The Ripper's Wife

by Brandy Purdy

  Jim and I were having the most absurdly extravagant birthday party a six-year-old could possibly have, a costume party with over sixty Currant Jelly children invited. Our ballroom had been transformed into a magical fairyland with colored lanterns, silk flowers, and green gauze draperies, to create little bowers, and all kinds of little trinkets and treasures, coins, and brightly wrapped candies had been hidden throughout. For the children’s entertainment there would be a puppet show, a clown, a magician—not Edwin the Extraordinary, thank God!—a storyteller, a fire-eater, a troupe of acrobats, a dancing girl dressed as a fairy queen, and a wonderful silver-haired man who was so good with children, dressed in a fool’s bright motley and tinkling bells, a sort of summertime Lord of Misrule or Pied Piper, to lead the little ones in games like blindman’s buff, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Squeak, Piggy, Squeak, Hunt the Slipper, and to hand out prizes in guessing games and riddles.

  I’d hired in half a dozen waitresses just for the occasion. I told that dragon-faced harridan at the employment agency, who kept raising her eyebrows so high at me I thought surely they would disappear into her hair and crawl all the way to the back of her head, to send only young and pretty ones who liked and were accustomed to being around children. I didn’t want any sour-faced meanies scowling at or scolding the kiddies and making them cry. I planned to dress them all in sparkly pastel tulle and silk frocks, with silver paper wings on their backs and stars in their hair, and have them serve trays of tiny sandwiches and jam puffs, and to fill little crystal cups shaped like flowers with punch. I’d made a point of ordering five different kinds; the bright colors—red, green, yellow, orange, and purple—would look so pretty in the big crystal punch bowls I’d bought at Woollright’s.

  I’d gone back to the agency a day or so later and requested two nice young men to dress up as pink bunnies to hand my daughter her presents when the time came to unwrap them and to serve the ice cream. Being served a dish of cool vanilla with chocolate or strawberry sauce ladled on by a giant pink bunny was surely a memory every child would cherish. “We’ll supply the costumes, of course,” I assured the harridan. “Just choose a couple of nice young fellows who are fond of the little ones and send round their measurements to my dressmaker, Mrs. Osborne on Paradise Street.”

  Her eyebrows rising until I thought surely they would strike the ceiling, that humorless shrew frostily suggested that I petition a theatrical agency instead, that such an establishment would be better equipped to meet my requirements. Of course, I told her I would do nothing of the kind, it was waiters I wanted and her agency advertised that they supplied them, and if she didn’t supply me she’d most assuredly be hearing from my husband and perhaps his legal representative. After all, a waiter was still a waiter, whether he was dressed as a pink bunny or in black broadcloth and white gloves; I didn’t see what difference the costume could possibly make. I was hiring the lads to ladle out ice cream, not dance and sing!

  “Mrs. Maybrick, you’re a thoroughly silly woman!” she said, and I still can’t quite believe it. Jim actually laughed when I told him! But I got my pink bunnies just the same.

  My dressmaker had made Gladys a fairy princess costume in three shades of purple, her favorite color, with enormous puffed sleeves and silver stars and crystal beads sewn all over the big, frothy tulle crinoline skirt, and silver lace wings in back. I had given her an amethyst heart on a silver chain to wear with it, but Nanny Yapp pursed her lips, shook her head, and said Gladys was much too young for jewelry, that such ornamentation at her age would appear “vulgar and ostentatious,” and suggested that Sir Jim—“Sir Jim” was what she had taken to calling my husband; she’d given him that name when he and Bobo were playing at knights rescuing the fair Princess Gladys, grabbing a toy sword and tapping him on the shoulder and solemnly intoning, “I dub thee Sir Jim of Battlecrease House! ”—put it in his safe until she was sixteen.

  “Stuff and nonsense!” I retorted. “She’ll wear it to the party, and any other suitable occasion, and I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

  With her hair arranged in a mass of gleaming licorice-black ringlets framing the pale heart of her face and her violet-blue eyes drinking in all that purple, Gladys was a lovely little princess, and I just knew Mama had been right. Despite Gladys’s puny plainness at birth, she was well on her way to blossoming into a beautiful woman. I was thinking I should start offering both my children’s services as models to some of the more respectable artists for sentimental postcards and calendars and such, but Mrs. Briggs and Nanny Yapp were aghast at the idea and it was their opinion that counted with Jim, though I hadn’t entirely given up on trying to talk him around.

  I don’t think a child ever lived who had such a magnificent behemoth of a birthday cake. It was an enormous thing, six tiers high—one sweet, sumptuous chocolate layer for each year of Gladys’s life—covered with so many purple, lavender, and lilac icing roses you could barely see the white buttercream beneath, so that every child would be sure to get at least one, and there were exquisitely sculpted sugar fairies stuck on long, thin pins hovering like hummingbirds over the whole thing that would be given as prizes by the drawing of lots to twenty lucky children. I remembered being six years old myself and weeping at a friend’s birthday party because her cake only had three roses and that greedy little vixen and her two sisters got them all. Well, no child would have cause to cry over icing roses at this party if I could help it!

  When Jim and I finally left my bedroom, we went at once to the nursery. We wanted to spend some time alone with the children before the party began. Both of them came running, flying into our arms. Nanny Yapp protested that it was most indecorous for the children to be running about and receiving guests, even their parents, in their underclothes and curl rags, but Jim and I were in mutual accord and elected to ignore her.

  Gladys settled herself on Jim’s knee, in her chemise and bloomers, both threaded with purple silk ribbon and embroidered, by my own loving hand, with a border of violets, and Bobo, still in his angelic white nightgown, claimed my lap as his throne.

  In honor of Gladys’s birthday, Jim had bought them a new storybook, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, by Oscar Wilde, that contained five of the most beautiful stories I had ever read; I couldn’t get through half of them without weeping. The author’s words just seemed to leap right off the page and touch my heart every time.

  Though stories were usually reserved for bedtime, “today,” Jim said, “warrants a very special story that cannot wait until bed.” He opened the green pebbled leather cover and began to read us the tale of the Happy Prince.

  It was the story of the statue of an angel-beautiful boy mounted atop a tall pillar, his slim body encased in gold leaf, with sapphires for his eyes and a ruby in the hilt of his sword. When he was alive the Prince lived only for pleasure and was protected by the high palace walls from all the ugliness, meanness, and misery of the world, but in death, as a statue perched high above the city, he saw it all. So greatly did he feel the weight of the world’s sorrows that he wept. But there was nothing he could give to alleviate it except himself. A sympathetic swallow postponed flying away to the warmth of Egypt for the winter to become the Prince’s emissary; he stripped the Prince of his jewels and gold leaf to help the shivering, hungry poor. The swallow delayed his departure too long, too loyal to forsake the now blind prince, and died of the cold. At that moment the Prince’s lead heart broke. The Town Councillors, so upset at how ugly and shabby the statue had become, ordered it melted down to salvage the lead, bickering all the while about which one of them most deserved a statue of himself. Curiously, the Prince’s broken heart would not melt, so they threw it, and the poor little dead bird, upon the rubbish heap.

  Tears poured down my face, and Bobo’s cheek, against my own, was just as wet, as my husband read the story’s bittersweet ending:

  “ ‘Bring me the two most precious things in the city,’ said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought him the lea
den heart and the dead bird.

  “ ‘You have rightly chosen,’ said God, ‘for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.’ ”

  As Jim closed the book, Bobo used the sleeve of his nightgown to wipe my tears away.

  “Mama’s a silly goose.” I laughed. “She always cries over that story!”

  “You see, my dears”—Jim took his handkerchief and gently dried Gladys’s eyes, then passed it to me, to dry Bobo’s and mine—“you must always remember that no matter how beautiful you are on the outside, and you are both as beautiful as angels, it is the beauty inside that matters far more. Even when stripped of all his gold and jewels, the Happy Prince was still beautiful, more beautiful, in fact, in his shabbiness than he was in his splendor. Outer beauty withers and fades, but internal beauty lasts forever. You must always endeavor to be kind, thoughtful, and generous. Whenever you feel spite or selfishness encroaching, you must always stop and remember the story of the Happy Prince; it holds the key to true happiness. Remember how the little swallow was warmed by his good deeds and you shall never be cold inside.” He kissed Gladys’s brow, then reached over to caress Bobo’s cheek.

  “Come, my dear.” Jim took my hand. “We will leave these young people to Nanny Yapp now. I shouldn’t have made you cry.” He traced the curve of my damp cheek. “But I thought this a very important lesson for our little princess, and prince, to learn before this ostentatious to-do we’re about to have. I want them to behave with the same nobility of spirit as the Happy Prince, not like his conceited and selfish courtiers, when the house is filled with their little guests. I should like very much to hear tomorrow what a gracious little hostess our Gladys is, that she behaved with all the nobility of a princess and none of the haughtiness.”

  “You are so good to me!” I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. “To all of us! Oh, Jim, I love you so! We love you so!” I cried as the children, echoing my sentiments, flung their arms around his legs and hugged him fiercely.

  Jim had just finished fastening the delicate necklace of pink diamond flowers around my neck and admiring my new dress of lilac velvet with a sumptuous beribboned pile of pale pink silk roses on the bustle when a scream sent us scurrying back to the nursery.

  I flung open the door and looked where Gladys was pointing. Bobo was sitting cross-legged on the floor, still in his little nightgown, with The Happy Prince open before him to the picture of the Prince in his gilt armor with the swallow perched upon his shoulder. My darling’s beautiful long black ringlets lay scattered on the floor all around him. He’d cut them off in imitation of the Prince’s medieval bob. Bobo was just snipping off the last one when I ran in.

  “What have you done?” I screamed, and Jim had to catch me before I fell.

  Bobo’s face wore such a gleeful expression as he shook his head vigorously, like a dog after a bath, and he leapt up and ran to me.

  “Don’t cry, Mama,” he said. “I’m seven years old—too big for curls! I have to tuck them up under my hat to keep the big boys in the park from pulling them and calling me a sissy. They make fun of my clothes too; they chase after me pointing and shouting, ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy!,’ and if they catch me they knock my hat off and hold me down and stretch my curls out and let them spring back while they laugh and call me names. Once they even made me pull my pants down to prove I wasn’t a girl. I hate it, Mama. I hate the way I look! And as angry as I am, I can’t shout at them or hit them, because inside I’m laughing at me too. Sometimes I have nightmares—I see myself going off to university in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit with my hair in long curls and everybody pointing and laughing at me, or I see myself going to work at Papa’s office, a grown man but still in those silly suits and curls, or getting married, standing at the altar with the bride with my hair in ringlets just like hers, the people in the pews pointing and jeering that the groom looks prettier than the bride in his lace and velvet! Oh, Mama!” He grasped my hand and gazed up at me with those beautiful melted-chocolate eyes framed by the longest lashes I’d ever seen in my life. “I don’t want to be Little Lord Fauntleroy, I just want to be me, and I can’t with those long girly curls and sissy suits!”

  “It’s true, ma’am,” Nanny Yapp placidly volunteered. “The older boys have been tormenting him for quite some time and he has shown remarkable fortitude and restraint in dealing with them. You should be proud of him.”

  “You!” I rounded on her. “You mean to tell me you just stood there twiddling your thumbs and let him do this to himself?” I brandished a hand at Bobo’s new bob. “Why didn’t you stop him? He could have hurt himself with those scissors! He might have cut his ear off or put his eye out!”

  “It was time, ma’am. He’d already kept his curls longer than most boys do; they are customarily cropped at five,” Nanny Yapp said, then turned to my husband for affirmation. “Don’t you agree, Sir Jim?”

  To my horror, Jim agreed wholeheartedly, then turned to me, saying gently, “Like it or not, those curls had to go, my dear. I was planning to talk to you about it. I was going to take Bobo to my barber, but . . .” He knelt down and, like one gentleman to another, offered Bobo his hand to shake. “That’s a fine job you’ve done, Son; I daresay no barber could have done better. You look wonderfully grown-up; Mama shall have to get you some new clothes. Won’t that be fun, Bunny? You can take Bobo to Woollright’s tomorrow for a whole new wardrobe more befitting of his maturity!”

  I burst into tears and ran from the room and flung myself facedown on my bed, the big mound of pink roses on my bustle shaking with every sob.

  Jim came and sat on the bed beside me and stroked my back. “Do pull yourself together, Bunny dear,” he said gently, “for the children’s sake as well as yours; if you keep on like this you’ll make yourself sick. You mustn’t let this spoil Gladys’s birthday. Come now, sit up and dry your eyes, dear, you’ll make your face all red and you won’t look a bit pretty, and everyone will know you’ve been crying, and you know how people talk. Come on now,” he coaxed, and when I did he daubed at my wet eyes with his own handkerchief. “That’s my girl!” He smiled. “My Bunny is so brave!” He kissed me. “And you must be braver still—Bobo thinks you are mad at him, that you won’t love him anymore without his curls. You must go and reassure him that that isn’t so.”

  And that’s just what I did. I sent down to the kitchen for three of the little pastel-iced dainty cakes I had ordered and three little cups of grape punch and went back to my children. I knelt before my son and looked him straight in the eye and told him, “You know Mama would love you just the same if you were bald as an egg and ugly as a gargoyle!” I stroked his shorn head. “It was just a surprise, that’s all; I’d thought to have more time to become accustomed to the idea. We foolish mothers sometimes try to keep our sons little boys instead of letting them grow up as we should. Will you forgive your poor, silly mama?”

  With a radiant smile Bobo instantly flung his arms around my neck and covered my face with kisses, giving me every assurance that all was indeed forgiven.

  All smiles again, we sat on the floor and had a private birthday celebration all our own even with Nanny Yapp hovering over us like a black thundercloud warning this would spoil the children’s appetites and they wouldn’t enjoy the party as much if they couldn’t join their little friends for cake and ice cream.

  “Well, if it does, it’ll spare you from having to worry that they’ll forget their manners and gobble like hogs!” I shot back at her. I smiled and snapped my fingers in her face and sang the verse from that song Edwin was always singing about a lady’s bird-tiny appetite when in public. Recognizing it, the children gleefully joined in:

  “When with swells I’m out to dine,

  All my hunger I resign;

  Taste the food, and sip the wine—

  No such daintiness as mine!

  But when I am all alone,

  For shortcomings I atone!
>
  No old frumps to stare like stone—

  Chops and chicken on my own!

  “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!

  Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!

  Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!

  Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!

  Ta-ra-ra Boom-Boom-Boom-de-ay!”

  Nanny Yapp just glared at me as though it were my own manners that needed reproving and she wished she had the authority to do so, and said it might even make them feel compelled to try to keep up with their friends, who had not come to the party with their stomachs stuffed. Bobo and Gladys would surely overindulge and then be up all night with bellyaches, and if that happened we’d all know who was to blame. But I just smiled and sang that verse again. Bobo and Gladys cackled with delight, snapped their fingers at Nanny Yapp, and sang along.

  After our cakes and punch, I helped Gladys into her fairy princess gown and fastened the amethyst heart around her neck.

  “You look just heavenly, honey!” I said as I set the glittering crown atop her curls and handed her her silver wand. “You’ll be the belle of the ball!” I smiled and fluffed her big puffy sleeves and crinoline skirt.

  Bobo was going to be my little maharajah. I’d had a sumptuous tunic made for him of gold-flowered red brocade, red silk trousers, and little golden slippers with turned-up toes. I hung ropes of glass pearls and big paste rubies around his neck and crowned his cropped curls with a golden turban covered with paste gems and a tall white feather rising like a plume of smoke from the top of his head. I knelt before him and playfully called him “Your Highness” as I slipped rings set with immense faux gems onto his fingers and buckled a bejeweled belt around his waist to hold a little saber. “Look.” I pointed. “It’s got a ruby on the hilt just like the Happy Prince’s! I hope you can walk,” I teased, “you’ve got so many jewels on you. Don’t you go outside and be falling in the pond now, darling, or you’ll sink right to the bottom and drown!”