by Lucy Banks
What is life really for, anyway, if we’re so happy to squander it? he wonders. Why are humans so willing to end the life of another?
He remembers, with sudden vividness, a body, face down on the cobblestones. A throat, slashed open. And a name, from the very depths of him. Long Liz.
Then just as soon as it comes to mind, it is gone again. For the moment, the ghost’s mind is mercifully, yet torturously blank.
NINE
— 1878 —
IT HAD BEEN torture, witnessing Eleanor in that state. Everything about the last day had been intolerable, but seeing my wife laid so low was undeniably the worst of it. I hadn’t realised how pink her cheeks were normally, until I’d seen them like this; ghost-white, haggard with resignation.
Poor Eleanor. That impotent phrase kept rolling through my mind, ineffectual as a feather in a storm. Poor, poor Eleanor.
And poor me, I supposed. We were both worldly enough to know that such things happened to women, that the loss of an unborn child was a common thing, regardless of one’s social standing in life, or one’s health or age. Yet we’d dared to imagine, as her stomach started to swell, that she may be one of the fortunate, one of those who carried a child without complaint.
I’d been excluded from much of it, as was to be expected, and she’d asked to be left alone afterwards. No physicians, she’d insisted, despite my protestations. She merely wanted time. Time alone to mourn, time without me beside her, which stung more than I cared to admit. Still, I had to give her that, at the very least. I owed her that much.
I’d offered to strip the bedsheets, to wrap them carefully, even to burn them, had she so desired. But she insisted upon undertaking the task herself, and I’d watched, rigid with sadness, as a tear dropped from her chin and hit the dried blood, forming a watery blotch of regret.
I’d told Mother, of course, who’d promptly passed the news on to the rest of the family. News never remained still for long amongst us, but always travelled, untethered, from parent to sibling. Fred had presumably made no comment, or at least, none that Mother had reported to me. Arthur, on the other hand, had raced to our house the moment he’d heard. Dear old Arthur. Yet it really wasn’t what I needed at present. Like Eleanor, I craved solitude; a chance to allow my emotions to accommodate reality.
“Come now,” Arthur said, hanging his jacket on the coat hanger, in a manner that was rather overfamiliar. “Surely I must be able to assist with something. Mother said you needed some help.” He followed me into the kitchen, his eyes boring uncomfortably into my back.
“I don’t see why she would say that,” I said curtly, pulling out a chair for him. “There’s nothing that can be done.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged, sitting down, then taking his pipe from his pocket. “But good God, don’t you want to talk about it?”
I glanced towards the stairs. Aside from the dull click of the grandfather clock, the house was silent. I presumed Eleanor must be asleep, still resting after the ordeal. “What on earth is there to talk about?”
“I don’t know. How you feel? I mean, losing a baby is a common enough thing, but that doesn’t make it easy, does it?”
I nodded. He was right there, I’d had no idea how much it would hurt. “You know I’m not one for talking,” I replied uneasily.
“No, you’re very like Father in that way.”
“I’m not the one who’s really suffering, though,” I clarified, ignoring the barbed tone of his comment. “Poor Eleanor is in a terrible state.”
There it is again, I thought. Poor Eleanor. As if my sympathy could change anything.
Arthur leaned back in the chair, surveying the landscape outside the window; the murky waters of the Thames just visible on the other side of the road. It was a gloomy evening, charcoal clouds clogging up the sky, the last dirty remnant of winter. He sighed. “Why don’t we have a drink somewhere? It’d do you good to get out for an hour or so, and you’d give Eleanor the peace she needs.”
I shook my head. “It’s hardly appropriate to go to some tawdry inn while my wife recovers from such an ordeal.”
“Yes, but you’re no use to her, are you? Women are well equipped to deal with this sort of thing, and it is female business, after all. Besides,” he added with a gleam in his eye, “it’s not a tawdry inn I had in mind. My gentleman’s club isn’t far away, we could go there.”
“I hardly think I’d fit in.” I gestured to my waistcoat, which was looking decidedly shabby, though I was reluctant to let it go. The promotion I’d hoped for at the office hadn’t been forthcoming. It seemed as though I was destined for a life as a middle-ranking clerk after all. Well, I thought, surveying Arthur. Not all of us can be high achievers.
“You’d be absolutely fine. Just put a tie on, you’ll be right at home.”
I shook my head. “No, really, Arthur. Not tonight. A walk might be a fine thing, though. I could do with some fresh air.”
“Dear me, you sound like Mother.” Arthur chuckled, then tapped his pipe on the table, before patting down the tobacco. “Very well. If that is what you need, then that is what you shall have.”
I realised my winter coat was still in the bedroom, draped across the chair where I’d discarded it, after thinking I’d need to run out to fetch a physician. Each staircase squealed as I edged upwards, and I felt wretched, creeping towards such a vulnerable, miserable creature.
The door was ajar. I could hear her breathing, thankfully deeper and more serene than before. The shape of her body curved beneath the sheets, hourglass smooth, softly rising and falling. I wanted to touch her, to smooth the curls from her forehead, which were matted with dried sweat. It broke me, somewhere deep inside, to see her looking so small and so defeated. Life is brutal, I thought. And it chooses its victims without discernment.
I quickly penned Eleanor a note in case she awoke in my absence, then crept back downstairs. Arthur had already opened the front door and was waiting patiently.
“How is she?”
“Sleeping, thank goodness.”
“Be thankful for small mercies. Now, shall we?”
We stepped out into the cold. A fine mist of rain troubled the air, settling immediately over our hair, our coats, our exposed faces. I glanced back at the house. The bedroom window was dark, empty as a horse’s eye, glaring over the river beyond. The sight of it disturbed me in some profound way, and I shivered, thinking I’ve seen this house, crushed to the ground. I’ve stood here, years from now, and seen its destruction.
“Are you all right?” Arthur nudged me, frowning. “You look rather spooked, as though you’d seen a spirit or something.”
The words pulled me back into the moment. “I’m perfectly fine,” I replied, pulling my collar up to my chin. “I just had one of those moments. You know, when you have a certainty that something bad will happen?”
Arthur chuckled. “Sounds like nonsense to me. That’s your wife’s influence, that is; with her love of fortune tellers and the like.”
I nodded. Eleanor was strangely preoccupied with that sort of thing, and always asked Mother to read her future in the tea leaves. Perhaps it was a womanly attribute, a desperate desire to believe there was something more than what we experienced around us. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t something I related to. My beliefs were decidedly more secular, though perhaps the upset of the last day had unseated me, made me more prone to fanciful thoughts.
“You may be right,” I agreed, as we made our way down the street. “I just had this sudden, strange notion that I was viewing my home, years from now, and that it had been blasted to the ground. Isn’t that a peculiar thing?”
“Blasted to the ground? That certainly is a strange thing to think up. I should think you’d be more at risk of flooding here than anything else.” He gestured to the Thames. “I envy your astounding views, but not your position; flood damage is a terrible thing to put right, you know. Makes your house reek for weeks on end afterwar
ds.”
We trudged along the path, which was already pitted with puddles. It truly was a miserable night, and quite unthinkable that it could be March already. Arthur slipped in some mud, then cursed under his breath.
“Damned muck. Honestly, why can’t you live in the centre of the city, as I do?” He studied his shoe, then gave me a rueful stare.
“I have no desire to live amongst all the noise and chaos,” I replied, nimbly jumping over a sizeable puddle. “Though it would be nice to be a bit closer to the office, I suppose.”
“See? Though you wouldn’t want to live in Whitechapel. I’m surprised your company hasn’t moved premises yet, they’ve got a good reputation these days.”
“Steady on, we’re not in the heart of Whitechapel, are we?” I bristled at the perceived slight. After all, it was employment, and not badly paid either.
“You’re in the Jewish area.”
“And what of it? Honestly, I fail to see why so many people take umbrage against the Jews.”
Arthur grinned, then patted my shoulder. “My apologies, I didn’t mean to offend you. I can see that tonight is not the night for teasing.”
“No, it really isn’t.” My thoughts drifted back to Eleanor. Perhaps leaving the house wasn’t such a good idea after all. What if she awoke and was frightened that I wasn’t there? What if, heaven forbid, the bleeding started again? It had been several hours since it happened, and she’d seemed recovered enough afterwards, but then, I was no medical expert.
I expressed my concern to Arthur, who wrapped a sympathetic arm across my shoulder.
“I believe your good wife will be fine. After all, I don’t mean to belittle your experience, but this is commonplace, isn’t it? She will recover, she will get with child again, and she will be a mother in good time, I am sure.”
We continued walking, wandering peacefully as the quiet streets gave way to crowded urban terraces, red-brick house after red-brick house, all piled atop one another like children in a schoolyard. I’d veered unintentionally towards my place of work, driven no doubt by some instinct; the habit of many days of repetitive action.
It was a different place by night. A man in a tattered top hat studied us coolly, before slipping back into the shadows. Two women, their stained corsets visible underneath roughly draped shawls, smiled invitingly, whispering sweet offers, which carried hauntingly on the breeze.
“Good Lord, why did you bring us here?” Arthur glanced over his shoulder, then at me.
I shrugged. “Curiosity, perhaps. It’s not like this when the sun’s up.”
“I should hope not. Look, there is a woman there with nothing on her—”
I followed the line of his gaze, then looked away sharply. Whitechapel was more depraved than I’d realised. The woman’s breasts were fully exposed, hanging loosely to her waist like two half-full sacks of flour. She laughed when she saw us.
“A couple of mollies, I’ll be damned!”
“He’s my brother, thank you very much,” Arthur protested.
She laughed again. Even in the dim light, I could see she was missing more than a few teeth. “That’s what they all say, love. Come and spend some time with me, I’ll turn you.”
“I think we should go,” he muttered to me.
I agreed, though there was something liberating about being here, walking among a street of perversity and ill repute. It freed my spirits, taking me away from the weight of the last day, and for a moment, I was tempted to delve deeper into the filth, to explore the darker, seedier side of the city I thought I knew so well.
“Come on, let’s head back,” Arthur said firmly. “You’ve had enough fresh air for one night.”
We stopped just outside Dutfield’s Yard. It looked eerily dark, quite unlike the cheery, busy place it usually was in the daylight, with its sack-makers shouting across the courtyard, and the cart-builders hammering at their wood. An old man leaned beneath the mounted cartwheel on the wall, pipe glittering with every inhalation. It reminded me of an oil painting; unreal, vague, and somehow beautiful.
“I feel a little like I’m under a spell,” I whispered, as we turned to leave. “This place is quite captivating, don’t you think?”
“No, not in the slightest.” Arthur frowned, then lightened at the sight of my expression. “You are odd, you know. You always were the peculiar one.”
“I thought that was Fred?”
“No, he was the ill-tempered one. He’d fit in far better here than we ever would.”
I grimaced. That was probably true. It was strange, how things had turned out. Fred had always done all right, until father died. But then, something had been said, and it had changed him, stripped him of his easy-going charm, and replaced it with sullenness and suspicion. It had been alarming, how swiftly he had become the creature he was today.
“’Ere, you two. What you doin’ round here, eh? Come for a snoop, have you?” The man with the pipe glowered, arms folded across his chest.
The hostile sentiment shocked me out of my reverie. “Let’s leave,” I suggested. The old man was still watching us, eyes fierce with intent. He looked older than Mother, but I still believed he could inflict damage upon us both; even worse if he called on concealed friends, if a mob emerged from the shadows and set upon us.
Arthur tutted. “I’ve been saying that for the last ten minutes!”
The old man stepped forward. I held my hands up placatingly, then hastily dragged Arthur down the street. Laughter trailed us; deep, guttural amusement, with more than a hint of menace lacing the edges.
Not so entrancing now, is it? I reprimanded myself, as we hurried away. As usual, I’d found myself the outsider, neither welcomed nor actively rejected. I found myself reflecting on our own strange position in life; one foot placed in the comfortable middle classes, the other positioned more awkwardly in the lower echelons of society, thanks to our humble upbringing, not to mention our prevailing connections to the Docks. Yet look at us now, I thought, glancing at Arthur, taking in his smart woollen coat, the sharp cut of the collar. Some of us have gone up in the world, others have fallen. What a strange lot we are.
“Do you ever feel guilty about your success?” I blurted suddenly, as we rounded the corner. The rain was now falling in earnest, fat, weighted drops that dragged my hair into my eyes.
Arthur coughed. “No, of course not. Why should I?”
Indeed, why should he? It was a fair point. Yet here he was, a man living a life of comfort, while his eldest brother resided in dank, broken rooms and was paid a pittance for breaking his back each day at the dockyard. “I don’t know why I said that,” I said. “After all, it’s—”
“—after all, I worked hard to achieve what I have,” Arthur interrupted. “And although it may seem as though I live a charmed life, it hasn’t all been a bed of roses.”
“How do you mean?” I had to shout to make myself heard over the pounding rain.
“Well, look at your life.” He gestured down the road, as though my entire existence lay before him, a carpet of possibilities on the ground. “You have a happy marriage, children on the way…”
“Not anymore,” I reminded him, the truth of it hammering against my chest.
He waved my comment aside. “But you will have. You’ll have more children, you and Eleanor; and you’ll be happy. And what do I have? A large, empty house, with no one but myself, the maid, and the cook to rattle around in it. I know which type of life I’d rather have.”
This wasn’t like Arthur. The moisture on his face gleamed in the lamplight, highlighting the tension in his jaw. I reached across, forgetting the horrendous weather for a moment.
“You will find someone to be happy with,” I promised him. How could he not? I thought. He is handsome, friendly, generous; what more could a woman want?
He gave me a dark look. “What, someone like your Eleanor? I can’t imagine there are many women like her. Most are so dashedly empty-headed, it de
fies belief.”
Overhead, the clouds rolled uneasily, the moon flitting between them like a secretive thing. I felt a moment of worry, a resounding gong of alarm, somewhere deep within me, which dissipated almost as soon as I’d become aware of it. I need a good night’s sleep, next to my wife, I thought, wishing I was there already, tucked up in the warmth of our bed.
I nudged Arthur with my elbow, giving him a wink as he turned. “As long as you don’t choose a woman like Long Liz, you’ll be fine.”
It worked. He grinned, then nudged me back. “Dear Lord, if I ever bring home a creature like Elizabeth Stride, do have a stern word with me, won’t you?”
“Or was that woman right earlier, when she called you a molly?” I laughed, pointing at his bright cravat, which poked from his collar like an impudent child.
He rolled his eyes. “I personally prefer the female of the species.”
My house was a welcome sight at the end of the road, tucked neatly beside the beech trees, waiting to envelop me into its pleasant interior. The rain had soaked us both, seeping through our trousers, moistening our faces so they appeared liquid in the dim moonlight.
“Won’t you come in and get dried off?” I opened the door, waiting for him to follow.
Arthur shook his head. “No, I’m going to return home, it’s late.” He glanced through the door, to the stairs. “I’ll leave you to get back to your wife.”
His words hung deliberately in the air, laden with something I couldn’t quite discern. Was he jealous? He’d certainly never seemed it before, but I couldn’t tell. It was most unlike him; normally he was as easy to read as a children’s book.
“I’ll bid you good night, then,” I said, uncertainly.
Arthur waited, then smiled. “You’ll be all right, you know. Everything will be fine.”
“Yes, I’m sure it will,” I replied. He’d meant it kindly, but I wish he hadn’t said anything at all. That same strange feeling surged through me, as it had done earlier in the evening; the sense that something terrible was about to happen. I remembered the vision I’d had of my house, lying on the ground in a crumbled ruin, and shivered.
