by David Field
‘So he did, but I persuaded Abberline to take him back.’
‘How on earth did you manage that?’ she enquired. ‘Reid seemed determined.’
‘Reid was, but Abberline was persuaded.’
‘How?’
‘The price of your silence was Jack’s release, was it not? Well the price of my silence was his reinstatement to the Metropolitan Police, but at Scotland Yard, where he now works with me. As I pointed out, he’d landed them Jack the Ripper and they’d need to keep him under police discipline if they wanted to ensure his silence as well as mine.’
‘That was very cheeky of you,’ Esther chuckled, glad to learn of Jack realising his ambition to be a detective.
‘Not half as cheeky as insisting that he be reinstated with arrears of pay. After all, he’d spent several weeks following you around to ensure your safety and was there when he was needed to save your life.’
‘Are you telling me that once he’d resigned, Jack was the one following me everywhere, not too subtly on occasions? And it was for my safety?’
Percy reached out and took her hand in his. ‘Have you the remotest idea how much Jack loves you, Esther?’
‘I think I’m beginning to get the idea.’
‘And you still love him, obviously.’
Her face began to crumple in impending tears and Percy reached out to hold her tightly as they broke loose.
‘I love him so much I want to die some days!’ she wailed into his shoulder as he stroked her back reassuringly. ‘But how can I admit it and not look like a gutter whore on the make?’
‘This place,’ Percy enquired as he looked around him, ‘is it the one that you worked from in the days when you took in sewing?’
‘Yes — it’s my “sort of uncle’s” business.’
‘The old man who was insisting on me waiting until Monday?’
‘Yes — Uncle Isaac.’
‘I don’t see anyone else around — are you his business partner?’
‘No — only his employee, but only just recently he was talking about leaving the business to me one day.’
‘So you’re an heiress?’ Percy suggested.
‘An heiress to a very modest business, yes, but so what?’
‘Hardly a poor seamstress living in lodgings,’ Percy observed.
‘I’ve certainly come on to that extent, yes,’ Esther conceded.
‘If Jack — a humble police constable — were to propose marriage to you, some people would liken him to an adventurer after an heiress’s fortune, would they not? Or have I been reading too many novels by Jane Austen?’
‘I couldn’t think of Jack like that,’ Esther objected.
‘Then what makes you suppose that Jack thinks of you in those terms? Did he say anything like that?’
‘No, but ... well …’
‘His mother?’
‘Yes. But if she’s thinking that, she must have got the idea from Jack, mustn’t she?’
‘Him, or Jane Austen,’ he grinned. ‘I once told Jack that I needed to bang your two heads together. Now I think what I need to do is to sit the two of you down together in the same room and act like the referee at a prize fight.’
‘I’m not sure what I’d be able to say to him, after all this time,’ Esther mumbled as she wiped her nose now that the tears had stopped.
‘That’s why you need the referee,’ Percy assured her. ‘Anyway, thank you for the tea and now I’d better be getting back. Jack and I are trying to catch burglars in Chelsea at the moment, so we’re working nights, since that’s when burglars work.’
Isaac stepped smartly back from behind the door at which he’d been listening to their conversation and went in search of pen and paper.
‘There is a letter for you this morning,’ Isaac advised her as she came downstairs and into the kitchen. ‘It has been posted from Barking, or so my tired old eyes tell me — who do you know in Barking?’
‘A family I used to visit,’ Esther replied absentmindedly as she read the return name and address on the back of the envelope. I wonder why Lucy would be writing to me, but I think I can guess who gave her the address, she mused as she tore the rear flap of the envelope and read the short note.
My dear Esther,
I do hope I may address you by your first name? Pardon my presumption, but I shall be journeying into the City next Wednesday and was wondering if I might leave two or three gowns for you to alter in your new business premises? I was so impressed with your work on my blue gown on the occasion of your visit here and unfortunately I am still growing, although not in height.
I anticipate being there at around two in the afternoon. If this is not convenient, please write or telegraph me before then.
Kindest regards,
Lucy Enright
‘More business, foter,’ Esther assured Isaac as she left the kitchen and headed for her work space behind the curtain. ‘A quality customer this time — the sister of that young man who could afford to send me all those flowers.’
‘This is good,’ Isaac replied. ‘But you should charge her at a discount if you wish to acquire regular business from such a customer. The wealthy, they are always seeking discounts — which is perhaps why they are wealthy.’
Wednesday finally dawned and Esther took considerable care with her dress, even though she would be doing her normal day’s work; at two o’clock she had an appointment with a very important new client, one to whom he had formed a natural attachment during their only previous meeting and one who could bring much custom to their business. Shortly after lunch, Isaac answered the knock on the front door and Esther stepped from behind her curtain to renew her acquaintance with the beautiful and now even more elegant, young lady who was holding out several long gowns in a carrying bag.
‘Esther,’ Lucy beamed as she kissed her on the cheek, ‘it’s been too long, and I have put on far too much weight in attending other peoples’ weddings with my new fiancée, Edward Wilston the architect. We are to be married in June, but my bosom seems to have swollen with so much pride that each of these gowns needs to be altered to accommodate it.’
Esther smiled reassuringly. ‘One deft action with my tape measure and your problem will be solved.’
‘I don’t care how much it costs, if you can perform your magic. They are my best gowns and the only ones I dare be seen wearing in decent company.’
‘I’ll give you a special discount,’ Esther offered, remembering Isaac’s instruction. She picked up her tape measure and ran it round Lucy’s upper torso, noting a few measurements down on her notepad.
‘When do you require them?’ she asked.
‘There’s no hurry,’ Lucy assured her. ‘I come into town every Wednesday, since my fiancé has his offices in Holborn. He’s taking me out to supper this evening, but this means that I have a few hours to kill. Would it be possible for us to take a healthy walk somewhere?’
‘This is Spitalfields,’ Esther reminded her with a smile. ‘You no doubt smelt the far from fresh air as you came down here and there’s enough horse dung in the streets to pave the district three times over.’
‘Jack told me of a churchyard where you and he used to walk in happier times,’ Lucy recalled. ‘Perhaps there?’
Esther had some urgent work to finish, but Lucy promised to be a valuable customer, so she willingly agreed and collected her coat and gloves, then escorted Lucy through the bustling thoroughfares to Christchurch yard and the familiar gravestones that brought back such happy memories.
‘How is Jack?’ Esther enquired as casually as she could, but even so in a voice that wavered slightly.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Lucy replied, ‘since we don’t see him any more often now that he’s with Scotland Yard than we did in the old days. Do you miss him? I know he misses you.’
‘So Percy implied, when I saw him a little while ago.’
They were approaching the centre of the old grave section, where huge stone sarcophagi marked the final resting place
of various local worthies from the days when Spitalfields was synonymous with easy wealth and ten foot high crosses surmounted with angels and Biblical scrolls pointed up into the sky.
‘I must own that I’m feeling a little parched,’ Lucy complained. ‘Did I see a lemonade stall as we came in?’
‘Yes indeed,’ Esther confirmed, ‘it seems to have always been there.’
‘I’ll just dart back and get some,’ Lucy offered. ‘Would you like one yourself?’
‘Yes please,’ Esher smiled and watched as Lucy stepped carefully over the uneven grass in her fashion boots. It brought back memories of her first Sunday with Jack, when they sat on the bench just inside the gate and she insisted that he hold her hand. A hand she would dearly love to hold again.
‘Make that three,’ came a voice she had never dared hope to hear again and as she turned with a jolting heart, Jack stepped out from behind one of the tall tombstones. He had never looked so apprehensive and she had never seen him look so beautiful.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered.
‘You can call me Jack, if you promise to hold my hand again,’ he grinned and she almost lost her footing as she rushed forward, threw herself at him and burst into floods of tears.
‘Please, please forgive me!’ she pleaded as she finally stopped kissing him, allowing his lips to resume their normal shape.
‘Forgive you for what, precisely?’
‘For treating you so horribly, not acknowledging all those beautiful flowers ...’
‘I’ll forgive you if you marry me,’ he beamed and Esther immediately placed two fingers over his lips as an admonition to silence.
‘Don’t spoil it so soon,’ she whispered. ‘Just hold me tightly, kiss me and promise me that we’ll go walking again every Sunday.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he murmured as their lips locked yet again.
‘You might need these to cool you down,’ came a voice from behind them, as Lucy stood a few paces away, beaming happily and holding three bottles of lemonade.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lucy left them in order to go shopping ‘up West’ and Esther gleefully took Jack back to meet Isaac, who shook him warmly by the hand, congratulated him on his choice of flowers and quietly whispered in his ear, while Esther was making the tea and happily humming to herself, that if Jack did anything to mar Esther’s happiness, he would be ‘cursed like only an old Hebrew like me can curse.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Rosen,’ Jack assured him, ‘all I want is to persuade her to marry me. How may I best achieve that?’
‘By loving her, reassuring her and holding her hand in bad times. That’s what worked for me, anyway.’
The next few Sundays were spent renewing their acquaintance with the churchyard that had become their Paradise and Jack tactfully avoided the topic of marriage, content that they were back holding hands, kissing and exchanging mutual assurances of their love for each other.
‘So how is life at Scotland Yard?’ Esther asked him one Sunday. Jack’s beaming reply left her in no doubt that at least one part of his life was fulfilled.
‘Very exciting, always different and sometimes dangerous. An escaping burglar took a pot-shot at me a few nights ago. He missed me, but winged one of my colleagues, who’s now in Charing Cross Hospital fighting for his life. If he dies, the bloke we caught will swing for it.’
Esther shuddered. ‘I’m sorry I asked. There’s no risk of you being shot, is there?’
‘Not if I keep my head down. Most burglars only have clubs and knives anyway.’
‘Let’s talk about more pleasant matters,’ Esther grimaced. ‘How are the arrangements progressing for Lucy’s wedding?’
‘Fine, so far as I know. We’re invited, by the way.’
‘Obviously you’re invited,’ Esther acknowledged, ‘since you’re the brother of the bride. But me?’
‘The sweetheart of the brother of the bride,’ Jack smiled. ‘And Mother insisted.’
‘Probably only to balance the numbers at the table afterwards,’ she suggested.
Jack stopped for a moment, gathered her in his arms and reassured her: ‘Please don’t go back to demeaning yourself again, Esther. That’s how we parted last time — you wouldn’t want that, would you?’
‘No more than I’d part with my right hand, which is my best sewing hand,’ Esther smiled as she kissed him.
‘I think that was a compliment,’ Jack said as he kissed her back.
May was turning into June and the wedding was only a fortnight away, when Esther came downstairs one Friday morning to find the kitchen empty. Isaac was normally the first up and would put the pot on the stove for the first tea of the day before making an early start at his sewing machine, so when he wasn’t in the kitchen Esther went into the main work room. When he wasn’t there either, she tiptoed up two flights of stairs and found him lying on the floor at the side of his bed, white as a ghost and not breathing.
She raced downstairs and out into the street, wide-eyed and trembling in shock. There was a policeman on point duty at the junction of Hanbury Street and Commercial Street and he directed her to the nearest physician, Dr. Mellowes of Bishopgate Street. The doctor collected his bag and escorted Esther back home, where he examined Isaac briefly, before advising Esther that Isaac had probably been dead for several hours and that it had likely been a seizure.
Esther quickly learned all there was to learn about engaging undertakers, organising funerals and coping with silence in a rambling old building that had once been an audience to the old man’s wavering renditions of folk songs from his youth as he worked away happily at the latest suit, or stirred the pot for yet another of his delicious and very filling, kosher dishes. Much of that advice came from Jack when she broke the sad news to him the following Sunday and it was he who suggested that they go through the old man’s papers. In an old floor safe they found the will, dated only a few months previously, leaving everything to Esther.
‘So now you’re a woman of substance,’ Jack smiled. ‘You know what I’m going to ask you next, don’t you?’
‘Please don’t Jack — not yet, anyway,’ Esther begged him. ‘Just tell me that you know how to make suits, or else the business will have to close.’
‘Can’t you employ someone for that?’ Jack enquired.
Esther shook her head. ‘I’m really not ready to become an employer, Jack.’
‘Even if you’re not,’ Jack reminded her, ‘the building must be worth almost a thousand pounds on its own. It’s three stories high, on a main road and in the best part of Spitalfields — that is, as far away from Whitechapel as possible.’
‘I’m already feeling uncomfortable here on my own, Jack. The floorboards creak at night and when the wind’s blowing there’s something on the top floor that rattles and I can almost imagine that it’s old Isaac working on his sewing machine.’
‘Don’t tempt me to ask the forbidden question,’ Jack grinned.
She smiled back. ‘I’m not afraid of ghosts, as far as I know, but I am afraid of committing to something that may not be right. Can’t we just stay the way we are?’
‘Probably not,’ Jack replied quietly. ‘Not if the sensations I get every time we even touch are anything to go by.’
‘I’m glad I’m not the only one,’ she sighed as she held him to her, ‘but let’s just wait a little longer. I don’t want to have to seek out the services of another Pearly Poll.’
‘I owe you both my thanks and a heartfelt apology,’ Constance Enright admitted to Esther as they stood together on the rear lawn of the house in Church Lane, drinking yet more champagne as they relaxed after the wedding ceremony and the meal that had followed, excellently prepared and served by outside caterers. They had just waved off the happy couple as they took the coach to the station, ahead of catching the Boat Train to their honeymoon destination.
‘I’ll start with the thanks,’ Esther replied in a voice slightly slurred by her third glass that day.
‘Than
ks for making Jack so happy again,’ Constance replied, no more sober than Esther. ‘According to Percy, the poor boy was like a three-legged puppy until you took him back into your affections.’
‘He was never out of them,’ Esther reassured her, ‘but what is the apology for?’
Constance hesitated for a moment, then got it off her chest at long last. ‘I may have given you the wrong impression that day when I enquired after your life to that point. I didn’t think for one moment that you were after Jack for his relative wealth, although Heaven knows there won’t be too much left of that if I keep on enjoying rude health like this and eating into the family trust that my late husband established. It was unforgiveable of me to create the impression that I was of the opinion that you were “on the make”, to put it in vulgar terms.’
‘I was more concerned about what Jack might think,’ Esther explained. ‘I thought that you might have got the idea from him.’
‘Not once — ever,’ Constance reassured her. ‘He was furious when he learned what I’d said to you and I would have bitten my own tongue out if it would have made any difference. Anyway, you’re now back together again, so when can we expect another wedding?’
‘We’re almost on the point of talking about that,’ Esther advised her, smiling.
‘Make it soon, then.’ Constance smiled back.
Several weeks later the old building in Lamb Street was placed on the market and Jack took a few days off from his police duties to assist Esther in the tiresome business of showing potential purchasers around the premises. Several of them sniffed in disapproval at the remains of the former business that Esther had somehow never got around to removing, since they reminded her of the second father figure that she’d lost and on long afternoons she could sit quietly at Isaac’s old sewing machine and tell him in teary whispers how much she owed to him, how good he and Ruth had been to her and how much she hoped that he could hear her in Heaven.
Other potential purchasers quibbled about the number of bedrooms, the adequacy of the internal plumbing, the ongoing need for the privy in the back yard and the state of the roof slates, but eventually an offer of seven hundred and fifty pounds came in and Esther accepted it, before realising with a start that this made her homeless once the long entry date of October 1st came round. Then, late one afternoon while they sat discussing her options, there was a heavy knocking on the front door and Jack went to answer it. He came back with a serious looking Percy, who lost no time in stating his business.
