A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper

by Alan M. Clark

  Papa woke her near seven o’clock in the evening. He had a small bottle of gin. “Bill ought to be home soon.” He poured a very small amount of gin into a cup for her. He poured a healthy dose into a cup which he kept for himself. “We shall sit and wait for your husband to arrive. When he does, you’ll take the sip of gin. I’ll offer him a drink as well. I’ll tell him as I offered you the drink, and he’ll believe the smell on you came from that.”

  Polly looked to the hearth. She smelled the savory pot of stew which sat steaming on a trivet.

  Papa was on to her, yet he tried to help her avoid the consequences of her drunkenness, and she felt grateful. Somehow, Polly knew that greater punishment lay in her future. She would promise herself a change of behavior, but she couldn’t imagine a future she would wish to endure without drink.

  When the glossy black doorknob turned, Polly had a sickening feeling that the Bonehill Ghost would come through the door.

  The soul of you, the whole of you, that’s all what you can preach…

  Instead, as expected, Bill entered.

  Polly quickly drank her gin, and immediately wished for more. Even so, that would be her last drink for a while. How long, she didn’t know.

  8

  Fragile Abstinence

  Although Polly had no real hope that her effort would last, she stayed away from alcohol for over a year. She spent her time thinking of her child, keeping house, and doing her piece work.

  In April of 1867, Polly’s husband borrowed Papa’s barrow to haul a printing press that had been manufactured in Holland in 1756. Bill had bought the mechanism from his employer. The press broke the side rails of the barrow, yet he managed to get the thing to his lodging. With the help of Polly and Papa, Bill succeeded in moving the contraption from the conveyance into their home. The press took up a good third of the front room.

  “It’s broken,” he said. “We have a debt to the company for it, a fairly large sum, but we’ll make good on it.”

  He breathed so heavily from his exertion, Polly thought she hadn’t heard him correctly.

  Bill seemed to see the question in her eyes. “I got it for a good price because it’s broken. With your father’s help, we’ll make it right again.”

  Papa nodded his head. “I’ve looked it over. I can manufacture and replace the broken parts.”

  “I’ll teach you how to use it,” Bill said, “and we’ll be on our way to new earnings.”

  Polly smiled. “No more brushes?”

  “That’s right, no more brushes.”

  * * *

  A year would pass before Papa had fixed the press. Within that time, a second child, Percy, was born to Polly and Bill. Again, before the child came, Polly had worried she might not love the infant or that her love might shift from John to Percy, leaving the older child out in the cold. With relief, she quickly discovered affection for both.

  To help make room, John, at present two years old, slept in his grandfather’s room. With the extra work the infant brought, Polly’s days began to run together.

  Her desire for drink had stalked her since her last sip of gin, distantly at first, but as time had passed, the urge had moved closer. At present, the beast crouched, barely concealed behind the closest hummock of unforeseen circumstance, looking for the right time to pounce; perhaps a moment when emotional hardship tested Polly. Aware that her abstinence was fragile, she imagined the predatory desire watching her from a distance with Mr. Macklin’s glowing eyes. She tried to keep a close watch on the beast.

  Bill brought home cases of type, tins of ink, bundles of paper, and a dozen or more additional metal and wooden devices that had to be installed on the press for it to perform its function. Polly learned how to create blocks of type to place in frames, or coffins as Bill called them, which were then placed on wooden beds and locked in place on the press. She learned how to ink properly, and then to use the great lever of the press to squeeze paper and type together to get an impression. At first, she didn’t have the strength to work the lever with enough force to get consistent results on paper.

  “Do no better than that,” Bill said, “and I’ll have to work nights as well as days to make a go of it.”

  Looking at the expression of disgust on his face, she wondered if he tried to discourage her. Shaming will not make me stronger. “I shall gain the strength,” she said calmly.

  “See as you do.”

  With persistence, she became proficient with the press. Bill brought home jobs for her to do, simple single sheet jobs at first, then more elaborate orders that required several broadsheets to be folded together, sewn, and cut to form a small book.

  Polly became fascinated with the process and the machinery. She spent her days tending her children, and trying different configurations of the mechanisms to improve her results. Within a few months, clients were coming to the lodging in Trafalgar Street to receive their orders directly from Polly and pay her. She earned more than she ever had with piece work.

  Bill kept up with all the transactions at first, yet with his mind on the work he did for his employer, he began to forget to make entries in the bookkeeping.

  “I can keep the books for the printing,” Polly told him. “You have enough to worry about.” With all the responsibilities she had with housekeeping, the two children, and working the press, she didn’t know why she’d made the offer, but she had a suspicion and decided not to look at her misgivings too closely.

  Bill looked at her skeptically.

  “I learned my maths when I were a girl in school,” she said.

  Her father overheard. “She’s always done the ciphering for me when I’ve had need of it.”

  “Show me,” Bill said.

  They sat at the table in Papa’s room, and Polly demonstrated her abilities with numbers. To see the surprise in her husband’s eyes left her simultaneously annoyed and satisfied.

  Bill came to trust her to keep the accounts for the printing. He also put her in charge of getting the ink and paper she needed and keeping a record of the costs. Within a few months, Polly was skimming off a penny here and there to go on small adventures, as she liked to think of them; she’d stop at a pub for half an hour and have one drink. During the second adventure of that sort, she saw her old neighbor from the Scoresby Street address, Judith Stanbrough, at the Compass Rose pub.

  “If you see Bill, don’t tell him you saw me here,” she told the woman as she sat at the table with her. Judith appeared plumper than in the past. If anything, she had more freckles.

  “I won’t tell your husband, if you won’t tell mine,” she said.

  They both laughed, Judith loudly. Polly looked around for fear they’d attracted the attention of people at other tables. No one watched.

  “Do you still live in Scoresby Street?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Judith said. “I come this far so my husband needn’t hear of my drinking. My Swaine, he’s a teetotaler. He works for a butcher, stays over Mondays and Fridays near the Portobello Road Market to help with cattle auctions. I take the time to have a drink.” She smiled crookedly. “Last I saw of you were the day I helped you home from The Boar’s Tusk. You were full of the lush.”

  Polly felt her mouth drop open as she tried to recollect.

  Judith laughed. “You don’t remember!”

  Polly shook her head. Full memory of the afternoon she’d spent singing with Kevin Lace and his pals still eluded her.

  “I found you with that pretty boy between the privies out back. He’d reached under your skirts and were about to have more. I saw what you weren’t with us.”

  Shame gripped Polly.

  “I shouted and he scampered away, the coward.”

  Ah, he didn’t have his way with me! Despite relief in knowing the truth, Polly remained ashamed that Judith knew what she’d done.

  “I saw you home that day.”

  Polly lowered her head, and took a drink of her stout.

  “No need to feel bad,” Judith said, gen
tly touching Polly’s left hand. “I’ve got that way too. Life is hard, and we have need to get away from it sometimes.”

  Grateful to have a sympathetic friend, Polly looked up, smiled, and clasped Judith’s hand. Knowing that another young wife also liked to drink, and for similar reasons, she didn’t feel so lonely and dishonorable.

  “You were knapped, I think.”

  “Yes, I have two children now, John and Percy, so I don’t have much time. I ought to finish this and go.”

  Judith rubbed her tummy. “And, now, I have one on the way. Soon, I’ll not have time either. Perhaps we can help each other. I could keep yours when you want to have a drink, and, in return, you could do the same for me.”

  Polly found the offer unsettling, but had to think about why. She felt comfortable with the idea of small adventures because the time she allotted to them and the funds she committed each outing were both limited. Even if she gave herself more time, fear kept her from taking more than the occasional penny from the printing accounts, so her drinking was regulated to one glass of bitter or stout, and nothing stronger, per adventure. The freedom Judith’s offer entailed seemed dangerous, yet Polly didn’t want to close the door on it.

  “That might be a good thing,” she said. She finished her stout and stood.

  “If you want to talk about it,” Judith said, “I’ll be here Monday afternoons—at least for a while—I’m two months along already.”

  “Thank you,” Polly said.

  9

  Something in Common

  In mid-summer of 1868, Polly received an order for a chapbook about the life and crime of a condemned criminal, Thomas Wells, who would hang at Newgate Prison in August. Following the hanging of the Fenian murderer, Michael Barrett, in May, executions had ceased to be public events. She had assumed that would put the writers of gallows ballads out of business.

  Looking over the materials her husband had brought her for the job, a hand-written manuscript and a small woodcut block for the front page illustration, she noted with discomfort the author’s name: Conway. The day she’d spent singing the man’s ballad about Theodore Pritchard with Kevin Lace and his friends wasn’t a good memory.

  Over the next few days, as she went about the work of setting type, printing, folding, sewing and cutting two hundred of the books, Lace’s voice rang in her head, singing the song over and over. Thinking about the loss of memory and control she’d experienced that day at The Boar’s Tusk was an uncomfortable reminder of her problem with alcohol, and brought on a nauseating shame. She finished the job on her third day of working on the chapbooks, but the unsettling recollections continued. In an effort to feel better, she opened a small set of watercolor paints and brushes her father had given her for Christmas ten years earlier, fetched a cup of water, and hand-colored one copy of the woodcut illustration, a picture of one man shooting another in the face. Polly thought she’d done a good job, although, once dried, the front page puckered slightly.

  She continued dreading the moment when the author would come to pick up his order. To keep from thinking about that, she began adding color to more copies of the picture.

  Her husband got home late. Polly, the children, and her father had already eaten by the time Bill arrived. Papa and the boys were in his room. She had colored half the run of chapbooks, and they sat staggered on a shelf by the open window to dry.

  “What have you done?” Bill shouted when he saw the colored chapbooks. “You’ve spoiled the lot of them.”

  She cowered away from his angry eyes.

  He grabbed Polly’s arms and spun her around roughly. “He’ll not pay for that!”

  Polly scrambled backwards. He punched her in the face and she fell, striking her head against the lever of the press. He moved forward and kicked her. She blocked his foot with her thigh. “No,” she cried, reaching up with her hands to ward off more blows as he struck out at her face again.

  Bill grabbed her left wrist and twisted. As she screamed with the pain, she heard little John, Percy, or both, begin to cry.

  Papa hurried from his room. “You can’t treat her like that as long as I’m here,” he said.

  Bill swung on Papa, but the elder man dodged the blow and raised his own fists. Polly’s husband knew of her father’s reputation among the costers as a good pugilist. He seemed to see the danger he’d brought upon himself, and lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender. Papa backed off. Bill sat back on the bed and hung his head. Polly slowly got up from the floor, grateful for Papa’s help.

  “Mr. Conway won’t pay for the chapbooks, Polly,” Bill said quietly. “But you shall,” he added ominously.

  Polly realized what a horrible mistake she’d made. Of course, the customer had not asked for color and might therefore refuse the order. What had she been thinking? To fill an order properly, one gave a customer the required goods and service; no more, no less.

  “We’ll just see about that when he comes for them tomorrow,” Papa said, his eyes still warning Bill off.

  Polly soothed her sore cheek with gentle fingers. “Tomorrow, at noon.”

  “I thought the color a charming touch,” Papa said.

  Bill scoffed. “You don’t know the printing business. Now, get out of our room.”

  Papa passed through the door into his room. Polly heard him calming the children.

  “You shall spend every moment between now and noon tomorrow if necessary printing and binding enough of the chapbooks to make up for those ruined.”

  “May I serve your supper?” Polly asked, averting her eyes.

  “Yes,” he said. “Then to work, straight away.”

  Polly prepared him a plate and returned to the grind of printing more of the chapbooks, toiling late into the night.

  Both John and Percy slept with Papa. Bill slept, but got up around midnight and began helping her with the sewing and cutting of the books. “You’d better hope the customer is satisfied,” he grumbled.

  They worked in silence for another three hours, finishing the task.

  * * *

  Polly awoke as Bill got up at eight o’clock in the morning. Papa had already left with his barrow and the two boys still slept.

  “I shall be late if I don’t hurry,” Bill said. He dressed, grabbed a crust of bread, and left.

  Polly got up, ate, roused her boys from sleep and fed them. She tried to put her room back in order after the tumult of violence and labor from the previous night. She feared the inevitable moment when a knock on her door signaled the arrival of Mr. Conway. She had stacked the colored chapbooks and hidden them under another stack of paper on a shelf of supplies in the corner so that he would not see them. Some of the chapbooks pressed late in the night were inferior to those done more carefully earlier in the day. She began to anticipate an angry reaction, perhaps even a refusal to pay for the product.

  When finally that knock came, Polly felt a jolt as if her body might leap out of her skin. She gathered herself together, took several deep breaths and moved slowly to answer the call. Upon opening the door, she found a woman with auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a heart-shaped face.

  “I am Mr. Conway’s wife,” she said. “I’ve come for the chapbooks he ordered.”

  So relieved that she didn’t face another angry man, Polly leaned heavily against the door frame and held her hands to her chest.

  “Are you feeling ill?” Mrs. Conway asked.

  “No,” Polly said, “I didn’t sleep well.” She stepped aside and gestured for the woman to enter. “I am Mrs. Nichols. Polly.”

  “Please call me Katie.”

  Polly gestured toward a bundle of chapbooks tied with yellow string.

  “Since executions are no longer for the public,” Katie said, “I argued against such a large order, but my husband said we needn’t change what worked in the past. I’ve tried to think of a way to attract more attention with the chapbooks.”

  “My husband is often too proud to listen to my ideas.”

  Katie sm
iled knowingly, and Polly knew they had something in common.

  Inspired to think that her mistake might become a good thing after all, she said, “Have you thought of color in the woodcut illustration?”

  “We can’t pay the price,” Katie said, shaking her head.

  Polly’s hopes dimmed.

  Still, the colored copies were a loss. If Katie could benefit from them, Polly might as well give them to her for free.

  Perhaps if they sell well, Polly thought, she and her husband will be so happy with the results they’ll ask for the color next time and willingly pay for it.

  Polly went to the shelf where she’d hidden the colored chapbooks and removed the stack of paper she’d put on top and set it aside. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I tried my hand at adding to the picture.” She pulled out a copy and offered the chapbook to Katie. “I completed your order without the color, but should you like, you may take the colorful ones at no charge.” She gestured toward the shelf. “I did close to one hundred of them.”

  Katie looked at the copy handed to her.

  Polly noted that the heavy stack of paper she’d placed on top of the stack of colored chapbooks had largely pressed flat the puckers in the illustration.

  As Katie’s eyes became large, Polly realized too late that if the woman had created the artwork, she might be protective. Despite Katie’s friendly manner, Polly thought of Bill’s anger, and feared an accusation of impertinence from the woman.

  But then Katie smiled brightly. “You made nearly a hundred like this?”

  “Yes,” Polly said, much relieved. “Should they sell well, perhaps you’ll consider color in the future.”

  “We ought to sell these for tuppence. We can but try.” Katie’s expression was delighted and hopeful.

  She paid for the order. Polly tied the colored copies to the larger bundle of chapbooks and sent Katie on her way.