He moved to a set of rough-planked shelves in one of the room’s dark recesses and returned with a half-empty bottle of Irish whiskey. Pulling the cork with his teeth, he moved to fill Florence’s empty glass, but she covered it with her hand before the first drop fell. Not all her common sense had deserted her, she was pleased to note.
“You enjoyed it enough with the ale, why not try some on its own?” Derwent said.
Florence’s jaw dropped. “You put that in my ale?”
“Only a drop, just to sweeten it up a trifle.”
“In that case, no thank you, I’ve had enough,” she said with indignation. You should never mix your drinks—it was one of the many instructions her mother had given her before her first season out, and one of the few society rules she’d ever thought worth sticking to. She had no desire to make a spectacle of herself in public.
“Suit yourself.” Derwent took a pull from the bottle, shovelled a few pieces of coal onto the fire, and dragged another crate alongside hers.
She shot him a wary look.
“You wouldn’t deny a man the warmth of his own—well, his cousin’s—fire, would you?” He moved the crate closer still.
“No,” Florence answered primly. “Provided that is all you are doing.”
He made the sign of the cross. “Upon my mother’s grave.”
“Patrick implied that your mother was still very much alive.” She let the matter drop. “You suggested you had some other ideas that might draw attention to our cause.”
“Oh, yes, so I did.” Derwent laughed. He’d been doing a lot of laughing since her arrival, and Florence wondered how long he’d been drinking.
“Well …” He paused to take another swig of whiskey, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Have you thought about violating public property?”
Florence delved into her cloudy thoughts. “We pull slates from roofs, damage politicians’ cars—that sort of thing. And you know about the golf course—where rich and influential men play to the exclusion of women.”
Derwent slapped his knees and guffawed. “And who in hell—”
“Language, please.”
“I do beg your ladyship’s pardon.” Derwent began again, “Who the dickens cares about what happens to politicians’ cars excepting the politicians themselves? Or the privileged few who can afford to play golf. You need to find ways to reach the ordinary workingman.” He pulled his beard as he thought. “I know, how about one of yous shinning up Nelson’s Column and putting a suffragette bonnet on the esteemed hero’s head?”
Florence could not contain herself. The laughter began in her belly and spread through her body until she was shaking with it.
Derwent laughed, too. “Or daub some priceless work of art with streaks of white, green, and purple. Or put a corset around the waist of Prince Albert in the park—that kind of thing?”
Florence almost doubled up. Derwent slapped her on the back like he would a chum in a bar, rocking back and forth on his crate.
“Yes, very amusing,” Florence said when she had recovered. “Though I cannot see how this especially affects the ordinary workingman—or woman. Did you know, Derwent, that more than eighty percent of the women in England are workingwomen? And men have the temerity to tell us we should stay in our homes!”
Derwent ignored her words. “You should take life a little less seriously, Florence McCleland,” he said. “You’re very beautiful as it is, but when you laugh, the world is a better place for it.”
He moved towards her and at once she got to her feet. “It’s time for me to leave,” she said soberly, trying to restore some of her dignity. If only the room would stop spinning.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Derwent said. “I’m not that sort, despite what people say. But any man would weaken if he saw your face as I did just then, glowing in the firelight.” He reached for her hand and kissed it. Before she knew it, he was doing the same to her lips, pressing his body into hers, making her aware of every contour of his hard-muscled physique. Her body responded to his with a pleasant ache and a quiver she had not felt for a long time.
But since the poet, Florence McCleland had vowed never to let a man touch her with passionate intent again. No nun took her vows more seriously than Florence did the guiding principles of the cause, especially those pertaining to purity and dignity. She pushed him away. “Stop!”
He stepped back as if doused with cold water. “Florence, please—you can’t do that to a man!”
“I can and I will. I will find my way to the station now, alone, thank you very much. That’s twice you’ve proved that you are not to be trusted.”
He moved to grab her, but Florence moved faster. She lunged for the whiskey bottle and smashed it against the mantelpiece. Holding the jagged remains by the neck, she feinted towards him. He backed off, his eyes never leaving the splintered bottle, and raised his palms. “Don’t be a fool, Florence. A woman of your station won’t survive out there on the streets alone at night.”
“I made it here, didn’t I? I think I’ve proved that I’m quite capable of looking after myself. And I’m sure I’ll be a lot safer alone on the streets than I would be with you.”
And then she reminded herself of the other guiding principle of the suffragettes. Hope.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Florence hesitated at the tenement entrance, peering across the yard through the grainy darkness of the alley. Damp, sooty air stung her cheeks and chilled the tip of her nose. A sleeping drunk who had been huddled in the building’s doorway when she arrived was still there.
He stirred, and Florence tightened her grasp on the broken bottleneck. But after unfolding one bleary eye, the man stared vacantly at her for a moment, then rolled over and began to snore once more.
Her heartbeat calmed. She dropped the jagged bottleneck into her beaded reticule and stepped over the man and into the yard. A few brisk steps took her through the alley to the arch connecting it to the street. Once more she paused, propped her umbrella against the wall, and worked her fingers into her gloves. She gazed nervously around her. In places the fog had lifted. There was activity in the High Street, where before there had been none. You must appear confident, even if you are not. That was what she always told the Bloomsbury group before a mission. She turned up the collar of her coat, adjusted her feathered hat to a jaunty angle, and stepped out.
A man struggled along on the other side of the road, hunched over a barrow jammed with household items. In the dim light she made out a protruding chair back and what looked like the legs of an upturned table. The man was heading in the same direction as she, and he walked with a purpose; he did not seem drunk or looking for trouble. She would follow close behind, she decided, so he might provide protection if necessary. With any luck, she might even find a cab before she reached the station.
Her low-heeled boots clacked on the pavement.
After a few paces the man slowed and glanced over his shoulder at her. “Piss orf. I ain’t interested.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Acting the toff won’t work eiver—I said piss orf.”
“Oh, no, you’ve got me quite wrong. All I wanted to do was follow you to the station. I mean you no harm.”
“Women, nuffink but pests.” He spat on the ground. “Ya fink I wanna be saddled wiv anuvver when I only just got shot o’ the last? You fink I’m pushin’ around me worldly possessions for the fun of it? I’m lookin’ for a new gaff, that’s what I’m doin’. Na piss off or you’ll be sorry.”
How typical; the first sober man she encountered had to be a misogynist. “Ignore me, then,” she called back. “I don’t care. I’ll just follow a short distance behind—”
Something flew through the air, cutting off her words and splattering into her face. She gagged; spat warm globs from her mouth. With the back of her hand she wiped her lips—it was fresh horse dung. “Horrible man!” she screamed after him, shaking her umbrella.
The barro
w trundled on to the sound of bitter laughter. Damn him and all his kind! He would probably call in at the next public house and recount the hilarity of his encounter at her expense.
That set her thinking. Derwent had sent his brother to the White Hart. Perhaps he was still there. Patrick would see her safely to the station.
There were plenty of pubs around. Almost every street corner in this part of London sported a drinking or gambling establishment of one kind or another. But she knew the White Hart would have to be convenient for the brothers to fill their ale jug.
She doubled back down Whitechapel Road and spotted the White Hart’s illuminated sign almost immediately, a white stag’s head against a blue background. The pub stood among a line of dreary terraced shops on the High Street, a stone’s throw from the alley leading to Derwent’s lodgings.
The name of the pub, the White Hart, had been repeating itself in her mind since Derwent had mentioned it, and she couldn’t think why it seemed so oddly familiar. Other than a few sheltered visits to Olivia’s soup kitchen, she had never been to this part of London before, though she did know it by reputation. It was an area of the utmost deprivation and depravity, where even the police were loath to venture.
Florence needed all her wits and courage to overcome the next challenge. A group of laughing, shoving people spilled into the street outside the pub. She negotiated her way along the bumpy pavement towards them, took a deep breath, and pushed her way through the narrow door and into the smoky interior.
The Hart was a crowded, stinking place, packed with hardened drinkers of both sexes. As she elbowed her way towards the bar, she noticed how emaciated many of the men were, how they leered at her through hungry eyes. The women wore an abundance of paint and laughed lewdly and loudly, exposing gapped teeth and shuddering bosoms. It was hard to imagine Patrick O’Neill drinking in a place like this—Derwent yes, but not Patrick.
Finally she reached the publican, who was struggling to pull the ale fast enough to keep up with demand. He seemed the only sober person in her vicinity, his face flushed with the effort of providing for his thirsty customers and not from the liquor itself. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can you help me? I’m looking for an Irishman named Patrick O’Neill.”
The publican ignored Florence in favour of a woman standing next to her, as round as she was tall. “No more for you, Nelly,” he said. “Not till you pay for that last one.”
“Ow, come on na, Bill, give us some tick. You can’t ’spect me to go out in the street on a night like this.” She put a skinny, pleading hand out to the publican and Florence realised that the woman only appeared rotund because of the multiple layers of clothing she wore; perhaps it was all she possessed. “Besides,” Nelly added, “ol’ Jack loved nights like this—I wouldn’t be safe.”
The publican pressed his finger to his lips. “Hush, Nelly, talk of the Ripper don’t do trade no good at all.”
“Give us anuvver then and I’ll keep me mouf shut!”
The barman poured Nelly another gin and then answered Florence’s question.
“Patrick O’Neill, you say? He left a while back, miss.” He looked her up and down, wiped his hands on his grimy apron. “Now if I was you, I’d get my chauffer to drive me straight on ’ome. Jack the Ripper ’asn’t been up to ’is tricks for twenty years now, but there’s plenty of others about ’opin’ to take ’is place, mark my words.”
Nelly cackled and nudged Florence with her elbow. “Jill the Rippers, too—watch out for them threads of yours, your ladyship, there’s some out there wouldn’t fink nuffink of cutting yer froat for that fancy coat. Do what Bill says, ducks, and go on ’ome.”
Easier said than done, Florence thought, panic rising. And as if on cue, quick, bony fingers began to tug at the silky pockets of her sealskin coat. “Oh, please leave me alone,” she pleaded, trying in vain to brush the fingers away.
It should have been a ten-minute walk from Aldgate Station to O’Neill’s lodgings, but both Dody and Pike had trouble negotiating the rutted pavements and crooked cobbles, and it was more like twenty minutes before they reached their destination. The George Yard building was a tall, red-bricked tenement accessed from the High Street through a brick arch and then a small alleyway.
They stopped in the yard outside the tenement and stared up at the dimly flickering windows. “I can’t believe Florence came here on her own,” Dody said, unsure which was the stronger emotion accompanying the fear she felt for her sister: intense anger or incredulous admiration.
“Who knows what words of encouragement Miss Barndon-Brown used to get her here,” Pike said. “I’m afraid I cannot recollect the number of the flat. I had hoped I might see an officer from Special Branch here, but if so, he’s very well disguised or hidden.”
Dody noticed a man slumped in the doorway and instinctively moved towards him to see if he needed assistance. Pike pulled her back and nudged the man with his boot. “Hey, you! Wake up!”
“Bugger off, I need me kip.”
“Police! Show some respect.”
It was as if Pike had lit a fire under the man. His eyes jerked open and he pulled himself into a leaning position against the wall. “Wot, wot? Ya want me ta move on, Officer? In this wevver?”
“I want you to answer my questions, that’s what I want. I’m looking for a woman.”
“Ain’t we all, mate, ain’t we all.”
Pike tilted his head to Dody. “She’s well dressed, a little shorter than this lady.”
The drunk blearily focused on Dody. “Yeah, I seen ’er I fink.”
“How long ago?”
A scratch of the head, a burp. “I dunno.”
Pike cursed under his breath. “Think, man. You saw her tonight, but when? Was it dark, did she wake you up?”
“Stepped over me, she did, not too long ago, I reckon. Oi! Yer no copper, where’s ya uniform?”
The frustrating discourse was brought to a merciful conclusion when the O’Neill brothers burst through the front door and into the porch. For a moment both parties stopped what they were doing and stared. The men sized each other up.
Pike spoke. “We’re looking for Florence McCleland,” he said coldly to Derwent. “We were told she’d come to see you here.”
Derwent ignored Pike and gave Dody a low bow. “Good evening, Dr. McCleland.”
“Answer the chief inspector’s question, please, Mr. O’Neill,” Dody said.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Derwent,” Patrick broke in. “There’s no time for playing around.” He turned to Dody. “She stormed out of here not long ago after having a disagreement with my brother. She’s out there alone. We’ve just come out to look for her.”
Pike took a step closer to Derwent. “A disagreement?”
Dody placed her hand on his arm and silently urged him to hold back. This was not the time to settle scores, not when her sister was alone on the streets, possibly this minute being stalked by an unbalanced killer.
Derwent let go a weary sigh. “I think she might have been off to find my brother at the pub—but failed on that count, as you can see. He has just come home and, obviously, did not see her. We thought we’d try and find her together.”
Pike frowned under the porch light, as if he wanted to believe what the brothers were saying. Dody prayed that Pike would put aside his pride. Two able-bodied men would be a useful addition to their search party.
“Four people will be better than two,” he said finally to the brothers. “We will search together.”
His part in the discussion over, the drunk slipped back down the wall like a melting pat of butter.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It would have been quicker to walk, Florence mused as her gaze ran the length of the nag’s bumpy backbone, but at least she felt safe with the Polish cartman, whom the publican had called Sleveski. The man’s English was broken, his manner taciturn, though he did brighten briefly when the publican suggested she offer him tuppence for a lift to the station.
At last the station sign came into view. Sleveski pulled up near the underground steps and with a grunt thrust out his hand. Working her way around the broken bottle in her reticule, Florence prised out his fare and shot him a smile, but he turned his head away. Men usually succumbed to Florence’s charm, and this was her second snub of the evening. Still, the Whitechapel experience had been a worthwhile, character-building exercise; one can’t have it one’s own way all the time. She had braved and she had overcome. As Poppa would say: the hotter the fire, the stronger the steel, et cetera, et cetera. Soon she would be home and recounting her adventures to Olivia.
In her exuberance she jumped from the cart, only to catch her skirt and petticoats on a jutting nail to the sound of ripping fabric. Lord. Now she looked no better than half the women in that awful pub: dirty face, hair and hat crusted with dung, petticoats like shredded rags. She smiled to herself as she made her way to the station steps, the clip-clop of Sleveski’s cart swallowed by the noises of the street. Imagine if Dody were to see her now.
She almost stumbled into the chain barring the station entrance. The station was closed. “Damn and blast it!” she swore, her newly raised spirits crashing. She’d had enough character-building experiences for one night. This was the second time in one week her adventures had left her stranded in the middle of the night with no way of reaching home. But this was considerably further from Bloomsbury than the golf course. She pulled up the collar of her coat and clamped her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.
Florence spun in a slow circle, trying to see past the fog and the surrounding buildings, searching for the looming silhouette of the Tower by the river where Mark Lane Station was located. She could see nothing, but in the near distance she heard a foghorn. The river wasn’t too far away.
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