I refused Inspector Abberline’s offer to have one of his assistants escort me home. “That makes six women he’s killed now, this Ripper,” I said. “You need all of your men for your investigation.”
The Inspector rubbed the side of his nose, a mannerism I was coming to recognize indicated uncertainty. “As a matter of fact, Mrs. Wickham, I am of the opinion that only four were killed by the same man. You are thinking of the woman murdered near St. Jude’s Church? And the one on Osborn Street?” He shook his head. “Not the Ripper’s work, I’m convinced of it.”
“What makes you think so, Inspector?”
“Because while those two women did have their throats cut, they weren’t cut in the same manner as the later victims.” There is viciousness in the way the Ripper slashes his victims’ throats…he is left-handed, we know, and he slashes twice, once each way. The cuts are deep, brutal…he almost took Annie Chapman’s head off. No, Polly Nichols was his first victim, then Chapman. And now this double murder, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Those four are all the work of the same man.”
I shuddered. “Did the four women know one another?”
“Not that we can determine,” Inspector Abberline replied. “Evidently they had nothing in common except the fact that they were all four prostitutes.”
More questions occurred to me, but I had detained the Inspector long enough. I bade him farewell and started back to St. Jude’s, a long walk from Golden Lane. The daylight was beginning to fail, but I had no money for a hansom cab. I pulled my shawl tight about my shoulders and hurried my step, not wishing to be caught out of doors after dark. It was my husband’s opinion that since the Ripper killed only prostitutes, respectable married women had nothing to fear. It was my opinion that my husband put altogether too much faith in the Ripper’s ability to tell the difference.
I was almost home when a most unhappy incident ensued. A distraught woman approached me on Middlesex Street, carrying what looked like a bundle of rags which she thrust into my arms. Inside the rags was a dead baby. I cried out and almost dropped the cold little body.
“All he needed were a bit o’ milk,” the mother said, tears running down her cheeks.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” I gasped helplessly. The poor woman looked half-starved herself.
“They said it was no use a-sending to the church,” she sobbed, “for you didn’t never give nothing though you spoke kind.”
I was so ashamed I had to lower my head. Even then I didn’t have tuppence in my pocket to give her. I slipped off my shawl and wrapped it around the tiny corpse. “Bury him in this.”
She mumbled something as she took the bundle from me and staggered away. She would prepare to bury her child in the shawl, but at the last moment she would snatch back the shawl’s warmth for herself. She would cry over her dead baby as she did it, but she would do it. I prayed that she would do it.
16 October 1888, St. Jude’s Vicarage.
This morning I paid an out-of-work bricklayer fourpence to clean out our fireplaces. In the big fireplace in the kitchen, he made a surprising discovery: soot-blackened buttons from my husband’s missing chambray shirt turned up. When later I asked Edward why he had burned his best shirt, he looked at me in utter astonishment and demanded to know why I had burned it. Yet we two are the only ones living at the vicarage.
22 October 1888, Spitalfields Market.
The chemist regretfully informed me that the price of arsenic had risen, so of necessity I purchased less than the usual quantity, hoping Edward would find the diminished volume sufficient. Keeping the vicarage free of rats was costly. When first we took up residence at St. Jude’s, we believed the rats were coming from the warehouses farther along Commercial Street; but then we came to understand that every structure in Whitechapel was plagued with vermin. As fast as one killed them, others appeared to take their place.
A newspaper posted outside an alehouse caught my eye; I had made it a point to read every word published about the Ripper. The only new thing was that all efforts to locate the family of Catherine Eddowes, the Ripper’s last victim, had failed. A front-page editorial demanded the resignation of the Commissioner of Police and various other men in authority. Three weeks had
passed since the Ripper had taken two victims on the same night, and the police still had no helpful clues and no idea of who the Ripper was or when he would strike next. That he would strike again, no one doubted; that the police could protect the women of Whitechapel, no one believed.
In the next street I came upon a posted bill requesting anyone with information concerning the identity of the murderer to step forward and convey that information to the police. The request saddened me; the police could not have formulated a clearer admission of failure.
25 October 1888, St. Jude’s Vicarage.
Edward is ill. When he had not appeared at the vicarage by tea time yesterday, I began to worry. I spent an anxious evening awaiting his return; it was well after midnight before I heard his key in the lock.
He looked like a stranger. His eyes were glistening and his clothes in disarray; his usual proud bearing had degenerated into a stoop, his shoulders hunched as if he were cold. The moment he caught sight of me he began berating me for failing to purchase the arsenic he needed to kill the rats; it was only when I led him to the pantry where he himself had spread the noxious powder around the rat holes did his reprimands cease. His skin was hot and dry, and with difficulty I persuaded him into bed.
But sleep would not come. I sat by the bed and watched him thrashing among the covers, throwing off the cool cloth I had placed on his forehead. Edward kept waving his hands as if trying to fend someone off; what nightmares was he seeing behind those closed lids? In his delirium he began to cry out. At first the words were not clear, but then I understood my husband to be saying, “Whores! Whores! All whores!”
When by two in the morning his fever had not broken, I knew I had to seek help. I wrapped my cloak about me and set forth, not permitting myself to dwell on what could be hiding in the
shadows. I do not like admitting it, but I was terrified; nothing less than Edward’s illness could have driven me into the streets of Whitechapel at night. But I reached my destination with nothing untoward happening; I roused Dr. Phelps from a sound sleep and rode back to the vicarage with him in his carriage.
When Dr. Phelps bent over the bed, Edward’s eyes flew open; he seized the doctor’s upper arm in a grip that made the man wince. “They must be stopped!” my husband whispered hoarsely. “They…must be stopped!”
“We will stop them,” Dr. Phelps replied gently and eased Edward’s hand away. Edward’s eyes closed and his body resumed its thrashing.
The doctor’s examination was brief. “The fever is making him hallucinate,” he told me. “Sleep is the best cure, followed by a period of bed rest.” He took a small vial from his bag and asked me to bring a glass of water. He tapped a few drops of liquid into the water, which he then poured into Edward’s mouth as I held his head.
“What did you give him?” I asked.
“Laudanum, to make him sleep. I will leave the vial with you.” Dr. Phelps rubbed his right arm where Edward had gripped him. “Strange, I do not recall Mr. Wickham as being left-handed.”
“He is ambidextrous. This fever…will he recover?”
“The next few hours will tell. Give him more laudanum only if he awakes in this same disturbed condition, and then only one drop in a glass of water. I will be back later to see how he is.”
When Dr. Phelps had gone, I replaced the cool cloth on Edward’s forehead and resumed my seat by the bed. Edward did seem calmer now, the wild thrashing at an end and only the occasional twitching of the hands betraying his inner turmoil. By dawn he was in a deep sleep and seemed less feverish.
My spirit was too disturbed to permit me to sleep. I decided to busy myself with household chores. Edward’s black greatcoat was in need of a good brushing, so that came first. It was then that I discovered the
rust-colored stains on the cuffs; they did
not look fresh, but I could not be certain. Removing them was a delicate matter. The coat had seen better days and the cloth would not withstand vigorous handling. But eventually I got the worst of the stains out and hung the coat in the armoire.
Then I knelt by the bedroom window and prayed. I asked God to vanquish the dark suspicions that had begun to cloud my mind.
Whitechapel had changed Edward. Since he had accepted the appointment to St. Jude’s, he had become more distant, more aloof. He had always been a reserved man, speaking rarely of himself and never of his past. I knew nothing of his childhood, only that he had been born in London; he had always discouraged my inquiring about the years before we met. If my parents had still been living when Edward first began to pay court, they would never have permitted me to entertain a man with no background, no family, and no connections. But by then I had passed what was generally agreed to be a marriageable age, and I was enchanted by the appearance out of nowhere of a gentleman of compatible spirit who desired me to spend my life with him. All I knew of Edward was that he was a little older than most new curates were, suggesting that he had started in some other profession, or had at least studied for one, before joining the clergy. Our twelve years together had been peaceful ones, and I had never regretted my choice.
But try as he might to disguise the fact, Edward’s perspective had grown harsher during our tenure in Whitechapel. Sadly, he held no respect for the people whose needs he was here to minister to. I once heard him say to a fellow vicar, “The lower classes render no useful service. They create no wealth—more often they destroy it. They degrade whatever they touch, and as individuals are most probably incapable of improvement. Thrift and good management mean nothing to them. I resist terming them hopeless, but perhaps that is what they are.” The Edward Wickham I married would never have spoken so.
“Beatrice.”
I glanced toward the bed; Edward was awake and watching me. I rose from my knees and went to his side. “How do you feel, Edward?”
“Weak, as if I’ve lost a lot of blood.” He looked confused. “Am I ill?”
I explained about the fever. “Dr. Phelps says you need a great deal of rest.”
“Dr. Phelps? He was here?” Edward remembered nothing of the doctor’s visit. Nor did he remember where he’d been the night before or even coming home. “This is frightening,” he said shakily. His speech was slurred, an effect of the laudanum. “Hours of my life missing and no memory of them?”
“We will worry about that later. Right now you must try to sleep some more.”
“Sleep…yes.” I sat and held his hand until he drifted off again.
When he awoke a second time a few hours later, I brought him a bowl of broth, which he consumed with reawakening appetite. My husband was clearly on the mend; he was considering getting out of bed when Dr. Phelps stopped by.
The doctor was pleased with Edward’s progress. “Spend the rest of the day resting,” he said, “and then tomorrow you may be allowed up. You must be careful not to overtax yourself or the fever may recur.”
Edward put up a show of protesting, but I think he was secretly relieved that nothing was required of him except that he lie in bed all day. I escorted the doctor to the door.
“Make sure he eats,” he said to me. “He needs to rebuild his strength.”
I said I’d see to it. Then I hesitated; I could not go on without knowing. “Dr. Phelps, did anything happen last night?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He didn’t know what I meant. “Did the Ripper strike again?”
Dr. Phelps smiled. “I am happy to say he did not. Perhaps we’ve seen an end of these dreadful killings, hmm?”
My relief was so great it was all I could do not to burst into tears. When the doctor had gone, I again fell to my knees and prayed, this time asking God to forgive me for entertaining such treacherous thoughts about my own husband.
1 November 1888, Leman Street Police Station, Whitechapel.
It was with a light heart that I left the vicarage this bright, crisp Tuesday morning. My husband was recovered from his recent indisposition and busy with his daily duties. I had received two encouraging replies to my petitions for charitable assistance for Whitechapel’s children. And London had survived the entire month of October without another Ripper killing.
I was on my way to post two letters, my responses to the philanthropists who seemed inclined to listen to my plea. In my letters I had pointed out that over half the children born in Whitechapel die before they reach the age of five. The ones that do not die are mentally and physically underdeveloped; many of them that are taken into pauper schools are adjudged abnormally dull if not actual mental defectives. Children frequently arrive at school crying from hunger and then collapse at their benches. In winter they are too cold to think about learning their letters or doing their sums. The schools themselves are shamefully mismanaged and the children sometimes mistreated; there are school directors who pocket most of the budget and hire out the children to sweatshop owners as cheap labor.
What I proposed was the establishment of a boarding school for the children of Whitechapel, a place where the young would be provided with hygienic living conditions, wholesome food to eat, and warm clothing to wear—all before they ever set foot in a classroom. Then when their physical needs had been attended to, they would be given proper educational and moral instruction. The school was to be administered by an honest and conscientious director who could be depended upon never to exploit the downtrodden. All this would cost a great deal of money.
My letters went into the post accompanied by a silent prayer. I was then in Leman Street, not far from the police station. I stopped in and asked if Inspector Abberline was there.
He was; he greeted me warmly and offered me a chair. After inquiring after my husband’s health, he sat back and looked at me expectantly.
Now that I was there, I felt a tinge of embarrassment. “It is presumptuous of me, I know,” I said, “but may I make a suggestion? Concerning the Ripper, I mean. You’ve undoubtedly thought of every possible approach, but…” I didn’t finish my sentence because he was laughing.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Wickham,” he said, still smiling. “I would like to show you something.” He went into another room and returned shortly carrying a large box filled with papers. “These are letters,” he explained, “from concerned citizens like yourself. Each one offers a plan for capturing the Ripper. And we have two more boxes just like this one.”
I flushed and rose to leave. “Then I’ll not impose—”
“Please, Mrs. Wickham, take your seat. We read every letter that comes to us and give serious consideration to every suggestion made. I show you the box only to convince you we welcome suggestions.”
I resumed my seat, not fully convinced but nevertheless encouraged by the Inspector’s courtesy. “Very well.” I tried to gather my thoughts. “The Ripper’s first victim, you are convinced, was Polly Nichols?”
“Correct. Buck’s Row, the last day of August.”
“The Illustrated Times said that she was forty-two years old and separated from her husband, to whom she had borne five children. The cause of their separation was her propensity for strong drink. Mr. Nichols made his wife an allowance, according to the Times, until he learned of her prostitution—at which time he discontinued all pecuniary assistance. Is this account essentially correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
“The Ripper’s next victim was Annie Chapman, about forty, who was murdered early in September?”
“The night of the eighth,” Inspector Abberline said, “although her body wasn’t found until six the next morning. She was killed on Hanbury Street, less than half a mile from the Buck’s Row site of Polly Nichols’s murder.”
I nodded. “Annie Chapman also ended on the streets because of drunkenness. She learned her husband had died only when her allowance stopped. When she tried to find
her two children, she discovered they had been separated and sent to different schools, one of them abroad.”
Inspector Abberline raised an eyebrow. “How did you ascertain that, Mrs. Wickham?”
“One of our parishioners knew her,” I said. “Next came the double murder of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, during the small hours of the thirtieth of September. Berner Street and Mitre Square, a fifteen-minute walk from each other. The Stride woman was Swedish by birth and claimed to be a widow, but I have heard that may not be true. She was a notorious inebriate, according to one of the constables patrolling Fairclough Street, and she may simply have been ashamed to admit her husband would not allow her near the children—the nine children. Is this also correct?”
The Inspector was looking bemused. “It is.”
“Of Catherine Eddowes I know very little. But the Times said she had spent the night before her death locked up in the Cloak Lane Police Station, because she’d been found lying drunk in the street somewhere in Aldgate. And you yourself told me she had a daughter. Did she also have a husband, Inspector?”
He nodded slowly. “A man named Conway. We’ve been unable to trace him.”
The same pattern in each case. “You’ve said on more than one occasion that the four victims had only their prostitution in common. But in truth, Inspector, they had a great deal in common. They were all in their forties. They were all lacking in beauty. They
had all been married. They all lost their homes through a weakness
for the bottle.” I took a breath. “And they were all mothers.”
Inspector Abberline looked at me quizzically.
“They were all mothers who abandoned their children.”
A Moment on the Edge:100 Years of Crime Stories by women Page 38
