They were sitting at a corner table by a window at the Adam and Eve waiting for their dinner. Rain washed soot off the outside of the glass in delicate rivulets. Conway got Katie’s attention by making a big show of reaching under the table, seemingly to grab something that wouldn’t sit still.
“What is it?” Katie asked.
“I can’t hold it back any longer,” he said. He brought his hands up as if he were trying to contain a small, wild animal. Katie’s alarm vanished when he opened his hands and presented the pipe to her along with a tin box of Lucifer matches.
“You bought me a nose warmer!”
“To thank you for your words,” he said, chuckling. “They’re singing our song about poor old Robert Partridge in all the pubs.” His smile was broad and handsome.
“I’m glad, but I gave those lines to stop your cursing. You were a misery to be with for a week and more.”
“My muse was on holiday. I was miserable.”
Katie smiled. “I should be jealous.”
“No, Katie,” Conway said with all seriousness. “My muse is an old hag with tits that sag so low she must tie them in a knot and throw them over her shoulder to keep from stepping on them. She is good for tales of woe, but that’s all.”
Katie giggled at the image and Conway grinned.
“Now that you have the cuttie,” he said gesturing to his gift, “you have no reason to steal my pipe.”
Yes, but then a new way would have to be found to grab his attention.
~~~
When they were not traveling or otherwise engaged in chapbook production or sales, they both worked for Conway’s cousin, a man named William Hargis. Katie worked as a scourer for Hargis’ wife, Mary, who ran a laundry. Conway worked for Hargis on a team of night soil men. Gone most of the night, he’d return close to dawn, reeking of aged human feces. The pay for the work was good and frequently included a bottle of gin. Conway poured the gin in his bath water to help remove the smell of feces. The surplus, he sold to a local publican.
Katie worked harder day to day than ever before. The rewards were clear. For the first time in her life, she found she could frequently eat her fill.
“I love your bones, but I don’t miss them.” Conway told her. “You look good with a round bosom.”
Katie blushed. She was pleased to think she was taking on a more attractive form. Attractive people had an easier time in life. Attractive women could become music hall singers.
If only I could convince him of the need to dress the part. Conway knows he must dress well to make his sales, but he’s content to wear secondhand and readymades.
With time, Conway came to consider her his common law wife. Katie welcomed the new role and had his name tattooed on her left arm.
Chapter 10: A Portion of a Pair of Spectacles
Katie met a neighbor on a warm summer Saturday while hanging clothes to dry in the rear of the tenement. She had climbed a ladder to use the clothes line that stretched across the thin alley to the building on the other side. A woman, a bit older than Katie, with dark brown hair and a sallow complexion, was hanging clothes on a line outside a window higher up on the building across the way. She paused while hanging a shirt and leaned out of the window and waved her free hand. “Good afternoon. I’m Anne. I live up there with my husband, George Bray.” She pointed straight up, and swayed a bit as if she were dizzy. Katie gasped as Anne caught herself before falling out of the window.
The woman seemed unafraid, and that inspired a humorous thought: Anne and her husband live on top of the building, on the sloped roof, and their furniture is always tipping over and tumbling to the ground. A foolish fantasy, yet beyond the fence surrounding the building’s back lot, a broken chair squatted amidst weeds.
“I’m Kate.” She wasn’t sure why she said it like that, but it sounded more adult than Katie and felt good. She gestured toward her building. “I live with my husband…” she liked the sound of that too “…just here.”
“Good to meet you.”
“And you,” Katie said.
Anne ducked back into the building and was gone. Katie went on with her work, and was startled when Anne spoke directly below her. “That looks hard, having to climb the ladder with your wash.”
“It isn’t too bad.” Katie was soaking wet from hauling the wash up in batches, hung over her shoulders. “You don’t live on the roof, do you?”
They both laughed.
“We’re in the attic room.” Anne lifted a pair of trousers from Katie’s tub and handed them up to her. “My husband is looking for work,” she said, her words slightly slurred. “He was a market porter, but hurt his back. You hear of anything without lifting, you let me know.” She handed Katie a couple of blouses and that was the last of it. “I work for the Lucifer Company, making matches.”
Katie climbed down. “Conway is my husband’s name. He’s a chapman. I hawk his chapbooks with him.”
“Chapbooks won’t do me any good—I can’t read!” Anne laughed again and leaned heavily against the building. She was indeed unsteady. “My husband could read to me, but he’s got a terrible stutter. It’d c-c-c-ome out all br-br-br-broken.”
Katie laughed along with her. “Perhaps I could teach you to read.”
“All that, just to sell a chapbook?” Anne smiled crookedly, then touched her jaw. “Damned tooth.” She reached for a flask in the pocket of her apron and took a drink from it. “Please excuse me,” she said. “I haven’t been myself. I don’t make a habit of drinking. I’d offer you some, but it’s really just for my tooth ache.”
“I don’t—” Katie started to say. She broke eye contact with Anne and gaze down the alley. “I-I’ve never had a drink.” She smiled sheepishly.
“Then I’ll have to make the introduction sometime.”
“Perhaps.” Katie said without conviction.
“Very good to meet you,” Anne said and turned back toward her building.
“Yes, and you.”
Anne stumbled over a loose paving stone crossing the alley, caught herself and continued into the building. Katie returned to her room and the afternoon’s work.
~~~
Katie asked Conway to call her Kate. He agreed, but she had to remind him so often, she eventually gave up on it.
She saw Anne frequently after that, usually on a Saturday, a day it they both found time for the wash. Despite the woman’s constant mouth pain, she was humorous and Katie enjoyed laughing with her.
Conway was unhappy to hear Katie was spending time with Anne. “I’ve seen her drunk and I know her kind,” he said.
“She drinks because of a toothache. When that’s gone, I’m certain she’ll be quite respectable.”
“She has the match maker’s curse,” Conway said. “She’ll not be getting better.”
Katie didn’t want to hear that. Conway was inventing a curse to make Anne undesirable. But she didn’t argue with him, and she avoided going to the rear of the building during the time when she regularly saw Anne.
Scornful of anyone who drank, Conway disdained her association with most everyone, making it difficult for her to have friends. The women from the laundry where Katie worked met on Tuesday nights at a pub to have a few pints, sing songs and make idle talk. Katie was invited, but Conway said, “If you go to the pub, you’ll take up drinking and I’ll have to turn you out in the street.”
Katie had an urge to take a drink of spirits to spite him. She could hide one of the bottles of gin he brought home, so she could try it when he was gone. What could he do? He needed her. But it’s foolish to look for trouble. She put the idea out of her head.
Katie wanted to get away from him for a while at times, but Conway kept her close when she was not at work and insisted she turn her wages over to him. “Your earnings,” he said, “should be saved against future need.”
In these matters, her feelings and opinions were obviously of no consequence to Conway. The shine was off the man and dark clouds began to form in their
relationship. She truly had next to nothing in the world that didn’t belong to Conway.
In response, Katie did two things; she put her mother’s thimble in one of her pockets and kept it on her person from then on—at times when she was troubled, she stuck her finger inside to touch the bright silver—and she decided to start bringing home from the laundry mending work for which she’d receive extra pay. She would tell Conway it was part of her work for Mary Hargis and he wouldn’t miss it when she handed over her earnings. The savings wouldn’t be much, but if she hid it away, over time it could accumulate into enough to buy some fine clothes.
The baseboard, in the corner behind their bed, was split into two pieces. She’d discovered that the smaller piece, about a foot long, right in the corner, was not held in place so much as wedged in. Behind it was a small space within the wall where the wooden lath was broken away. Perhaps a previous tenant had used it as a hiding place. The piece of baseboard fit in place neatly and she might never have discovered it if she hadn’t kicked it while making the bed. Nothing was within the space, and Katie was fairly certain Conway was unaware of it. That was where she’d hide her savings.
One Saturday, when Conway needed to see his printer, she had the excuse of more laundry to keep her at home. Perhaps she would see Anne while hanging the laundry to dry. Going up and down the ladder to the clothes line in the hot and muggy air left her winded and she sat and rested with her back against the building.
The window Anne used to access her clothes line was shut.
The slight breeze blew against Katie’s wet laundry, then hit the wall of the building and flowed down over her, bring with it cooling air. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and neck and enjoyed the sensation. I might see Anne if I wait a while.
Katie loaded her cuttie and lit it. As she smoked, the wind shifted and the alley began to heat up. The hot smoke from her pipe became biting and bitter in the warm air. She snuffed it out and was about to get up and go inside when a door opened across the way and Anne emerged. She moved slowly and was bent over.
“I saw you through the window,” Anne said, her words slurred, “and thought to give you something that belonged to my mother.” Whether the words were slurred because of her tooth ache or because of drunkenness was unclear. She sat down next to Katie. Her clothing was soaked through with sweat.
From the pocket of her apron, she produced half a pair of spectacles and offered them to Katie. “They were broken,” she said. “I couldn’t find the other half, but when I do, I’ll bring them to you and you can mend them.”
“I couldn’t take them from you,” Katie said. “You might need them.”
“You’re not taking them,” Anne said. “I’m giving them to you. I have no problem with my eyes. If you read, you’ll harm your eyes without spectacles. That’s what my mum always said. I don’t read and George will never wear them.”
“Thank you,” Katie said and she slipped them into the pocket with her thimble.
Anne leaned back against the building and let out a deep sigh. “It’s so hot, and the air has been foul,”
“Was foul air and evil vapors killed my mum,” Katie said.
“I’m tempted to lie on the paving stones in the shade. They must be cooler than my bed.”
Anne was terribly ill, and Katie was alarmed by her suggestion. She always checked the alley to see if it was clear before she entered it. “You mustn’t stay in the alley. Young bludgers move through here.”
Anne nodded her head absently.
Mine must be cooler than Anne’s attic room. She could come lie on my bed for a while. Katie almost made the suggestion, but held her tongue because Conway would become angry if he came home to find the drunken woman in his bed.
Anne took a sip from her flask and offered it to Katie.
Katie hesitated for only a moment, but within that time her mind whirled. Is Anne cursed? Is she sick from drink? If I drink will I be cursed or become ill?
If Conway finds out, he’ll leave me in the street. He can’t always know what I’m doing. There must be times when I decide for myself. I must know why he hates drink so much. He’ll never find out.
The sour liquor burned in her mouth and throat. So unpleasant was it that she decided never to take a drink again. But as the two women sat silently for a time, a warm spot grew in Katie’s belly and slowly spread throughout her body. She was soothed in an odd way as her troubles, both physical and mental tensions, left her. Carried for a lifetime, the troubles went largely unnoticed, like a burden in a rucksack, accumulated slowly, consistently over a journey of many miles. The relief created by their sudden absence was spellbinding.
Anne interrupted her dreamy state, “I’ll return to my room and lie down.” She got up, and reached for the flask still in Katie’s hand.
“No,” Katie heard herself say, drawing back with the flask. She didn’t want to be separated from it.
Anne’s eyes narrowed a little, her brow tightened and she opened her mouth to speak. Katie cut her off.
“May I have another drink before you go?”
Anne nodded her head and Katie took a deep, painful draught from the flask and handed it back nearly empty. Anne shook it with a worried look in her eyes, but said nothing. Wiping her burning mouth on the back of her hand and feeling a touch of regret for taking so much, Katie watched Anne turn and make her way slowly back into her building.
I’m sure she has more back in her room, Katie told herself, and the feeling that she’d stolen the poor woman’s medicine went away.
She returned with the empty wash tub to her room. Five of Conway’s bottles of gin stood beside a cake of soap and a flannel on a shelf near the wash tub. Katie took one and hid it with her savings behind the baseboard in the corner by the bed. The hiding place was large enough that she was able to slide it behind the secured piece of baseboard. Even if the short piece were kicked loose, the bottle couldn’t be seen.
That is what I shall save against future need.
As her intoxication deepened, she lay on the bed. Without a care in the world, she willingly fell into the calming euphoric state. She slept through the remaining daylight hours and was awaken by Conway’s return.
“You didn’t finish your work,” he said, shaking her by the foot. “I asked you to fold those broadsheets together.”
“I’m...sorry.” Katie hoped she didn’t sound as groggy as she felt. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. You know I’ve been ill in the mornings lately. This afternoon, I was ill again and had to lie down.”
Katie got up and moved to take the wash off the line. She held a terrible secret, one that was as harmful as it was delightful.
Conway gave no indication that he was on to her.
~~~
Anne’s toothache never went away. The few times Katie saw her after the day she was given the partial spectacles, Anne was in increasingly desperate condition. Most of her teeth fell out and her jaw became abscessed. Within a few months she was dead.
Did I hasten Anne’s death by drinking her medicine? The thought made her remember the times she upset her mother while Catherine was ill and dying. Katie tried to be numb to the loss. Anne was not completely gone, after all, for Katie still had her gift. She liked to think that one day, Anne would find the other half of the spectacles and bring it to her.
Katie hoped Anne’s curse would not be visited upon her, but suspected she had a curse of her own.
Chapter 11: A Pair of Brown Stockings with Mended Feet
Katie didn’t want to go to the workhouse, but in the winter of 1865 Conway took her there anyway. That was where he’d planned for her to have the baby all along and she’d known that, but Katie was so afraid of the workhouse she’d waited until it was almost too late. Presently, at dreadful intervals, there was a dull ache in her back and lower abdomen, pressure on her pelvis and her belly became hard. The periods of time between the combined pain and pressure, when her belly relaxed, were becoming shorter. She told Conway the b
aby was coming.
“You can’t have the baby at home,” Conway said. “If it goes badly, I cannot help you. Everyone knows the infirmary at the workhouse is for lying in too. How many women use it for just that? You know you’ll be fine.”
He put her in her coat and bonnet, donned his own coat and hat, and ushered her out the door and into the cold and damp winter air. But as they walked up the lane, it quickly became obvious she wouldn’t be able to walk to the workhouse fast enough.
Mr. Pettit was returning home from market with his gaily painted coster’s barrow. Conway hailed him and asked for the use of the cart.
“I’ve still got half a barrel of pickled whelks,” Mr. Pettit said. “I’ll take them home and return with the cart.”
“There’s no time,” Conway said with urgency.
Another bout of pain and pressure caused Katie to cringe and let out a moan.
“All right, I can take the whelks with me,” Mr. Pettit said, nodding his head. “Let’s get her comfortable.”
Mr. Pettit removed a small barrel and a drum, then he and Conway helped Katie climb into the cart, allowing her to rest her back against a pile of empty canvas sacks that smelled of smoked fish.
“Good luck,” he said, and Conway began pushing Katie in the cart through the deepening dark.
“I’m afraid you’ll leave me there,” Katie said, her voice more pitiful than she intended, as it bumped along with the cart over uneven paving stones.
“And lose my best patterer?” Conway said, his words puffing out plumes of vapor. “I wouldn’t sell half the ballads if you weren’t there to show them how it’s done.”
When they arrived, Conway helped her out of the cart. “You must make your own way from here. If they’re short of beds and they see you have a husband, they won’t take you in.”
“No, I can’t stay here alone.”
“You won’t be alone. There are nurses to help you along. You’ll see.”
Katie clung to Conway.
“I can’t leave Mr. Pettit’s coster barrow in the street.”
Jack the Ripper Victims Series: The Double Event Page 23
