She gave a nod. ‘That’s right, my Lady,’ she said, almost triumphantly. ‘Cut to pieces she was, in the courtyard of a whorehouse in Calais. I saw it happen with my own eyes.’ She took another swig of beer. ‘Emma and I saw it all from our window, so we did.’
‘So that’s where this all began,’ I whispered weakly. ‘With you and Emma and Beatrice.’ I looked down at my hands and saw that they were trembling. ‘You say that this happened in a… brothel. Does that mean that my… that Beatrice was a… was a…’
She raised an eyebrow and grinned at me. ‘A whore? Yes, she was, my Lady.’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘I know it must all seem very unpleasant for a fine young lady of your sort, all protected and pampered as you have been, but what else can less fortunate girls like me and Emma and Bea do for ourselves if we’ve got nowhere else to go and no nice rich Papa to save us?’
‘She has a family,’ I said angrily.
‘She had a family,’ Marie corrected me coldly, her eyes boring into mine. ’Seems to me that they can’t have cared very much about her if she ended up working on her back.’
I looked around the horrible little room again, which was gloomy and ill lit by only a handful of candles, which Marie had stuck into empty gin and beer bottles along the mantlepiece and window sill. ‘Is that how things are for you?’ I asked dully. ‘No family to care?’
She laughed. ‘Oh, I’ve got plenty of family, so I have, but they’re all over the sea, aren’t they? I don’t think they’d be none too happy if they ever got to hear what it is I do to keep bread in my belly but what else can I do?’ She took another swig from her bottle then shook her long red hair back over her shoulders. ‘You don’t seem very shocked considering what a fine young lady you clearly are.’
I looked around the room again, this time noting the damp laddered stockings that hung over the back of the other chair, the chipped washbowl on the floor and the sharp aroma of vinegary chips, fish and sweat that hung over everything. ‘I’m not shocked,’ I said, ‘not any more.’
Marie finished off her beer and put the bottle carefully on the table. ‘I’m sorry about Bea,’ she said awkwardly. ‘She was a nice girl who didn’t deserve to die like that.’
‘No.’ I thought of the stained envelope that Cora had taken from Martha Tabram’s corpse, of the other women that had been found dead and mutilated in recent months. ‘Was it like the others?’ I asked hesitantly. ‘The other murders.’
She looked away from me. ‘Yes,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘It was just like the others.’
I didn’t need or want to hear anything more and stood up abruptly, almost knocking my chair back and over in the process. ‘I have to go,’ I said, angrily brushing away the tears that threatened to overwhelm me. ‘You’ve been most helpful, Miss Kelly.’
She leaned back on her hands and observed me for a moment. ‘Have I?’ she said. ‘Emma told me that you got hold of the envelope that stupid Tabram bitch stole from her.’
I looked down at her. ‘That’s right,’ I said carefully, feeling in my reticule for a handkerchief. ‘I have it safely hidden away at home.’
She laughed and shook her head at me. ‘Has it never occurred to you, Miss Redmayne, to wonder why your envelope is empty?’ She felt under her pillow and produced a stained piece of folded over paper.
‘It wasn’t empty…’ I began to say weakly before trailing off as I stared at the letter in her hand. ‘Have you had that all this time?’
‘Aha, wouldn’t you like to know.’ Marie waved the paper vaguely between her fingers as if fanning herself. ‘It’ll cost you,’ she said, predictably enough.
I sighed, my mind and heart still reeling from the revelation about Beatrice. ‘I rather thought it might,’ I said, opening my reticule and producing another five pounds, which I placed on the table next to other notes. ‘Will this be enough?’
She hesitated for a moment then gave a nod. ‘I reckon that’ll do me just fine,’ she said before handing over the letter. ‘It’s all written in French so I couldn’t read it.’
I smiled then. Well done Beatrice. ‘Not for want of trying, I expect,’ I said wryly as I unfolded the paper and saw how stained and smudged it was.
She shrugged. ‘You can’t blame a girl for trying. I’ve always been a curious one. Nosy, my mam calls it. She always said that one day I’d have my nose snapped right off if I wasn’t careful.’ She watched as my eyes scanned down the page. ‘So you can read it then?’ she asked almost enviously. ‘I tried my best to pick up some French while I was over there but it never quite stuck in my head for some reason.’
‘We had lessons,’ I said distractedly as I read the letter again, more slowly this time so that not one single word was wasted or lost.
‘Mon chérie,
You must be quite the young lady by now, my dear and how I wish that I could see you again with your hair up and the pretty dresses that you must wear. It’s been too long since I last set eyes on you. Far too long. I think of you every day though, no matter what. I think of you smiling on your birthday, sleeping in my arms as a baby, taking your first brave steps holding on to my hands and I think of you playing in the garden as a little girl, chasing your hoop through the fallen leaves and shouting for me to watch you as you run.
I didn’t mean to leave as I did. I thought that I acted for the best but as usual it was all wrong. I can’t tell you where I am now or what I am doing. It would shame us both, I think and I can’t bear to have you think of me the way that I think of myself.
I’ve started to cough blood, Alice. The doctor here says that it is a small thing now but will become a great thing in time. In fact, he doesn’t know how much time I have which is why I am writing to you now because I don’t know when I will be able to again.
I wonder what you have been thinking about me all these years. I wonder if you think of me at all. In some ways I hope that you do not, that you only barely remember me and have no curiosity about where I went. I think that it would be kinder and safer that way, for you if not for me.
I didn’t mean for our lives to unfold the way that they have done. When I went to Mama and told her about the great mistake that I had made, no one could be kinder or more gentle. I was so ashamed but what else could I do? I was just a girl, little more than a child at the time. I couldn’t defend myself against him, you see. He was too powerful, too strong. I tried to fight him but it was impossible and afterwards I felt only the shame of what he had done.
Mama and I made our plans carefully and when you were born, on a hot lazy day in Italy, then placed into my arms, I knew that, despite everything, I had done the right thing. Have you guessed yet what I am trying so clumsily to tell you? Have you understood that you are my own? That there is a bond between us that is more powerful than you realise?
Enough now, I think. It is enough for me that you know.
Please don’t be angry with me.
Your loving Beatrice.’
‘How could I ever be angry with her?’ I said as I looked at Marie, hardly able to see her through the shimmering blur of tears in my eyes.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, to be sure,’ she said carefully. ‘I didn’t really get to know her very well. She was quiet and kept to herself mostly.’ She looked oddly guilty for a moment and I wondered why. ‘She was nice to all us other girls though. Not everyone is in that sort of place. They don’t really need to be, I suppose but Beatrice always had a kind word for everyone.’
I nodded and brushed away my tears. ‘That sounds just like her,’ I whispered, feeling utterly bereft Oh Beatrice, Beatrice. How could this have happened to you? ‘She was always a kind girl.’ A thought occurred to me then. ‘Where did she end up? Afterwards, I mean?’ I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it yet, that small, stark, violent word. ‘I assume that the police took her away and then the body was buried somewhere close at hand?’
She gave me a quick cautious look then shrugged her shoulders. ‘You’d be right to assume t
hat, my Lady,’ she said warily, ‘but that isn’t quite what happened.’
I stared at her, bracing myself for whatever new and horrible revelation was inevitably coming my way. ‘No?’
‘No.’ She pushed her long red hair back out of her eyes then reached beneath the bed for another bottle of beer. ‘Can’t afford to pay my rent but I can always afford a few bottles to drink,’ she said with a miserable grin. ‘It’s a right rare old mess that I’m in, so it is.’
I automatically put my hand in my purse and pulled out another five pound note, which she took without thanks and stuffed down the front of her frayed and stained bodice. ‘The police never came,’ she said after a moment’s pause. ‘Miss Lisette, who ran the place we were at wouldn’t let them be called for and instead got her men, the bully boys who looked after the place, to take Bea away.’ She took a swig of her beer, clearly unable to look me in the eyes.
I felt cold and sick but made myself go on to the bitter end, just as I had promised to. ‘Where did they take her, Marie?’ I asked quietly, twisting my hands together on my lap and digging my nails into my palms to stop myself screaming out with the pain of it all.
She put down the bottle and turned away to the fireplace, still unable to meet my gaze. ‘To the sea,’ she said in a voice so low that I had lean forward to properly hear her. ‘They took her to the sea.’
There wasn’t much more to be said after this so I tucked the letter into my glove and took my leave, shaking hands with Marie and wishing her well as I went. I remembered her saying at the police station that she was frightened for her life but when I asked her about this, she almost angrily denied it in a way that made it impossible for me to press the matter further even though the woman was clearly scared out of her wits about something. ‘You take care of yourself, my Lady,’ she said softly as she closed the door behind me.
I stood alone for a moment in the darkness of the yard and pressed the palms of my hands over my eyes, which were still wet with unshed tears. There was a pain, a terrible empty, lonely ache of sorrow and loss, within my ribcage while my heart felt like it had turned to ashes. This then was the end of my journey, this then was the answer that I had sought for so long, this then was the secret that Whitechapel had been withholding from me.
I looked up at the tall dark buildings that loomed overhead. Night had completely fallen now, wrapping the streets in a dank and comfortless blanket. I could see thin strips of orange light from candles and gas lamps and the occasional shadow as people moved around their rooms. Marie had started singing again - I recognised the song as ‘A Violet I Plucked From My Mother’s Grave’, a miserable ditty but one that was popular with romantic young ladies of a somewhat morbid turn of mind. It was not to my taste though and I hugged my arms around myself against the sudden chill and started to walk back down the alleyway to Dorset Street.
‘Alice, my dear.’ The voice, so well known and tinged as always with a faint mockery, took me completely by surprise but as I looked back startled and opened my mouth to reply, to ask what on earth he was doing there, a cloth with a sweet, nauseating smell was held in front of my nose and mouth and I saw nothing but a whirl of stars and the buildings overhead closing in until I was completely surrounded by darkness.
Chapter Twenty Eight
I opened my eyes and gave a groan as another wave of sickness coursed through my body. At first I was confused by the sideways view of dozens of sacks all piled up one on top of the other until I realised that I was lying on the floor with my cheek pressed close to a gritty floor that smelt of must and hops.
‘I was wondering when you would wake up,’ a suavely calm voice said from the darkness behind me. ‘I do hope that I didn’t frighten you.’ He stepped in front of me and I looked up at him almost in wonderment.
‘Lord Brennan,’ I said, my voice sounding as dull and thick as if I hadn’t spoken for a hundred years. I swallowed to try and relieve the terrible dryness but only succeeded in making myself cough. ‘What an unexpected surprise.’
He smiled then and offered me his hand. ‘Is it?’ He pulled me gently to my feet then, courteous as ever, put an arm around me to help me to a chair which stood alone in the centre of the room. ‘Apologies for dumping you on to the floor in such a woefully casual manner but I thought you would be more comfortable there until you had woken up.’
I swallowed again. ‘Could I trouble you for a drink?’ I whispered as I sat down. I looked around for my reticule and eventually spotted it lying on its side against a pile of sacks.
‘Of course, how remiss of me.’ He turned away and filled a glass with water from a carafe on a low table. ‘I really am so sorry, Alice, about the means that I had to employ just now in Miller’s Court but I couldn’t think how else to make you come away with me.’
I took the glass from him. ‘You could have tried simply asking me?’ I said before gratefully taking a swig of water. ‘After all, I’ve known you almost my whole life, haven’t I?’
He gave me a quick, rather quizzical look. ‘Yes, you have,’ he said in an odd voice that I had never heard before. He looked across at the reticule. ‘I read Beatrice’s letter,’ he said.
My eyes followed his across the room. ‘Beatrice,’ I said wearily, rubbing my temples as another wave of grogginess threatened to overwhelm me. ’She died.’
He gave a nod. ‘I am sorry to hear it,’ he said gravely. ‘I had no hand in it though. It is not what I wanted for her.’
‘No?’ I looked at him then and it was as if I was seeing him for the first time. ‘What did you want for her, Lord Brennan?’
He looked away and gave a delicate little shudder. ‘Not that,’ he said. ‘Not a miserable little death far away from home. She didn’t deserve that.’
I felt suddenly furious. ‘No one deserves that,’ I said. ‘No one. Not Beatrice and not those other women either.’
Lord Brennan shrugged. ’Tuppenny whores,’ he said dismissively. ‘It surprises me that you can mention them in the same breath as Beatrice.’
‘Does it?’ I glared at him. ‘You know what happened to her, don’t you. After all, why else would you have brought me here?’
He sighed as if I was disappointing him in some way but his eyes sidled away from my face. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said brusquely, ‘and I would have given a great deal for you not to find out.’
I took another steadying sip of my water. ‘But I did,’ I said quietly. ‘I found it all out. Despite you.’
He looked at me then. ‘Not all,’ he said. ‘Not quite all, anyway, but enough.’
‘Enough to change everything,’ I whispered, my heart hurting as I imagined telling Papa what had happened to Beatrice. I knew that he would blame himself and I would have given anything to spare him that pain.
Lord Brennan smiled. ‘Yes, certainly that.’ He took my now empty glass away from me and placed it on a table. ‘Yes, I think that we can safely say that things will never be quite the same ever again.’ He turned to look at me. ‘For you anyway.’
That was the first time that I felt afraid. After all, I’d known him all my life so what harm could he do me? What a fool I was. I looked again at my reticule and wondered how quickly I could move towards it. ‘For both of us, surely?’ I said almost idly, as I prepared myself to spring for the bag. ‘After all, you are my father, aren’t you?’
He stared at me and for a long, hopeless moment I thought that he might be about to deny the fact but then he gave a nod. ‘Yes.’ He sighed and gave a small shrug that could have been unconcern but was more likely relief to be able to admit it at last. ‘Yes, you are mine.’
I frowned. ‘I’m not yours,’ I said. ‘Not now, not ever.’ I remembered all the times that Lucasta had told me how much her father admired me, all the times that she had told me that he was fond of saying how much he wished she could be more like me. ‘Does Lucasta know?’
‘Lucasta?’ He laughed then. ‘Of course not and she never will.’ He poured some more water into my gl
ass and handed it to me.
I inclined my head and smiled as I politely sipped at the water. ‘I am more than happy to oblige in that respect,’ I said. ‘I have no great wish for the world to know the truth of my parentage.’
Lord Brennan grinned. ‘Tsk tsk, dearest Alice, you really do wound me. What have I ever done to make you feel ashamed of me? I can well understand your unwillingness to own your closer relationship to poor dear dead Beatrice but what have I ever done to earn your disapproval?’
I cast a slow meaningful look around the warehouse, which I now saw was piled full of crates and sacks, all stamped with the insignia of a well known tea company. ‘Well, there is the small matter of my abduction for a start,’ I said lightly.
He smiled and tapped his strong white teeth with the key that he had produced out of his pocket. ‘Ah, yes, your abduction.’ He came closer and I instinctively shrank back in my chair. ‘You realise of course that I can never allow you to go home now that you know the truth.’
I swallowed deep and hard, determined not to let him see an ounce of fear in my expression. ‘I rather thought that might be the case,’ I admitted, eyeing up the reticule and thinking that I should make a grab for it the very next time he moved out of the way. ‘And what do you have planned for me?’
‘I originally thought that a prolonged stay at Panacea House might serve my purpose rather well - especially as it was dear Mrs Smith-Welsh who first alerted me to your interest in your sister’s whereabouts. She is in my employ after all - as is everyone who works at Panacea House. I’m sure that I could rely on them to keep you silent.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘However, it really wouldn’t do at all. After all, Beatrice managed to escape, didn’t she and I expect you could too as you seem like a singularly determined young woman.’
From Whitechapel Page 31
