, so it cannot be judged on such a basis!”
“Regardless, I think any such evaluation is flawed at the outset,” she replied. “And the girl’s beauty makes her all the more dangerous.”
“Miss Tanner isn’t dangerous!”
“Your inexperience blinds you.” She ran a finger over her goggles. “What a shame these only filter light. I wish you could look through them and see what I see in the girl.”
“Which is what?”
“Rupert Hufferton.”
“Pah! Back to your conception of causeless evil!”
My friend shook her head and limped out of the room, quietly saying over her shoulder, “If God is good and no one is evil by nature, then you, as a priest, have just one option remaining.”
“And what is that?”
“Give the Devil his due, Reverend. Give the Devil his due.”
In hindsight, I can acknowledge that I probably knew all along that Miss Stark was correct in her assessment of Alice Tanner. I was aware there was something rotten inside the girl and was cognisant that I was on a course for disaster—yet I couldn’t pull myself back from the brink. In truth, the unfamiliar and irresistible force of bodily desire propelled me, and I was helpless to resist it. So I took my daily walks, exchanged pleasantries with the girl, and every day fell deeper under her spell.
I don’t want to dwell on this for too long. The memory is embarrassing.
The trap was sprung on the first Monday of June in ’87. I was next to the allotment, at the side of the road, making small talk across the fence, when a heavy hand slapped down on my shoulder and yanked me around. Oliver Tanner stood there, his eyes blazing, his breath stinking of whisky, and his mouth twisted into an ugly smirk.
“Here now, what are you up to, my lad?” he demanded.
“I’m just—I’m just—”
“Is he bothering you, Alice?”
“Yes, Dad. He bothers me every day.”
I looked at her in astonishment. “Alice! What do you mean?”
Tanner shook me hard and growled, “Shut up, you! I’ll hear my daughter!”
“He’s always a-comin’ here,” the girl said, and looked at me with scorn in her eyes. “Always pushin’ ’imself at me with ’is foolish sweet talk an’ flattery. I’m sick of it!”
My heart hammered violently. “What? But—no—this isn’t true! Alice, why—?”
“Has he ever laid hands on you, girl?” Tanner snapped.
She looked down and quietly replied, “He tried. I ’ad to run away.”
It was a scandalous lie, and it was spoken with ease.
Tanner gripped me by the collar and practically lifted me off my feet. He thrust his face into mine.
“You’d do that? You’d touch my daughter with your filthy damned hands?”
“I didn’t! I never—I never—”
He shook me again and my teeth rattled. I wasn’t scared—I was too dumbfounded. My brain had frozen with the shock of it. I simply couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
“Stop yammering and explain yourself, or by God, I’ll knock you into Kingdom Come!”
Alice laughed. “He’d like that! He’s a vicar, ain’t he? Don’t do ’im any favours!”
Tanner snorted and grinned. “She don’t come free, my lad. If it’s a taste of Alice you’re after, you’ll have to ruddy well pay for it!”
“P-pay?”
“Aye, pay. There ain’t nothing for nothing in this life, and that includes the liberty you’ve already taken! How much does he owe us, Daughter?”
“I’d say fifty nicker, Dad.”
“But—what?” I spluttered. “This is outrageous! Fifty pounds? That’s a fortune! What for? I haven’t done—”
Again, I was shaken.
“You’re calling my girl a liar, are you?” Tanner roared. “You want me to tell the whole bloody town what you’ve been up to?”
“No! I only—I mean—I love her!”
“What?”
“I love her, Mr. Tanner. I haven’t—I wouldn’t do anything to harm her!”
The blacksmith released me and stepped back. He put his hands on his hips, doubled over, and roared with laughter. “Hah! What do you think of that, Alice? The scoundrel loves you!”
The girl walked a short distance away, clambered over a stile, returned to us, and looked me in the eyes. She said, in a tone of such cruelty that I felt claws of ice digging into my chest, “You love me, Reverend Fleischer? You think I might find ’appiness with a dusty old bookworm—a tall, thin dullard? Look at you! A bundle o’ bloomin’ sticks bound together in last century’s togs! Pah! I’d rather be alone for the rest o’ me life than be bonded to such a wretched scarecrow!”
With dreadful relish, she cleared her throat, spat onto my boots, and added, “I don’t even consider you a man.”
“Fifty pounds, lad!” Tanner added. “You’ll pay fifty pounds, and if I don’t receive the money by Friday, the town’ll know you for the degenerate you are!”
°
2. Whitechapel and Koluwai
“I’m ruined! If I don’t pay the money, the Tanners will destroy my good name!”
We were in my sitting room, Clarissa Stark in an armchair by the fireplace, while I anxiously paced up and down.
“Inform the police,” my friend advised. “You’ve been a respected member of this community your entire life. Your word will be believed over that of these newcomers.”
“Maybe so, but they’ll still be here to spread their vicious lies. They’ll still disrupt my Sunday services. I’ll still—I’ll still have to look upon Alice!”
Overcome by the awfulness of my position, I suddenly ran from the room and up to my bedchamber, where I threw myself down and wept, piteous fool that I was.
I didn’t emerge for two days. Miss Stark left trays of food outside the door, but I had no appetite, and by the time I descended the stairs on Thursday morning, I felt physically and emotionally hollow, and thoroughly exhausted.
I also felt determined.
As I entered the kitchen, where my sexton was preparing breakfast, I announced, “There is only one solution.”
She turned and presented me with the black circles of her goggles. “And what is that?”
“I shall pay Mr. Tanner his fifty pounds, then I shall leave Theaston Vale.”
“To go where?”
“To study at the Anglican Missionary College in London, and, after that, wherever they send me.”
“As a missionary?”
“Yes.”
“Reverend, forgive me, but don’t you think it a little extreme to—”
I held up my hand to stop her. “My mind is made up, Miss Stark. You were right. I’ve hidden behind books for too long. I have no experience of life. I didn’t recognise evil even when it looked me straight in the eye. I cannot believe this crisis has come into my life without there being some purpose to it. That purpose is clear—to do the greatest good, I must know its opposite. And in order to do that, I must start to live.”
She was silent for a moment, then limped over to me, held me by the elbows, looked up into my face, and said, “‘Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Discipline yourself, keep alert. Like a roaring lion, your adversary, the Devil, prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith. And, after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who
has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.’”
I felt the muscles of my jaw flex. “For a non-believer, you quote the Book with more conviction than I can ever muster. But you chose a passage that suggests my problems have only just begun.”
“The attainment of wisdom inevitably involves a prolonged struggle with adversity,” she replied. “Much more so if the wisdom you seek is an understanding of evil. But the Tanners have set the course, so let us sail it, weather the storms, and see where it takes us.”
“Us?”
“You are my friend—my sole friend. In the time since I was ejected from Hufferton Hall, you’ve been the only person who’s judged me by who I am rather than by what I look like. You’ve been generous, attentive, and agreeable. In short, you are a good man, and, though you doubt it, you’re a good priest, too—but rather a naive one. It is my duty and my desire to accompany you, and to see that you come to no harm.”
I was incapable of immediate response, but that evening, I said to her, “We’ve been meticulous in our observation of social proprieties, but under the circumstances, it feels ridiculous to continue with such formality between us. I’d much prefer it if you would call me Aiden, and allow me to address you as Clarissa.”
She smiled. “Already, the crisis prompts progress.”
The following day, I visited the blacksmith’s, and, standing beside a blazing furnace, handed over the money.
“This’ll do for a start,” Oliver Tanner said with a contemptuous smirk.
“You have my forgiveness, Mr. Tanner,” I replied. “And I thank you.”
“Eh?”
“I believe you are—albeit unknowingly—doing the Lord’s work. You have sacrificed yourself that I may live.”
“What are you gibbering about? I’ve sacrificed naught!”
“Your immortal soul, sir.”
“Superstitious claptrap!” He held up the pound notes I’d given him. “This is what’s real, and it can’t be spent in no bloomin’ afterlife!”
I stared into the furnace. “In that, we are agreed. When payment is demanded of you, those notes will be worthless.”
“The only payment you need worry about, lad, is the one you’ll hand over after I’ve spent this lot. My silence don’t come cheap! Now get out of here! But don’t think this business is finished, ’cos it ain’t—not by a long shot!”
Tanner was wrong. His bribery of me ended there and then—Clarissa and I never saw him, his family, or Theaston Vale ever again. A few days later, we left town and travelled by train to the capital.
°
London. 1888. God in Heaven. What a place.
It was a city divided. Its opulence was incomparable, its sophistication astonishing, its indulgences entrancing, its poverty terrifying, its ruthlessness overwhelming, its vileness unremitting.
The capital’s split personality was perfectly embodied in a sensational novella published two years before my arrival, entitled The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by a Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson. It told of a rather immoral man who, by means of a chemical formula, embodied his weakness of character in an alter ego, which then rampaged about the city.
The tale unnerved me, for Alice Tanner’s wickedness had given such strength to the aspect of my character which, in Theaston Vale, had felt frustrated, isolated, trapped, and inadequate—adding to it a ferocious resentment against the woman who’d spurned and humiliated me—that I could almost believe it might overtake me.
“It’s an inner darkness,” I told Clarissa, “and it won’t be quelled. I hate it!”
“It’s just a phase,” she advised. “Most young men go through it, especially after their first rejection. It’ll wear off.”
She was wrong. London made it worse.
We had enrolled in the Missionary Society upon our arrival in the city, and for a year I’d been taught how to disseminate my religion to those who worshipped at pagan altars. My companion also received instruction as my sexton, and as a part of our training we were assigned three days a week to a workhouse in Whitechapel.
Despite being within reasonable walking distance of the glamorous West End, the district in which we now found ourselves might have been a different world altogether. Overcrowded, filthy, noisy, stinking, and vicious, it was a place where emotions were stripped to their most wretched essence. Need was surpassed by desperation. Hopelessness was eclipsed by utter despair. Love was obliterated by lust. Conditions there had pushed its inhabitants to the brink of animalism, making the men loutish beyond belief, but reducing the women in particular to such a state of bestial savagery that no social propriety or boundary survived in them. I could not walk down a street without being mocked, pawed at, and propositioned by these dreadful creatures. They uttered every blasphemy, put every perversion up for sale.
Whitechapel was a nightmare made real, and every day that I endured it saw an increase in my loathing of the place and its despicable inhabitants.
On the penultimate day of August, I was sent to a lodging house on Thrawl Street, where I was supposed to offer comfort to the fallen women who crowded into its small, damp, mildewed rooms. I arrived there at seven o’clock in the evening and spent the next few hours being regaled with appalling tales of destitution, vice, and violence, all the while trying to remain impassive while seething with detestation.
It was well past midnight by the time I left that awful house and made my way back toward the rooms the Missionary Society had assigned to me. I was tormented and confused, and, inevitably in the warrens of Whitechapel, my preoccupied state caused me to quickly lose my bearings.
Splashing through sewage and bound by the slumping walls of half-derelict and overcrowded tenements, I wandered from alleyway to alleyway, and the voices that jeered and threatened and wheedled suggestively from all around me seemed to close in, until I felt I was drowning in them.
I trudged on, closing my ears to the catcalls, averting my gaze from the ragged clothes and pockmarked faces, from the rotting teeth and alcohol-reddened eyes, from the taunting expressions and obscene gestures.
I wanted to be somewhere else.
No, it was more than that.
I wanted to be someone else, someone immune to all this hatred and revulsion.
My jaw ached, the pressure burning outward from my clenched teeth.
My hands were fisted, fingernails digging into the palms.
I felt rage.
Rage at this world.
Rage at Alice Tanner.
Rage at being Aiden Fleischer.
It filled me and overflowed from me. I saw red. Nothing but red.
My foot bumped against something and I staggered, tried to regain balance, slipped on wetness, and fell to my hands and knees. A growl of impatience escaped me, followed by a horribly primeval and panicked whine that I only vaguely recognised as my own voice.
My fingers had sunk into the slime, refuse, and excreta of an unpaved East End alleyway—and into the rivulets of flowing blood that cut through it.
Suddenly, I was gasping for air. The world snapped back into focus. I pushed myself to my knees. A woman was lying beside me, wreathed in shadows. I’d tripped over her extended leg. Now I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. She was sprawled on her back, the excruciated grin on her face echoed by two long lacerations in her throat, so deep they’d almost severed her head from her neck. Her skirt had been pushed up to her shoulders, exposing her abdomen. It was deeply slashed and torn wide open. Her internal organs glistened wetly.
My whine increased in volume, became a shriek, and I ran.
I don’t properly recall what happened next. Somehow I arrived at my lodgings. I think I disturbed Clarissa. I washed my hands over and over, took off my bloodied suit and threw it into the fireplace, then blacked out.
It was noon when I regained consciousness. I opened my eyes and looked into the expressionless circles of my sexton’s goggles. She wa
s sitting at my bedside.
“You woke the household at five in the morning, Aiden. You were incoherent. Then you fell asleep as if drugged. What happened? There was blood on you.”
“I can’t remember!” I answered, truthfully. “I got lost, Clarissa. I was walking and—and—and that’s all! I don’t know where the blood came from! I don’t know how I found my way back here!”
Throughout the afternoon and evening, I struggled to recall what had occurred, but my memory didn’t return until the following day—and then only partially—when the discovery of the corpse was reported in the newspapers. According to the Daily News, the woman I’d fallen over was a drunkard and prostitute named Polly Nichols who often stayed at the boarding house on Thrawl Street where I’d been the night of her murder. A cart driver had discovered her body in the alley—Buck’s Row.
“But I think I found it first,” I told my companion, “and was so shocked that cowardice took over and I ran away.”
“Don’t judge yourself so harshly,” she advised. “You reacted instinctively, that’s all, and I’m glad you did.”
“Glad? Why?”
“Because according to the coroner, the victim wasn’t long dead when she was discovered, which means you were mere moments away from interrupting the killer at work. He may have been in the alley when you entered it. It’s possible that, by taking to your heels, you escaped being murdered yourself.”
I swayed and put a hand to my forehead. “God in Heaven, can it get any worse than this? The sooner the Society sends us overseas, the better!”
Days of darkness and death followed.
A week after Polly Nichols was killed, a woman named Annie Chapman was found dead, with almost identical wounds.
My state of mind deteriorated. I was engulfed by a black mood. My thought processes became lethargic and fragmentary. I undertook my duties, was out night after night, but returned with little memory of where I’d been or what I’d done. I’d disengaged from reality.
