by Brandy Purdy
I nodded and swallowed down the last vestiges of my fear. “A new beginning!” My eyes lit up with longing. “I’d like that more than anything, Sister Patia!”
“And God has given it to you.” She smiled. “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, and that is what you must do now. Godspeed, and good luck to you, Mrs. Maybrick!”
With renewed confidence, I went out boldly into the world in my candy-pink suit, rose-heaped hat, and pearls, determined to have that new beginning. Mama said some people pray all their lives for a second chance and it is never given to them and I was one of the lucky ones. I was alive, and with life there is always hope! I was on my way to Paris, but first I was going to London to see my children.
It took every ounce of courage I could dredge up to knock upon the Fullers’ front door. Not even all the pearls or finest French fashions and hairpieces in the world could give me confidence enough, but I had to do this. When the maid opened the door, I turned pale as her little white ruffled cap and swayed so that she had to reach out and steady me.
“Merciful God, missus!” she exclaimed. “You’re not goin’ to faint here on the doorstep, are you?”
“I’m all right, thank you.” I gulped my fear down and took a deep cleansing breath. “I’ve come to see Mrs. Fuller; is she in?”
The Irish skivvy gave me a queer look. “In, mum? The Fullers haven’t lived here in years! This is Dr. Pearson’s house now. They up and moved to America, to New York, years and years ago!”
“And the children?” I asked anxiously. “Did the children go with them?”
“Mr. James and Miss Gladys?” There was that queer look again. “Why, yes’um! Them being such a close family, I could hardly imagine any of ’em willingly putting an ocean between ’em!”
“America!” I gasped, tottering on my French heels. “Thank you!” I nodded and, pressing a coin into her hand, hurried briskly back down the steps onto the street again.
I kept walking. I didn’t dare turn around lest I see the maid still standing there staring after me. I wanted to stop and catch my breath, but I kept walking. I don’t know how many blocks I went before I just had to stop. When I looked around I found myself in an unfamiliar part of town, a crestfallen, dreary part where all the buildings seemed in want of painting and the people in need of new clothes. A pretty blind girl with a tattered green shawl draped over her red hair was leaning against a wall, a tin cup in her hand, singing a song that Fate seemed to have intended just for my ears:
“Oh, no! We never mention her, her name is never
heard;
My lips are now forbid to speak that once familiar word.
From sport to sport they hurry me, to banish my regret.
And when they win a smile from me, they think that I
forget.
“They bid me seek in change of scene the charms that
others see,
But were I in a foreign land, they’d find no change in me.
’Tis true that I behold no more the valley where we met,
I do not see the hawthorn tree, but how could I forget?
“For oh! there are so many things recall the past to me,
The breeze upon the sunny hills, the billows of the sea,
The rosy tint that decks the sky before the sun is set;
Ay, every leaf I look upon forbids me to forget.
“They tell me she is happy now, the gayest of the gay;
They hint that she forgets me too—but I heed not what they say.
Perhaps like me she struggles with each feeling of regret:
But if she loves as I have loved, she never can forget.”
Tears in my eyes, I emptied the coins from my purse into her cup and quickly hailed a cab. I had to get back to the hotel and tell Mama I was not going with her to Paris, I was going to America to find my children and, God willing, to make amends and a place for myself in their hearts again.
34
I returned to America on the same ship that brought me to England, Jim, and my destiny, twenty-four years ago, the SS Baltic, only it was a brand, spanking new Baltic; they’d retired the old one years ago but kept the name. It seemed somehow strangely fitting that I’d been with both Baltics when they were maidens, only I wasn’t a young girl anymore, a hopeful bride-to-be of eighteen, though there were moments when I stood at the rail that I sensed her ghost standing beside me. My reflection reminded me every chance it got that I was a worn and weary middle-aged woman whose future remained uncertain. But I was still hoping for a new and better life; that hadn’t changed. I was alive, and life and hope are bound together like Siamese twins; you can’t have one without the other.
When our ship glided gracefully into New York Harbor and I saw the Statue of Liberty I fell on my knees, the most grateful tears I had ever shed streaming down my face. Let the others stare; I didn’t care. I more than any one of them understood what liberty truly meant. I’d lost it, I thought forever, and now it was mine again, and I would never be such a fool as to take my freedom for granted.
The moment my foot, shod in a dainty new boot of black patent leather and gray suede, to match my new striped traveling dress and silver fox stole and muff, touched the gangplank a band began to play “Home, Sweet Home.” I was so overcome that Mama had to hold me up. The press of the crowd, though they were a kindly bunch, all calling out good wishes and God bless, frightened me, as did the numerous journalists, crying out questions and aiming cameras at me, making me feel petrified with terror, like I was facing a firing squad, and I clung to Mama all the more and tried, with trembling hands, to pull my veil down.
“Please! I am too overwhelmed to speak!” I kept crying as I slumped against Mama.
The next thing I knew I was seated in the opulent velvet-cushioned softness of a sleek silver motorcar and a broadly smiling man and woman, Mama’s friends, my ardent supporters the Densmores, were pressing enormous bouquets of pink and white flowers into my arms and I was being whisked away to the quiet and splendid seclusion of their country estate, Cragsmore House. I was so stunned I couldn’t take in a single word. I merely sat there, dumb as a mute, trying to just breathe and staring at the back of the chauffeur’s head while Mama and Mrs. Densmore sat on each side of me, patting my hands, and Mr. Densmore kept smiling so much I’m sure his mouth must have ached long before we reached Newport.
It was a world I thought lost to me forever, only a dream I vaguely remembered—manicured lawns, sweeping marble staircases, antique statuary imported from digs in Roman ruins, crystal chandeliers, forest-green, plum, and deep blood-crimson plush velvet portieres, gilt accents, like golden lace to trim this lavish life, stucco embellishments, rich-veined woods, polished until they shone like brown eyes lit by love, brocade, damask, velvet, and leather upholstered sofas, chairs, stools, and benches, ancestral portraits and Old Masters in rich golden frames on every wall, photographs framed in silver, Wedgwood, Sevres, Dresden, Chippendale, Sheraton, Brussels tapestries, Aubusson carpets, graceful rococo splendor evocative of the vanished opulence of Versailles vying with discreet intrusions of the new, exciting and frightening, fast modern world tap-dancing to the tune of progress. I felt like a child, walking through a museum, afraid to touch anything. This world I had once taken for granted was now alien and frightening to me; I was a fish out of water terrified I’d never get back in it or, if I did, it would be only to discover that I had forgotten how to swim. That golden-ringleted girl who had flopped with careless, casual grace into Chippendale chairs didn’t exist anymore. That girl was dead, but I, the shell, the weary old husk, she left behind her, was still alive, desperate and frantic to find something to fill up that emptiness.
I was shown into a lovely rose-colored room, filled with light and vases of roses. I smiled and nodded politely whenever my hostess spoke to me, saying she hoped I would be comfortable and happy here, but all I could do was inwardly pray that my closely entwined feelings of unease and awkwardness would soon abate. I had to lea
rn to swim again, and quick! This pretty room felt too good for me, as though by just being here, touching it, sleeping in that beautiful rose-pink bed, sitting in the fireside chairs, reading by the light of the rose silk–shaded lamps, I would pollute or damage it, as though black stains would spontaneously appear wherever I touched.
There was a balcony with a fine view overlooking a vast rose garden, with fountains and statues. A little lacy white wrought-iron table and chairs had been set out with one of the chairs drawn back as though in readiness for me.
“I thought you might like to work out here in the sunshine and fresh air sometimes,” Mrs. Densmore said.
“Work?” I asked, recalling instantly the hundreds and hundreds of shirts I had sewn in prison. I thought all that was over! I had, perhaps foolishly, thought that I would never have to work again. I had just assumed I would always be taken care of from now on. I’d never had to fend for myself or earn my own living before, and I feared I was rather old to start now.
Mama and Mrs. Densmore exchanged a lengthy look. Then Mrs. Densmore made her excuses and left me alone with Mama, to settle in and rest after my long and tiring journey.
“Work?” I repeated.
“Your book, o’ course,” Mama said as she pulled me back into the bedroom and, just like I was a little girl again, began to divest me of my hat, muff, wrap, handbag, and gloves. “You’ll want a hot bath; I remember that was always the first thing you wanted whenever we arrived in those happy days of our travels—”
“What book, Mama?” I persisted.
“Florie, dear.” Mama went to sit on the bed and patted the rosy coverlet beside her. “I don’t like to say it, but you must be practical. It is an unpleasant but unavoidable fact that you will surely want for money, an’ soon. You cannot live off the generosity of your supporters and admirers forever. People are fickle, an’ their interest will fade. In this day an’ age when every edition of the newspaper proclaims a new sensation it is only a matter o’ time before they forget you entirely now that you have won your freedom an’ procuring that freedom has ceased to be a cause for them to champion. In short, your days o’ fame are numbered, darlin’. You have to make the most o’ them while you still can; you simply cannot afford to let an opportunity pass you by; you’re no spring chicken anymore an’ you’ve your future to think of. Your story must be told, an’ now is the time to tell it, an’ who better than you to tell it? An’ in a way that will provide you with an income until such time as we can find you a new husband. So, you’re goin’ to write a book. Isn’t that excitin’? Your agent, Mr. Charles Wagner, has already arranged everything, includin’ a generous advance for you, an’ then you’re goin’ on the lecture circuit. He’s already started bookin’ a tour for you, a hundred appearances at fifty dollars per, an’ that’s just for starters. If you look pretty an’ tell your story in an engagin’ fashion, so that all the women weep for you an’ all the men want to protect you, you might be able to stretch this out for a few years, maybe more!”
“Mama . . .” I sat there stunned and staring. I didn’t know what to say. This scheme of hers went against everything I wanted. I didn’t want any more notoriety. “Mama . . . I don’t want to do this! Please, don’t make me! I want to be forgotten; I don’t want to be remembered or reminded! I’ve paid the price, and now I want to live quietly, and I want my children back—”
“Florie!” Mama started back as though I’d struck her. There was a wounded look in her eyes that brought tears to mine. “I’m only thinkin’ o’ what’s best for you, darlin’, an’ if you want to secure your future, an’ not spend the rest o’ your days a pauper, rely-in’ on the charity o’ others, then this is the most logical course. I’m sure I don’t know what else you can do, darlin’. Mama’s not a magician; she cain’t pull wealthy bachelors out o’ her hat, you know. You no longer have your youth an’ beauty to fall back on, darlin’. You’re going to have to make some effort, an’ use what you do have—your tragic story o’ how the world has wronged you—to rouse their chivalrous an’ protective instincts. Men like to feel like knights in shinin’ armor ridin’ to the rescue of a damsel in distress; they want to think they can wrap her up in their arms an’ keep her safe like no other can. An’ you, Florie dear, are a damsel in most distressed circumstances, an’ they’re only goin’ to get worse, darlin’, if you don’t do something, an’ quickly. An’ your children are all grown-up, darlin’. Why, Bobo must be twenty if he’s a day! There’s just no way you can have those years back; they’ve grown up an’ forgotten all about you. You’ve got to face facts, darlin’; that dream is stone-cold dead!”
When this only made me hang my head and weep, Mama said, “I’ll tell you what you do, darlin’. You write them a nice long letter layin’ your heart bare. I’ll give it to the chauffeur an’ have him take it straight to the Fullers’ door. If they want to see you, they’ll answer, an’ if not . . . you just move on, the same as those ungrateful brats have.”
So I wrote a book, or rather a very efficient bespectacled spinster secretary whose fingers flew with alacrity over the keys of a typewriting machine that Mr. Wagner sent round wrote a book while I supplied the story of my woefully unfortunate life and the Hell on earth I had endured behind prison bars and ate bonbons and waited for a letter that never came and for my hair to grow out and was fitted with a new wardrobe to start my new life in courtesy of the ever-generous Densmores. A melodramatic plea for prison reform packaged between midnight-blue covers with some choice details about my alleged crime and the travesty of my trial thrown in for good measure, the book appeared on bookstore shelves as Mrs. Maybrick’s Own Story: My Fifteen Lost Years, and Mama and I packed up, bid a fond farewell to the Densmores, and went on the lecture circuit.
I wasn’t the great success everyone envisioned—I was nervous and fraught with worry and gnawed my nails before every appearance—but Mama just whispered, “Make ’em fall in love with you, Florie; that’s all you have to do!” and shoved me out onstage, slapping my hands away when I tried to turn and cling to her in fright. The truth is I hated every moment of it. My life might read like a melodrama, but I was totally unsuited for the stage, and it wasn’t long before everyone knew it.
It’s devilish hard to be likable and engaging and stand there looking pretty as a picture while you’re talking about the death of your husband, the father of your children, the man you almost went to the gallows for murdering, and recounting all the horrors and deprivations and punishments packed into fifteen years of imprisonment. It hurt me so having to endlessly relive it and answer the audience’s prurient and often impertinent questions about it. And there’s just something downright tasteless about standing there with your now rounded and well-fed woman’s body dressed in the latest fashions and top-dollar hairpieces with a fortune in pearls draped about your throat while describing the dismal prison uniform and the humiliations of having your head shorn down to stubble and not having the use of a nightgown or toothbrush for fifteen years. Every time I’d talk about the heavy, ill-fitting prison boots I’d feel every eye in the house being drawn down to my elegant little boots or French heels and silk stockings. I felt like a fraud and just as much a hypocrite as every man and woman I’d ever met in the Currant Jelly Set.
My body might have looked well enough, but my face was haunted and haggard. I couldn’t sleep. Every night I lay there with my heart galloping, racing fast enough to win the Grand National, my mind endlessly replaying scenes from my life, trying to pinpoint what I could’ve and should’ve done differently and how I might have averted this fate. Some nights I was the strong, independent woman who threw up her hands and said, The hell with you! and walked out of Battlecrease House with her children in tow without ever looking back. Other nights Jim and I succeeded in waking dreams where we had failed in real life and found a way that was not altogether clear to me to be the happily ever after fairy-tale couple and grow blissfully old and gray together and dance at our children’s weddings and our own gol
den anniversary. There were nights when I, the giddy bride exploring her husband’s private sanctum, found only towels and toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinets and others when Jim, reformed and repentant, poured all his drugs down the drain, then took me in his arms and told me that I was the only drug he needed and couldn’t live without.
Suffice it to say, it was all bound to fizzle. The only surprising thing is that it lasted as long as it did, almost five years, thanks to Mama and Mr. Wagner working so relentlessly to prolong my popularity. The best I can really say about my stint on the lecture circuit is that I got paid fifty dollars every time I stepped in front of an audience and I wore some very fetching frocks, smart suits, stupid hats, and shirtwaists with cameo brooches, flowing lace jabots, and pouter pigeon breasts.
Ultimately Mama decided I should marry a Texas cattle baron, a big, beefy, barrel-round, pink-faced man with buck teeth and bushy white hair and surprisingly small feet crammed into ornate silver-tooled black leather boots whose silver spurs jingle-jangled everywhere he went. He was given to whooping ecstatically at the least provocation and danced a little jig whenever he was happy and sometimes, in particularly exuberant moments, discharged his pistols into the air, then casually doled out hundred-dollar bills to pay for any damage he had caused to chandeliers and ceilings. One evening when he came to my hotel room, to dine and afterward take me to the opera, he told me I was the calf he had set his heart on roping and he wasn’t about to take no for an answer, whereupon he wrestled me onto the bed and had my drawers off so fast I wasn’t at all surprised that he had won so many awards for speed in hogtying and calf-roping contests.
I tried to be sensible and think of my future like Mama said. I was no longer young and beautiful, and marriage really was the easiest route for a woman in my predicament. I had no practical accomplishments to fall back on that could guarantee me a living. God never intended me to be a seamstress or typewriter girl.... So I lay back, looking forward, listening to his spurs jingle-jangle as he mounted me—he kept his boots on, to give him traction, he said, and his big ten-gallon Stetson hat too, though for that he gave no reason. But he weighed so heavily upon me, crushing me like a great big writhing and snorting pink hippopotamus trying to attempt coitus with me, and it had been so long since any man had touched me that my body had forgotten how to give and receive pleasure. I was tight as a virgin down there, and it hurt so much, I just wanted him to stop. I kept telling him he was hurting me, begging him to stop—“Please!” I kept screaming and pounding his back with my fists and when that didn’t work planting my palms on his chest and trying to push him away. “Please!” My tear-filled eyes kept turning desperately to the vase of roses on the bedside table. I wanted to grab it and smash it over his head, but each time I saw terrifyingly vivid visions of him lying there dead and bleeding on the floor, policemen pouring in, handcuffing me, and dragging me downstairs crying and pleading every step of the way, and pushing me into the Black Maria, to await a second trial and condemnation, and I just knew that if that happened there would not be a second reprieve. If I went back to prison again I’d never leave it alive.
