Some folks in the audience nod, ready to believe the police have the Ripper. Others offer their own theories.
“I think he’s killing women so he can sell their bodies to doctors, like Burke and Hare.”
“No, he’s a Mason! The murders were Masonic rituals!”
George Lusk bangs the gavel again and says, “The police could very well have the wrong man again. Which brings us back to the subject of the reward.” He ignores groans from the audience. “Someone, somewhere, knows who the Ripper really is. They need an incentive to turn him in. We’ll start raising money for the reward now.”
The vice president speaks up cautiously. “But George . . . maybe we should consider doing something more.”
“No buts,” George Lusk declares. “It’s already decided.”
There’s tension within their ranks, just as in my band of comrades, but George Lusk prevails. The treasurer passes a basket. When it reaches me, its bottom is littered with small change. I throw in a halfpence. When George Lusk receives the basket, he’s obviously discouraged by the small size of the take. He and the committee members formulate plans to solicit donations from local businessmen. Then he adjourns the meeting.
The audience flocks to PC Barrett and peppers him with questions, demands, and criticism. Resisting my urge to linger, I make my escape.
The fog along Mile End Road is even thicker now; the sooty, eye-stinging murk is brown in the glow of the streetlamps, dense black everywhere else. The market is closed, the omnibus nowhere in sight. I trail behind people who are heading toward Whitechapel. The road empties as they scatter into the lanes that branch off the road. My fear of the Ripper is stronger now that I’m after him. Does he know I’m after him? Would he kill me to protect himself? I wish I’d asked Hugh to come with me. Walking faster, I’m almost home when the fog in front of me suddenly thickens into the figure of a man. He’s upon me, seizing my arm, before I can run.
“Gimme your money!” His red-rimmed eyes gleam in a whiskered face. It’s not the Ripper, just a common thief, but just as dangerous at this moment. As I scream and try to pull free of him, he brandishes a knife. “Gimme it, or I’ll kill you!”
“Get away from her!” a man’s familiar voice shouts.
The thief’s grip on my arm wrenches loose. He yells, and the fog obscures the scuffle that ensues. One figure runs off into the darkness. The other—PC Barrett—stumbles, regains his balance, and says, “Are you all right?”
I’m so shaken that all I can think to say is, “You followed me.”
The light from a streetlamp shows his irate expression. “It’s a good thing I did.”
Now I’m ashamed because I sounded so ungrateful. But it’s better than if he knew what I’m really feeling—a thankfulness so strong that I could fall on my knees before him. “Thank you. Yes, I’m fine.” There’s a dark, oozing line on Barrett’s cheek. “You’ve been cut.” I tap my own face to show him where.
He touches the cut, glances at his bloodied fingertips, and shrugs. “It’s just a scratch.”
I’ve recently seen so much blood that a little more doesn’t faze me, but I feel an unsettling, tender pang at the sight of Barrett’s. His bleeding makes him seem suddenly human and vulnerable.
“Here.” I offer him my handkerchief.
He dabs it against the cut, then looks at the red stain on the white cloth. “Sorry,” he says, chagrined yet proud that he’s been injured in battle.
“It’ll come out.” I tuck the handkerchief in my pocketbook.
“I’ll walk you home,” Barrett says.
After my brush with death, I shouldn’t refuse. To my surprise, I don’t want to refuse. As we walk through the fog, he says, “We got off on the wrong foot.” His voice has lost its usual officious, badgering tone. “How about if we start over?”
“Very well.” Saving my life is compensation enough for serving me on a platter to Inspector Reid and good enough reason to reset the clock on our acquaintance back to zero. The sounds of distant factory machinery fill the air that has changed between us. My own blood is strangely warm and effervescent under my fog-chilled skin.
“Have you always lived in Whitechapel?” Barrett asks, making conversation.
“No.”
“Where else?”
That subject verges too close on my private history for comfort, but refusing to answer would ruin the mood, which I’m enjoying. “I grew up in Clerkenwell.”
“And your father was a photographer.”
I nod, unexpectedly pleased that Barrett remembered, and the pleasure alleviates the grief I feel when I think about my father.
“You can ask me something if you like,” Barrett says.
I don’t know anything about him, and I would like to. “Where do you live?”
“In the police section house at the Mitre Street station. But I spend a lot of time in Bethnal Green with my folks. They’re getting on in years, and I’m the only child, so I stick around to help them out.” Barrett sounds as if he takes the arrangement happily for granted, and I feel a twinge of envy as I imagine him ensconced in his cozy family nest. I can picture him as a devoted son, the apple of his parents’ eyes.
Barrett adds, “My father’s a retired police officer. So I suppose that means you and I have something in common: we both went into the family business.”
We smile at each other. Neither of us mentions that his father the policeman probably wouldn’t have liked my father the rabble-rouser, or vice versa. For the moment, hard, cold facts seem part of a distant, other world. But although I like this rare harmony with Barrett, if I play along with this game of question-and-answer, he’ll eventually ask me why I was at the meeting. And I’ve much more to hide than last time I saw him. We’re a few blocks from my studio, and I say, “I can walk by myself from here.”
Barrett sticks with me. “It’s no trouble.”
Thinking of the photographs concealed in my studio, I walk slower until we’re at a standstill. Neither of us, it seems, is ready to part. Now the air between us is charged with expectancy. We turn to each other. The nearest streetlamp is ten feet away, and it’s too dark to see Barrett’s expression. He moves closer to me, and my heartbeat accelerates like a deer jumping when it hears a gunshot. I’ve never been kissed, and I’ve always wondered exactly how a man and woman cross the barrier of propriety, shyness, or fear. In romantic novels, a kiss is often preceded by a request for permission, if not a lengthy courtship, declarations of love, and a marriage proposal. But Barrett simply inclines his head toward mine. A sudden, alarming heat flares between us, and the barrier evaporates like snow in fire. A force I can’t resist lifts my face to his and closes my eyes.
His mouth comes down on mine, his lips soft and warm, experienced and insistent. My body is like a rosebush parched and withered by drought, and this first intimate contact with a man is the water for which its roots thirst. I feel myself unfurl like petals bursting open. I’ve tried to hide from myself the fact that my attraction toward Barrett was physical, but now I’m blinded, dissolving in desire that floods through me. Behind my closed eyelids, fountains of sparks scintillate like exploding flash powder. My mouth opens of its own volition. His tongue enters. The wet, slick, outrageously sensual pleasure magnifies desire into a fierce ache. Barrett’s arms tighten around me. We embrace as if we’ve plunged into the sea and we’ll drown if we let go. I can’t breathe, I’ll suffocate.
We break apart, gulp air, and then lock our mouths together again. Barrett’s hands caress my bosom. I moan, frustrated by the ribs of my corset and my thick layers of clothing. Barrett pushes me against a wall. The hardness at his loins presses on me. This is wrong, this is dangerous, but my excitement banishes all concern for chastity and self-preservation. That the world has spun out of my control is as thrilling as it is frightening. His knee pushes my legs apart. I eagerly open them. I don’t care who sees us or what happens.
Barrett pulls my skirts up and my knickers down. He fumbles at
the buttons of his trousers, then lifts my legs around his waist. I want him inside me, to fill up the emptiness, to dispel the ache of loneliness. I don’t care if it hurts or what the consequences are. I feel myself rising to the pleasure that I have only experienced alone in bed by my own hand. To experience it now, with Barrett, seems the only all-important thing that matters. Now I understand why Catherine has affairs. I understand how men can rut like dogs in the street with prostitutes such as Kate, Liz, and Mary Jane.
The thought of Kate, Liz, and Mary Jane is like a splash of ice water that brings me back to my senses. Now I see how I must look—like a whore giving a three-penny stand-up! I picture Annie Chapman in that yard in Hanbury Street, coupling with a faceless man. I see him reach in his pocket and pull out a knife. Exclaiming in horror, I kick and struggle.
Barrett lets go of me. “What . . . ?” His voice sounds hoarse, breathless, surprised.
I’m running, my legs shaky and my body swollen with unsatisfied desire, as Barrett calls my name. I’m furious at him; he could have ruined me! I’m even more furious at myself because I was a willing participant. But despite my fury, I still want him, and even while I berate myself for my stupidity, I feel exhilarated. Barrett wants me! There can be no mistake about it, and his feelings toward me must be more than just physical. Things changed between us even before we kissed. He cares for me, perhaps in spite of himself, but cares nonetheless. I can’t help smiling.
16
Restless nights are common for me lately, but this one passes more happily than usual. The sensual pleasure of reliving my encounter with Barrett while I lie in bed alternates with the anxiety of wondering what he’s thinking. Is he angry at me? How I should act the next time I see him? Will he want to take up from where we left off? If he does, what then? In the cold solitude of my bed, I realize the dangers of playing with fire. And Barrett is still a police officer, while I, with my secrets, am on the wrong side of the law.
When dawn comes, on that Thursday, 13 September, I go to market. While visiting the shops, I look around for Barrett. On Commercial Road, I see him standing outside a public house. My steps halt. My heart thumps with excitement, then terror: he’s with Inspector Reid. I quickly hide behind a parked wagon.
“So the locals don’t think we’re doing enough to catch the Ripper, but they wouldn’t chip in more than a few pennies for a reward,” Reid says with disgust. “They’d rather just complain. That’s typical.”
Barrett must have told him what occurred at the Mile End Vigilance Committee meeting. I’m irresistibly fixated on Barrett; I feel the heat of arousal.
“We’d better keep an eye on George Lusk and his friends.” Barrett’s tone betrays no hint of what happened after the meeting, no unseemly emotions. I see the dark line of the cut on his cheek, and I touch my own cheek, remembering that when I got home last night I found it smeared with his blood.
“Good idea.” Inspector Reid asks, “Who else was there?”
Barrett gives a few names, then says, “Sarah Bain.”
Alarm leaps in me. Is he going to tell Inspector Reid what happened between us?
“How convenient.” Reid sounds pleased. “Did you do as I told you?”
“I talked to her.” Barrett sounds all business.
“Turned on the old charm. That’s the way to soften up a lonely, deprived spinster.”
Reid told Barrett to romance me! My alarm turns to horror. His conversation, his wanting to start over, was just a ploy!
“Yes, sir,” Barrett says.
“Did you try a little grope and tickle?” Reid nudges Barrett with his elbow. They chuckle.
My face flushes hot as my insides roil with mortification. When Barrett kissed me, he was only following orders! That his body responded signified nothing except animal lust.
“Did Miss Bain tell you what she’s been hiding?” Reid asks.
“Not yet.” Barrett’s tone implies that he’s confident I’ll soon capitulate.
Reid slaps Barrett on the back as they walk away from me. “Keep up the good work, and you’ll be in line for a promotion.”
I run home and scrub myself from head to toe with cold water and carbolic soap until I’m shivering, my skin is raw, and I’ve washed off any trace left of PC Barrett. I brush my teeth vigorously, so that my mouth tastes like the camphor, powdered cuttlefish bone, and soot in the toothpaste instead of the memory of his kiss. But I can’t cleanse myself of my anger or shame.
That Barrett played such a cruel, callous, self-serving trick on me!
That I fell for it!
His laughter echoes in my ears, as does my mother’s warning: A man will always put something else ahead of you. For my mother, it was my father’s work as a social reformer that came before her. He spent time on protest marches when he could have been earning money to support us after his death. For Barrett, it’s his career that matters more than me. I should never have laid myself open to him! I curl up in bed and stay there until my pillow is tear-drenched, my head aching, and my eyes puffy. Then I force myself to drink tea, eat toast, and prepare the studio for customers because I still have a living to earn.
Catherine surprises me by arriving at nine o’clock. “I decided to keep you company today!”
I’m glad to have her safe under my eye, but I can’t fathom why she wouldn’t rather gallivant with men as usual.
“What’s that redness around your mouth?” she asks.
My face is rubbed raw by Barrett’s whisker stubble. “Just chapped skin.” I turn away so she won’t see my blushes or my tears.
“If I didn’t know you better, I would think it was whisker burn.”
I can’t tell her what happened. I can never tell anyone. I feel myself closing up like a blossom when the cold night falls.
When the door opens, Catherine looks up eagerly. Mick comes in, carrying a pink rose. As he and Catherine see each other, his face lights up; hers falls. He looks from her to me to the rose. I can tell he meant to give me the rose, but he’s changed his mind. Shy and mute, he thrusts it at Catherine.
The flower is fresh, fragrant, and lovely, but Catherine regards it with distaste. “Where did you steal it, you dirty little brat?”
Mick blushes crimson. He probably did steal the rose from a flower stall. His eyes brilliant with humiliation, he turns and runs out of the studio. Through the window, I see him toss the rose in the street before he disappears from my sight.
Pitying Mick and angry at Catherine, I say, “Can’t you be nicer to him?”
“Why? He likes me, but so what?” she says with the callousness of a girl who has too many male admirers. “That’s his problem.”
I can’t force her to like Mick, but I’m in no mood to indulge her. “From now on, you’ll be civil to him because he’s my friend,” I snap.
Catherine, hurt by my tone, sighs with exasperation. “Oh, all right.”
Thinking of Barrett and myself, I feel sorrier than ever for Mick, but at least Catherine is honest about her feelings toward him; he knows where he stands with her. I feel guilty because she doesn’t deserve the brunt of my bad mood.
“I’m sorry, Catherine. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“That’s all right.”
But she’s cooled toward me a little, the way she did after I brushed her off. I’ve chipped another crack in the circle that I’ve been so eager to keep intact. Nevertheless, she stays the whole day, watching me photograph customers. She’s still here at dusk, when I fry up onions, cabbage, potatoes, and sausage for our supper.
“He’s rather marvelous, isn’t he?” she says while we’re eating.
“Who is?”
“Hugh.” Catherine adds, “He doesn’t come round the theater anymore.”
Now I understand why I’ve had the pleasure of her company. Hugh is avoiding her, and she’s here in case he drops by.
Catherine clasps her hands under her chin. “He’s the handsomest, most charming man I’ve ever met!”
&n
bsp; And the least available.
“He’s also a lord, and he’s rich,” Catherine says dreamily.
I can almost hear wedding bells ringing in her mind. I’ve no stomach for the talk I promised Hugh I would have with Catherine, but now is the time to nip her infatuation in the bud as painlessly as possible.
“Hugh could never marry you,” I say. “His family would forbid him.”
“Pooh!” Catherine tosses her head. “If he falls in love with me, we’ll elope.”
“You had better not count on it.”
She fixes a somber gaze on me. “Sarah . . .” She twirls her blond ringlets around her fingers. “Is there something between you and Hugh?”
“No,” I hasten to say. “We’re just friends.”
“But it seems like you’re trying to put me off Hugh. Are you secretly in love with him?”
“Of course not.”
“But why else would you try to keep Hugh and me apart?”
I have no choice except to speak bluntly. “Because he’s not interested in you. Because I don’t want you to get hurt.” I want to protect her even though she’s so careless with poor Mick’s feelings. I would not have her, like myself, suffer over a man she can’t have.
“How do you know he’s not interested?” Catherine demands.
I can’t tell her the whole truth; it’s his secret. “He told me so. He asked me to talk to you and discourage you from liking him as anything but a friend.”
“I don’t believe it.” Catherine speaks with the confidence of a beauty who can get any man she wants. “Maybe you wish Hugh would fall in love with you, and he won’t as long as I’m around.”
She thinks no man would choose me over her. It’s so true that my pride, injured by Barrett, isn’t further wounded. “Some men wouldn’t be interested in you.” I wonder if she’s aware that men of Hugh’s inclinations exist. “Unfortunately, Hugh is one of those.”
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