It wasn’t difficult to find the Whitechapel Lady. It seemed everyone knew of her, the kind woman with the veiled face, who never spoke of God or redemption. Billy guided Mary and me through the streets of Whitechapel. It was a foul place, crowded with sad-eyed souls, with vicious men and women and frightened ones too, scurrying back and forth, the only smiles accompanied by a drunken bellow of laughter. I can’t blame them for that. I would have obliterated that world with alcohol too, if I were condemned there. Leading off all the streets were filthy narrow alleyways thronged with rats and rubbish. Even that rubbish had desperate people picking through it. The smell was choking and heavy, so I could scarcely breathe, with the only sweet scent coming from the old women who sold violets. Even in the daytime I saw women persuading and importuning men to come into an alleyway or a yard with them, or a room if they were lucky. Some of the women looked pretty and fresh, and talked and giggled. Most looked tired and raddled and wanting nothing more than for the act to be over so they could spend the money on drink, and forget. They must have had hopes and dreams once. Everyone does. But their dreams had choked and died on the noxious fumes of Whitechapel years ago.
Since the crimes of Jack the Ripper had brought the horrors of Whitechapel vividly to the attention of the rest of society, some work to alleviate the suffering had been done – but not nearly enough. It had become fashionable for society ladies to descend upon the place, dispensing food and clothes, but mostly handing out exhortations for the Whitechapel residents to give up their sinful ways and return to God. They handed out religious tracts about how much more glorious it was to die in poverty and hunger than live an unclean sinful life. These tracts made no mention about how painful dying of starvation was. These women were despised by the people they thought they were helping. I could see why. The people of Whitechapel starved. They choked. They bled. They suffered. They shivered. They died. What use was prayer to them? What use is a pure soul in a body that is falling apart? They did what they could do to live, and I would not condemn them for it.
Even now, it is the smell of Whitechapel I remember: a thick, choking, sour stench that lay in the back of my throat. It almost made me vomit. I craved cool water and fresh air. The only water I saw came out of the street pumps, and it was brown and brackish. The only air had come through docks and hospitals and graveyards and butchers and cobblers and dyers and was poisoned before it ever reached us. Even the sunshine was grimy. If I looked up, I could see a tiny patch of blue sky, way up above the houses, but the shadows of the street robbed the sunlight of any warmth. I shivered in my thick wool coat, but the people around me stood around in thin rags, never moving, as if they had never known what warm sun on the skin felt like. I was struck by their eyes. Dead eyes, all of them, as if their souls had died long ago, whilst their bodies continued the struggle to breathe.
We were not molested or called at in any way, which puzzled me, until Mary pointed out a tall, strong boy following us.
‘He’s one of Wiggins’ lads,’ Billy explained. ‘He’s here to protect you. You didn’t think he’d let you come here unprotected, did you?’
Wiggins, always and forever my knight in grubby armour.
Billy took us to a sort of square, near the edge of Whitechapel. Three sides of the square were made up of houses that must have been prosperous at one time, but now were verminous and rotten. In the centre of the square was a pump, set in cobbles. On one side of the square was a large plain brown building. ‘Clinic’ was scrawled above the door in whitewash. Billy led us round the back of the building to a set of stairs that climbed to the second floor. Billy nodded to the tall boy, who left us.
‘She won’t open this door if there are strange men about,’ Billy told us. ‘Wait here, I’ll check she’ll see you first. She knows me; I’ve run errands for her before, to the finer parts of town, where Wiggins and the others boys would get thrown out.’ Billy ran upstairs like someone who knew his way, and I wondered again about what his life away from my home was like, his life in these streets. This was not where he was born, but somehow he had a place here, just like he had a place in 221b.
He ran down again.
‘She’ll see you,’ he said breathlessly. ‘She wants to!’
He ran back upstairs and opened the thin, cracked door for us. We stepped through, uncertain what we would find. On the other side was a darkened room, with closed shutters. The only light came through the cracks in the shutters themselves. I could just see enough to make out there was only the bare minimum of furniture – a single bed, a chair, a crooked table. But it was clean – very clean. There was an overwhelming smell of lye and soap.
‘The Whitechapel Lady,’ Billy announced, with as much élan as if he had been in a Mayfair drawing room. ‘May I present Mrs Hudson and Mrs Watson.’
He closed the door behind us, and then went to stand between us and the Lady.
‘They’ll help,’ he told her. ‘Tell them about him.’
The Lady sat in the darkest corner of the room, on a plain, straight-backed wooden chair. Her face was completely in darkness. I could only see her dress, also plain. It had once been fashionable, about ten years ago, but now it was shabby and patched, washed too many times.
‘I won’t tell you my real name,’ she said, haltingly, as if she were not used to speaking. Her voice was low and gentle, but had a husky quality, as if she had a sore throat. There was an odd accent to it, an unfamiliar tone I could not place. ‘They call me the Whitechapel Lady here. You can call me what you like. My real name was lost a long time ago.’
‘We don’t need your name,’ Mary said, stepping forward into the room. ‘We’re sorry to bother you, but there is a man who has hurt people. We just want to . . . We just need to know . . .’ Mary’s voice faltered. She did not know how to ask what we needed.
‘The man that destroyed you hasn’t stopped. He’s still destroying people,’ I said, surprising myself as I spoke boldly and clearly. ‘We need to know what you know about him. We will stop him.’
‘Can you?’ she asked softly, without even a trace of hope.
‘We can try,’ Mary said fiercely. ‘Has anyone else tried?’
‘I don’t think anyone else really believes he exists,’ she said, her voice so low I could barely hear her. In the street below people shouted and laughed and cursed and wheels rattled over cobbles and dogs barked but in this room, we were so still and quiet, the dust in the air barely stirred.
‘He brought me to this,’ the Lady said. ‘From the happy, beloved woman who loved sunshine and laughter – to this.’
I saw her turn her head to look round the dingy dark room.
‘If this is too difficult for you . . .’ Mary said softly. The woman laughed then – not joyously, but one single bitter bark of laughter.
‘Difficult?’ the Whitechapel Lady cried. ‘It is well-nigh impossible. But I will have someone know my story. I’ve kept silent so very long, I’ve been so afraid. And the truth is, there’s been no one to tell. I’m still afraid, but I must say what has happened to me. It could save someone else. And you have such kind faces. I had forgotten what kindness looked like.’ She took a deep breath and looked towards the window. There was so little light coming through the cracks, but perhaps through one she saw the tiniest patch of blue sky, and remembered sunshine on her face.
‘The man who destroyed me was called Jack Ripon.’
‘Ripon?’ Mary asked quickly. The Whitechapel Lady nodded.
‘I know. A name like that has such resonance in these streets, does it not?’ she acknowledged. ‘But this was long before Jack the Ripper. I do not believe it was his real name. I’m not sure he has one. He told his lie so well, how can he remember the truth?’
‘What did he look like?’ Mary asked.
‘Just . . . ordinary,’ the Lady replied. ‘It was a long time ago, and what I remember – hair colour, accent, the way he dressed – would have changed since then. He was just one of my husband’s friends – or at
least, I thought he was. Just someone who went to the same parties we did. He was not someone I really noticed. I barely remembered his name. I think perhaps along with a name he put on a face he could change at will. Even after what he did, I believe I could walk past him and not know him. Think of that. The most evil man in London, and no one can really see him.’ She stopped talking and clasped her hands together for a moment.
‘He came to me soon after I married Richard,’ the Lady continued. ‘I loved Richard, do you understand? I loved him with all my heart, all my soul. But this man . . . this thing . . . this foul toad had letters of mine. Letters from before I was married, before I even met Richard.’
‘Letters to another man?’ Mary asked.
‘To my first love,’ she agreed. ‘Such a silly, foolish little love affair it was, too. He wrote such pretty letters though, and I was never allowed to spend enough time alone with him to discover what a shallow man he was, that all his love was a game of words, and there was nothing in his heart. So I wrote pretty little letters back. But then I met Richard, and I fell truly in love. There were no more letters then.’
‘The letters you wrote to the first man – were they indiscreet?’ Mary asked. Usually she always did the asking; I always watched. My eyes had grown used to the dim light, and I watched now as the Whitechapel Lady’s hands tightened.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘That was the point. I had written silly little love letters to a man I should not have written to, but the letters themselves were innocent. Richard had known about him, known I had written to him, he didn’t care!’
Her hands twisted and writhed in her lap – I don’t think it was because she lied, but in memory of pain.
‘Then how could this Ripon blackmail you?’ Mary asked.
‘I’m not sure it was blackmail,’ the Lady said softly. ‘Blackmail is an attempt to gain money or power or something else tangible, usable. I don’t think he wanted anything. I think he just likes to destroy. He sees something precious and shining and bright and he smashes it. That is what he did to my life.’
I wanted to reach out to her. I wanted to touch her, and reassure her – but I could not. I did not have the nerve. I was not the kind of person who comforted a stranger. But Mary impulsively knelt before her and touched her knee. I saw the Whitechapel Lady freeze, as if she had not been touched in a long time, and she had forgotten how to react. Then one thin, deathly white hand stole over Mary’s where it rested on her knee. She touched her, just for a moment, and then withdrew, so shyly, so softly. Mary moved away again.
‘He forged letters,’ the Lady continued, her voice cracking ever so slightly. ‘Oh, they were very well done. He had letters in my style, in my handwriting, on my paper – but I had not written them. They spoke of acts that had taken place between me and that boy, my so-called first love. Foul, disgusting acts, worse than you can find on any Whitechapel street.’
‘He threatened to show these letters to your fiancé?’ Mary asked.
‘No, my husband!’ she cried, and she stirred in her chair, as if for a moment she would spring up, come back to life. ‘He did not reveal the existence of these letters until after I was married. What was the point then?’
‘Destruction,’I murmured. ‘Destruction of your happiness.’
‘Precisely,’ she agreed, becoming still once again.
‘But surely,’ Mary asked, ‘your husband, knowing you as he did, would not have believed in these forged letters?’
‘Why not?’ she said bitterly. ‘The fakes were very good; even I was convinced for a moment. They were interweaved with letters I had really written and admitted to. Besides . . .’
In the filthy grey light, I could just see her hang her head in a gesture of shame. Poor thing, as if she had anything to be ashamed of now.
‘My husband and I had . . .’ She paused, and then gathered herself again. ‘We had anticipated our marriage vows. We had lain together as man and wife before the vows were spoken. I know it was wrong, but . . .’
‘Not wrong at all,’ Mary said firmly. ‘You were in love, and knew you belonged together even without the formality of a few words spoken over you. I freely admit, I did the same.’
Mary glanced round at me, as if anticipating my censure – but how could I condemn them? How could I even be shocked? John and she had loved each other from the moment they met, and there had never been any doubt, once she had agreed to marry him, that they belonged to each other, body and soul. The vows were almost an afterthought, just a formality to recognize their partnership. And I remembered my Hector. So tall, so handsome, and I so young and in love. Six weeks had been an eternity to wait for our wedding night – it had been Hector who had been firm, not I. And even then, we had not waited until night fell . . . oh, I understood passion far more than I understood the black and white rules of the society I lived in. The same rules this man was using to destroy women’s lives.
‘You understand,’ the Whitechapel Lady said, looking at the glances Mary and I were exchanging. ‘Then perhaps you can understand how my husband might, perhaps, think I had also committed that sin with my first love? I had not, I had not felt the same desire, but for him, it was so easy to believe. I think perhaps my husband never really understood why I loved him so much, he never understood he was air and water to me. And those letters, those vile letters, made it sound as if that man and I had done things so sordid, so filthy, a foul pairing blessed only by hell.’
‘It’s all very clever,’ Mary mused, her eyes dark and troubled. ‘If you wrote the innocent letters, why not the other ones? If you lay with your fiancé before marriage, why would you not have lain with others? He is creating lies based on truth – a very small amount of truth and a huge mass of lies, but it is enough to rouse suspicion.’
‘Suspicion is what he thrives on,’ the Whitechapel Lady said bitterly. ‘It is meat and bread to him. You must understand, when he brought me the letters, and I saw I had no escape, I asked him what the price was. He refused to tell me. He just kept saying “we’ll see”. And in the meantime, at every soirée, every garden party, every visit to the opera, he would appear, whispering filth in my ear. Things he said he had done, what he said I would do, what he thought I could do. But worse than that, I would see Ripon whisper to my husband. It would drive me mad, seeing him whisper to my Richard, and never knowing what he said to him. I asked my husband what the man had told him, I cajoled him, I screamed at him, I begged him but he always said they talked of nothing. I could not believe him, and when I accused him of lying, we would argue. He was confused and I was afraid and we took out our frustrations on each other. Our marriage became a mass of bitter recrimination.’
The Whitechapel Lady moved slightly, and the light fell across her face. I could not see it. She wore a thick veil that blocked out everything underneath it. Her voice steady, cold even, she continued her story.
‘That man never told me his price. Instead, at the height of our quarrels, he sent the letters to my husband. He had done well. He had prepared the ground. He had split us apart and destroyed all trust and confidence between us before my husband had even seen the letters. But once he saw them, my husband, my darling sweet husband who worshipped the ground I walked on, and wanted to believe I had touched no other man but him, shot himself. I found him in the study, the letters scattered before him, the gun still in his hand, all life gone.’
She stopped. She could not go on.
‘I think we can guess the rest,’ Mary said gently. ‘You burnt the letters? And the verdict of the inquest was death by misadventure? The gun went off accidentally whilst he was cleaning it, was that the story?’
‘That is it exactly,’ the Lady said darkly. ‘How well you understand the way we cover up our scandals.’
‘John has attended some of these cases,’ Mary said to me. ‘It’s amazing how many guns go off whilst being cleaned. The papers are full of these cases. Perfectly sane, intelligent men who suddenly decide, against all experience and know
ledge, to clean a loaded gun.’
‘Suicides?’ I asked, thinking of all the inquest accounts I had read that had given just that story.
‘Probably.’
‘That was not the end,’ the Lady continued. ‘He was there, at the funeral. He stood beside me, in the pouring rain, as they lowered my husband’s body into the ground. It must have looked as though he was supporting me in my grief. But instead, he kept whispering in my ear: “Why don’t you just die too?”’
Billy, sat in the corner, swore quietly under his breath.
‘He would just turn up,’ the Lady continued. ‘Everywhere I went. Whispering in my ear. I should have told someone what Ripon was doing to me, but who would believe me? Somehow, the sordid tales of my behaviour had become whispered about amongst my friends. I was blamed for my husband’s death. One by one, my friends left me, and I was alone – except for him. At every corner, on every road, in every shop or street, there he was, whispering in my ear. Die, die, no one wants you to live. Die, die, what use are you. Die, die, you deserve to. Until finally, I decided to do it. I just wanted peace. I wanted to sleep – no, I wanted to die.’
The room had become utterly still now. You could not even hear us breathe. The only sound was the Whitechapel Lady’s slow, measured words of despair.
‘I took laudanum,’ she told us. ‘But I misjudged it. I was not an expert! I had taken enough to send me into a stupor – but not enough to kill me. Instead, unbeknownst to my conscious self, I rose from what was meant to be my deathbed and wandered the house in an unwitting daze. I went into the study where my husband died. A fire was lit there. I tripped – I think I tripped – and fell into the fire. In my inert state I could not pull away. I burnt for several moments before I was found.’
That was when the Whitechapel Lady leaned forward into the light, so we could see her. She raised her veil, and we saw her face clearly for the first time, the face she went to such lengths to keep hidden. Billy cried out. Mary caught her breath. I put my hand quickly up to my mouth, suddenly nauseous.
The House at Baker Street Page 7
