Nonetheless, whatever part of the world I might call home, or not, it had to be admitted that in the New World there was work for all, untilled land to farm, communities to be established, towns built. This provided some chance of a better life to anyone willing to work and quick to seize an opportunity. A man there, if he was lucky and energetic, could change his life, for better or worse, which is not so easy in a country where a wagoner must stay a wagoner and his sons after him, where paupers breed paupers, washerwomen bear only washerwomen, queens give birth only to kings. There’s no rhyme or reason about the condition of life in which a child is born. Whether French or Russian, rich or poor, girl or boy, fate decrees it and nothing can alter it, no matter how much tea Rosie Levi’s menfolk drink in their Whitechapel kitchen, talking of rights and revolution. Yet in Canada, because of the newness of the country, a poor man will get his chance, and that’s no bad thing.
Anyway, as Marcus and I sat together in the old garden, after he had asked me if I thought of Canada, I told him something of what I felt, adding politely, a woman in those circles not really being expected to have ideas of her own, ‘I expect I surprise you. Yet spending so long in another part of the world prompts thoughts, unconventional as they might seem.’
‘From the moment we met, you never gave me the idea you were a conventional woman,’ he said.
‘Thank you for your charming compliment, if you intended one,’ I responded.
‘Would you prefer to be called conventional?’ he challenged. ‘If so, you would be wrong. You are charming. That is part of your charm.’
I evaded this. ‘I suppose it’s impossible to prevent anyone from calling you anything they want.’ I said. I had the impression, as I always do, when a man desires me, of the atmosphere thickening around me. I asked, ‘And have you made up your mind yet about whether you’ll stand for Parliament?’ This had been the subject for debate at the previous night’s dinner table, Crooke having said he was planning not to stand for the constituency at the next election and sounding out, as they put it, Marcus for the job.
‘I’m turning the matter over,’ he told me. But I knew he would accept. ‘Ladies, perhaps, are more fortunate than we men. Their path is clear to them.’
If he believed that, I thought, he’d believe anything. My choice had been to make a career as a milliner or a streetwalker, a common enough choice where I came from, but did he really think Guinevere Coleman did not see him as a post she was applying for, with his mother as sponsor? Men will never understand women or their lives or know them for the cheating servants they are, and, while the last woman left in the world has enough breath in her body to lie to them, they never will.
‘A career as the guardian of a constituency and legislator for the nation is not to be despised,’ I said.
He gazed at me. ‘You express yourself quaintly sometimes.’ After this he added hastily, ‘Do not take this as a criticism, I beg you. I find it … interesting, fetching.’ He went on more boldly, ‘I find you fetching altogether.’ More boldly still he added, ‘… Mary.’ And he took my hand. I did not withdraw it. It’s the same old game wherever you go, I thought to myself, and this was how it happened that he came to me that night, how I found myself, early next morning, so shaken, tearful in fact, after the deed was done. When he was gone, I stood at the window looking out just as first light came faintly on to the horizon. The shapes of birds were beginning to move and drop through the air like leaves. A small, cool, vital breeze was blowing.
I thought, Well, Mary, this week you’ve given your favours recently to two different men and neither paid a penny for the privilege. Come on, gel, what are you thinking of? And so I went back to bed and fell asleep until the maid came in with tea.
It was at breakfast that the awaited telegram summoning me back to London arrived, and not a moment too soon, for Mrs Brown’s face over her porridge and kedgeree was a picture, and I guessed her suspicions of me were now thoroughly aroused. Perhaps she had heard voices, or a floorboard creak, and so suspected the night’s transactions, perhaps she was working merely on instinct, but she gave me a thorough grilling over the breakfast table in respect of my mother’s maiden name – ‘Your mother French? That would account for your dark looks’ – and of the late invented Mr Frazer – ‘didn’t I hear that Hugo Frazer had married in the colonies?’ The temptation to tell the old bitch who I was, and who I thought she really was, grew stronger and stronger, until in came Edwards with Mr Ratcliffe’s telegram, at last.
Marcus entered at that point and looked at the message in my hand in alarm. ‘Not bad news, I hope,’ he said.
I told him that my friend’s husband had telegraphed saying she was unwell again, and would like me with her. I felt I should leave immediately. He was most upset but I think I heard his mother whisper, ‘Opportune’ into her plate, which I, though not he, was meant to hear.
Explanations and farewells over, we started for the station, Marcus having said he would see me off. Mrs Brown enhanced the party by sending along Alice and Veronica with some errands to do for her in Faversham, in order to prevent us from being alone, so at the last moment the gig had to be unharnessed and its horse put with another one to pull the carriage. We all set off. I was pleased not to be alone with Marcus, for as far as I was concerned there was no point in a love affair between us and I liked him, so would not have enjoyed the moment when I told him who I was and made him suffer. Partly due to Mrs Brown’s well-timed delay with the carriage (although Marcus had inventively sent the girls off to the station manager’s cottage to ask about some terrier puppies) there was little time for sweet nothings on the platform. He had barely time to kiss my cheek and tell me he would be in town next week and would call on me. Dora could be told to say I was out, I thought, as I settled down in my carriage.
As the train grew closer to London, though, I became increasingly agitated. Had there, during my absence, been any message from Mary? Would there be any communication from Dolly Halloran, whom I’d left in charge of Esmeralda’s in my absence? In every other respect a sensible woman, she had a weakness for a plausible, well-set-up man and one of these rogues could always take advantage of her. If some such fellow had hit town after my departure, matters might have got out of hand. And what, I pondered, was I doing allowing Jim Bristow and Marcus Brown to lay claim to me? In the end I’d be so restricted in my actions, as they encircled me like attacking Indians, that I’d have to move to another apartment to evade them. I felt worse and worse as we entered the sad, smoky neighbourhoods bordering the railway line. In the country I had at least slept without nightmares, but as we crossed the Thames, a terrible foreboding and the old anxiety threatened to overwhelm me. I prayed I would find Mary on my doorstep when I returned and be able to pack up and leave England quickly – with or without her, but at least assured of her well-being. It was not to be.
Back in London, there was nothing but outcry, alarm and fear on all sides. On the day I returned, Saturday, 8 September 1888, another woman, Annie Chapman, was found murdered in Whitechapel at six o’clock in the morning. The body was found in a small recess beside the back door of the yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Whitechapel. The building, of eight rooms, one a shop selling cat’s meat, contained seventeen people, but Annie Chapman was not a resident and had apparently gone with her murderer into the yard through an unlocked passageway leading from the street. She was a forty-five-year-old woman, mother of two children, and had separated from her husband, a Windsor coachman, a few years before she died. Up to eighteen months before he had sent ten shillings a week to the post office in Commercial Street for her. When the money ceased, she enquired and found out he was dead. After that she lived with first one man then another, supporting herself by doing crochet work, selling flowers and matches in the street, and prostitution. She had lived, mostly with a soldier who was sometimes away with his regiment in a lodging house at number 35 Dorset Street for four months, paying by the day. On the week she died she was missing from Dorset S
treet, having, she said, been in the casual ward for destitute people for a few days, using it as a hospital, for she was ill. She went out drunk on the night she died, though she was seemingly no great drinker, to get money for her lodgings. The post-mortem proved that she was already gravely ill with lung damage and damage to the membranes of her brain, perhaps tubercular or syphilitic. The murderer had killed a dying woman.
Scattered near the body were the contents of the pocket under her skirt, which had been slashed open – a piece of muslin, a comb and its paper case, two pills she was taking for her complaint, in a screw of paper, and the corner of an envelope. The two rings the murderer had wrenched from her fingers, some pennies and two new farthings had been laid at her feet. She wore a black jacket, brown bodice, a black skirt and black lace-up boots, all old and dirty.
The evening before her death this poor woman had talked to a friend at her lodgings and had told her she was too ill to go out and find a customer. Later the friend found her still sitting in the same position on her bed but she had rallied herself. ‘It’s no use my giving way,’ the sick woman had said. ‘I must pull myself together and go out and get some money or I shall have no lodgings.’
This woman, a widow fallen on hard times, not an inebriate, not a hardened prostitute, but just an amateur eking out a poor living, was found lying two feet from the back of the house, her feet pointing towards the bottom of the yard, her face and hands bloody, skirt up and knees open. Her throat was cut back to her spine, her abdomen had been sliced open, her intestines still attached, part-severed and laid on her right shoulder. The murderer had cut out her uterus, ovaries, the top of her vagina and portions of her bladder and taken them away. They were never found.
They took her to the same mortuary where they’d taken the other women who had been killed, Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols. Her death put the East End in terror.
I knew nothing of this when I went to Mr Ratcliffe’s office straight from the station, sending the cabbie on to Fleet Street with my trunk.
The first intimation I had that anything was amiss was when Mr Ratcliffe sat me down gravely in his own small parlour, asking his servant to fetch me a cup of tea. He regarded me gravely from his own comfortable armchair. His dog was at his feet, thumping its tail on a rag rug. ‘I have news I think might upset you.’
Mr Ratcliffe had of course guessed much of my situation, as a lawyer will. From the instructions I’d given him as to messages, and the areas from which I’d hinted they might come, I believe he had a pretty clear idea of what kind of woman Mary was. Much of what he understood conflicted with, or did not substantiate, the account of myself I’d given him, but nothing of this was said between us and he never in any way hinted that I or my concerns were not completely respectable and in order. No doubt there was a point at which he’d draw the line but, for the mean while, he appeared to be quietly on my side. He had been ready to send me an untruthful telegram; we were quite confidential.
My first thought when he mentioned upsetting news was that Mary was dead.
‘What?’ I exclaimed.
‘Not the worst news,’ he assured me hastily. ‘At least, I hope not. You will have heard of the death, a week ago, of a woman, an unfortunate, Polly Nichols by name? And now another woman, unidentified as yet, has been killed in the same neighbourhood. I have my servant at the police station on your behalf – I am quite sure the victim is not your sister, why should she be? – but I consider …’ He broke off, saying, ‘Are you feeling unwell?’
I was sitting transfixed in my chair, sick, dizzy, holding my hand to my breast. Thoughts ran round in my brain. There was a murderer killing off women one by one in Whitechapel. I had no doubt about that. So my sister might be his latest victim; but even if she were not, had not died last night, if they did not capture the man she might be killed tonight, tomorrow night, the next …
A maid brought in a teapot and cups on a tray. Mr Ratcliffe poured me a cup.
‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘It may help you.’ Then the maid returned and called him out of the room. He left, sagely, and closed the door and I sat staring at it, knowing his servant had returned to say who the dead woman was. When he came in, after only moments, I knew from his expression the name was not my sister’s. I dropped my head, sighed aloud in relief.
‘As you’ve guessed, the poor woman was not your sister. Her name was Ann Chapman.’ He sat down. ‘Another unfortunate. It happened in Hanbury Street, which is off Commercial Street.’
‘I must thank you for your kindness,’ I said. ‘It was most thoughtful of you to anticipate my anxiety and send your servant to the police station.’
He regarded me earnestly. ‘It is indeed a great relief your sister is not the victim. But two women have been killed in Whitechapel in one week, both by the same hand, the police say, having found similar injuries. This is a very disagreeable subject, Mrs Frazer, you’ll have to forgive me. You see, we’re not out of the wood, are we? It may be that your sister is not in that neighbourhood at all. But you are, regularly, are you not? Sometimes at night?’ I nodded. He said, ‘Precisely. Yes. And a man – or men – is at large and has killed two women –‘
‘Three,’ I said.
He was astonished. ‘Three?’ he repeated.
‘Before the first woman Polly Nichols was killed they were telling me in the locality about another woman who was murdered, stabbed over and over again, near Whitechapel High Street, less than five minutes’ walk from where this latest woman died.’ I looked at him. ‘I know women of that neighbourhood, leading that kind of life, are not safe. They are killed, often enough by robbers or even men who know them, yet this …’
‘Three,’ he said again, broodingly. ‘A murderer at large. This is an awful thought.’ He coughed. ‘One might think a man of my profession would take the idea more calmly.’ He paused, then said, as if to himself, ‘They say the woman’s injuries were fearful, grotesque.’ Then he shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Forgive me. I should not have said that. But – is that what you think, Mrs Frazer, that the same man killed all three women?’
‘What else is there to think?’ I said. ‘Let’s hope they catch him.’
‘But if, as you say, three women have been killed by the same man what would be the motive? They are poor women. It cannot be for gain. Have they some secret, perhaps, that he’s trying to conceal?’ He thought. ‘No, surely not; that cannot be the reason. The man must be insane, a religious maniac perhaps, believing he is doing God’s will. Whoever he is, he must be very cunning. And’, he added emphatically, ‘I must implore you to stop your peregrinations in that neighbourhood. It will not be safe for a woman alone until this individual is caught. Just imagine, if you had been there last night, instead of the other woman, what might not have happened. We must think of this man as that most frightening of criminals, the man with no motive for what he does, or none that a sane person can understand. So, until he is caught, we have to consider no woman safe.’
You could run from Hanbury Street, where they’d found the dead woman’s body, to Cora Mundy’s in two minutes. Cutting through alleys and hopping fences you’d only have to travel about fifty yards. I drank some tea, which was cooling now. ‘You are right,’ I said. I didn’t mention I always carried a gun. Ratcliffe knew a good deal about me and, I was convinced, suspected more, but he was bound to take against me if he knew I was in possession of an unlicensed firearm. I thanked him again for his kindness and departed.
I would have to step up my search for Mary, and I needed to know more about the murder than Mr Ratcliffe or, indeed, The Times newspaper could or would tell me. I needed to engulf myself in that mix of gossip, speculation and rumour which surrounds events in neighbourhoods like Whitechapel. As when men pan for gold, a sieve full of grit and mud is watered, shaken, watered and shaken again. So from all this gossip a bright truth usually emerges, and that is often the real truth of the matter, though not always the truth finally presented by the authorities. Therefo
re I ignored Ratcliffe’s warnings, those of a man who did not understand the environment of the East End.
In Jack Armitage’s pub there was a lot of drinking and shouting. Many had left work at Saturday dinner time and, with that instinct to be together and talk which arises at times like that one, a crowd had gathered in the pub. As I had came through the streets, there had been a kind of silence. People, especially the women, were looking about them, watching strangers, as if trying to identify friend or foe. There were policemen everywhere. At that moment I felt I was closer to Whitechapel than I had thought. I had a wish to be among my own kind now this terror had come on us all.
And terror it was. The first thing I saw as I got into the crowded pub was a woman in hysterics, sobbing into her apron. Jack himself wasn’t there. He was, a potboy told me, pacing the floor at the London Hospital, where his wife had been taken early in the morning. Her labour had begun the night before, but, as anticipated, had not gone well. They’ll be cutting her open now, I expect,’ the boy told me, with some relish, his mind on eviscerations.
‘Look, Sarah,’ a man appealed to his shaking wife when they’d calmed her down a little, ‘it was just some poor old tart murdered for her few pennies. How often hasn’t that happened round here?’
‘There’s a maniac about, Jack, killing women,’ she was sobbing. ‘Don’t tell me there isn’t.’
‘That’s right, Jack,’ a man in a cap and coat, with a muffler, told the other. ‘Don’t tell her that. It ain’t true. A copper told me. No woman should go out alone from now on till they’ve caught him.’
‘Well, if he is killing women, he’s only killing tarts,’ said the first man.
‘You hope,’ said the other.
I stood squashed in a corner beside the bar, voices all round me.
‘A woman in our street heard it was her daughter. She fell in a fit and they had to send for the doctor.’
The Cry from Street to Street Page 16
