Jack the Ripper Victims Series: The Double Event (17 page)

“Do you want to find another girl?” Elizabeth asked Mr. Kidney defiantly.

Liza had coached her on what to say to the man. While she dreaded the words of her cynical voice, she knew she must hear them for her own protection.

“No,” he said, “but if you cause me more trouble, I’ll have to consider it.”

“You made the mistake of telling me about how long it took to find someone like me.”

“My need
is
particular.” Mr. Kidney’s frown was too awkward to read clearly.

He’d grown up in a whore house, and had a penchant for older women who were very much used. He did, in fact, prefer to have sexual intercourse with a woman who had been lubricated by copulation with another man.

“Therefore,” Elizabeth said, “if you want me to do your bidding, you’ll have to allow me to blow off steam from time to time.”

The night before, she’d had a sudden need to get away, and left the room to get drunk at the Blue Coat Boy Pub next door, instead of seeing one of Mr. Kidney’s clients. She’d exited the pub after several glasses of ale and become a nuisance on the street, accosting the men going in and out of the establishment. A constable arrested her for public drunkenness, and Mr. Kidney had to fetch her from the jail.

“Yet you must be reliable,” he said.

“Haven’t I been? I’ve been with you almost a year.”

“Until now, yes.”

“No matter how comfortable you make the cage, it’s still a cage unless I can get out when I please.”

“I understand your need, and only ask that you let me know when you want to be away so my reputation doesn’t suffer.”

“I will,” Elizabeth said, but she instantly knew she would not. Experiencing his disappointment and not suffering any consequences had just become an important test of her independence.

Mr. Kidney and Klaudio had few similarities. While the Swedish ponce had had few chinks in his armor, her current employer’s strange need left him vulnerable to her whims. After nearly a year of seeing the caliber of the men he sent to her, Elizabeth knew he would never find her a man who would do her any good. If she wanted to find one who would provide her with something better than the life she led, she’d have to discover him herself.

Elizabeth slipped out periodically to wander the streets of Whitechapel and carouse for days on end. Each time, she experienced the excitement of not knowing what she’d find; the good, the bad or the indifferent. Although she told herself she looked for a man, she spent most her time away drunk, and was occasionally jailed for public drunkenness. She used various ways to explain away her drunken behavior when required to answer for it. Her slurred speech resulted from damage to the roof of her mouth incurred during her struggle to survive the sinking of the Princess Alice. Once, she gained released from jail because she told the sergeant at the police station that she suffered epileptic fits.

“You may have all the fits you like,” the officer said.

Elizabeth put on a pitiful expression. “When I have a spell, if someone isn’t near to place something wooden in my mouth, I bite my tongue. I could bleed to death. It might happen very quickly.”

The sergeant thought about that for a moment, then gave her a warning and sent her on her way.

The length of her binges increased with time to several weeks, during which she stayed in the common lodging in Flower and Dean Street. To those she met, she was simply Long Liz, a woman who had lost her husband and children in the Princess Alice disaster. Her forays often ended because she spent her remaining funds feeding acquaintances from the doss house who were elderly and obviously undernourished. Since her experience with Jon, she had a soft spot for those growing old and infirm. She also owed a debt to the elderly for her treatment of Fru Andersdotter.

Bess’s notions of hope emerged most warmly and powerfully with drink. While the warnings of her cynical voice continued to help her avoid danger, Elizabeth often wanted to shut them out, especially during hangovers.

Besotted with ale,
Liza warned,
you’ll never find the man you seek.

During one roaring drunk, Bess and Liza became more for Elizabeth than mere voices. She had slipped and fallen in a refuse pile outside the kitchen door of the Beehive Tavern.

Get up,
Liza said,
before someone comes along and nobbles you.

Most of the customers coming and going through the entrance to the establishment, didn’t notice her.

Nobody would bother to harm me
, she thought. Still, she felt a tugging at her left arm as if Liza were trying to pull her away. Looking in that direction, though, Elizabeth saw no one.

The warmth of a recently dumped pot of spoiled pease pottage amidst the refuse felt good against her backside.

You might as well enjoy the warmth until it’s gone,
Bess said.
Your skirts are caked with the refuse already. They cannot get any worse.

Elizabeth sensed a comforting presence to her right, though, again, she saw no one.

You wallow in the London beast’s offal!
Liza spat.
Listening to that child, you’ll wind up at the morgue. What good has she ever done you? She helps you hide from the truth at every turn.

Elizabeth had never considered that her voices might not get along, let alone that one might bear resentment toward the other. How dare Liza lash out at Bess with outrageous anger? Elizabeth intended to defend the innocent child and scold her cynical voice, yet Bess beat her to it.

You want the truth? She might still have her Jon now, if you’d allowed her to share the truth with him from the start. The trouble in their marriage put him in an early grave!

Elizabeth had never heard Bess speak in anger, but apparently she held resentment as well.

None of it made any sense. “You’re not alive!” Elizabeth cried. “You have no opinion that’s not my own.”

In her highly drunken state, the words came out in a guttural ejaculation of drowned vowels and soggy consonants. At the tail end of her words, someone from the kitchen looked to be stepping out for a smoke. Elizabeth recognized her—a scourer named Margaret. When Elizabeth had worked at the Beehive Tavern, she’d known and liked the woman. Seeing Elizabeth wallowing in the filth, Margaret put away her pipe, retreated back inside, and shut the door.

While Liza and Bess both spoke the truth, Elizabeth held the most bitterness for her cynical voice “You kept me from the man I loved,” she slurred. “You told me to hide the truth from him. Think of the years of lost love, how much better it all could have been!”

A man in ragged clothes, an unfortunate, approached along the side of the building. Looking for food amongst the kitchen refuse, at first he paid little attention to her. Elizabeth ignored him.

How many of my warnings have you ignored?
Liza asked.
You kept the truth from Jon because you couldn’t face it.

The unfortunate had taken an interest in the warm food beneath Elizabeth, and began pulling her off the pease pottage. Elizabeth confused his grasp for that of the hateful Liza, and flailed to get loose.

Klaudio and his friend, Robert, would not have taken advantage of you if you’d listened to me,
Liza spat.
The ponce had already tricked you once when I warned you again. You thought you’d caught Robert’s eye. He was going to carry you off to England and a new life. Hortense died because of your choice.

Elizabeth lashed out, trying to find Liza’s black tongue and tear it loose.

How much punishment do you deserve for that?
the cynical voice cried.
Must you treat yourself to more neglect than you gave the old woman? How much danger must you face now to assuage your guilt?

Elizabeth balled her fist and hurled it at Liza, but found herself striking the man hauling her out of the trash. She landed a blow to his face that stunned her hand.

He lifted his fist and swung at her head.

~ ~ ~

Elizabeth awoke in her bed. She didn’t know how long she’d been insensible. The last two teeth on the left side of her lower jaw were missing.

Mr. Kidney spent a week nursing her back to health before allowing her to see clients.

Her thoughts staggered uselessly through a morass of self-pity and shame for several days. When finally she climbed out of her emotional bog, she admitted to herself that if she’d done as Liza had suggested and got out of the refuse beside the Beehive Tavern kitchen, she would have avoided harm. Even so, she refused to accept the idea that she put herself in danger as a means of settling with her conscience over the death of the old woman.

Still, she remembered Liza’s words from the time when she accepted Mr. Kidney’s invitation to live with him:
You don’t want to regret not hearing from me.
Although she had come to hate her cynical voice, for Elizabeth’s own self preservation, she made a promise to herself:
If Bess offers advice, I will also always listen to what Liza has to say about the matter before deciding what’s best.

~ ~ ~

Elizabeth and Mr. Kidney had many a row about her periodic escapes, one in April of 1887 coming to physical violence. He’d struck her in the face several times and ripped the earring from her left ear, tearing open the lobe. Elizabeth reported to the police at the Commercial Street station that Mr. Kidney had assaulted her, but when time for the hearing came, she was on another of her benders. Since she failed to show up at the Thames Magistrate Court, the charges against him were dropped.

She would stay with her cash carrier for another year and five months.

Tuesday, September 25, 1888

After a row with Mr. Kidney about his desire to fatten her a bit, Elizabeth made another escape from the room they shared. Before she left, she considered that she might not come back to him, and decided to leave her Swedish hymnal with the woman living next door, a Mrs. Smith. Elizabeth told the woman she would eventually return for it.

She went to the common lodging at 32 Flower and Dean Street. No beds were available at the time. The deputy of the establishment sent her to the doss house next door. At number 33 Flower and Dean Street, a lodging house owned by the same proprietor, a man named Satchell, she found accommodation.

Over the following week, Elizabeth drank little as she made her nightly rounds of several public houses seeking single men. She would finally make an earnest effort to find the man Jon wanted her to have.

Moving through the grim environment of Whitechapel, she looked to Bess to provide her with hope. While Elizabeth dutifully listened to her cynical voice, she didn’t look forward to hearing what she had to say. Liza saw nothing but trouble in the world. By her estimation, no good existed for Elizabeth without exposure to extreme danger and inevitable pain.

During the day, Elizabeth took pity on several hungry acquaintances at the doss house and bought them meals. Low on funds, she went to Mrs. Malcolms on Thursday, September 27 with the hope of getting her shillings early. The woman gave her the coins after a brief argument.

A share of a bed opened up at the doss house at 32 Flower and Dean Street on Thursday night. Elizabeth took the accommodation because she knew more people there and that diminished the likelihood of having to sleep in beds with complete strangers.

When Saturday came, as usual, Elizabeth met with her twin at the corner of Commercial and Quaker Streets. Lettie had a troubled look.

“I worry about you out working the streets,” she said.

Elizabeth shook her head. What she did to get by was none of Lettie’s business, not anymore.

“You’ve heard about the Whitechapel Murderer?” Lettie asked.

Violence occurred daily on the streets of Whitechapel. Elizabeth had heard about the murders and speculations about who was responsible.
He’s a bit of bad meat in the entrails of London
, she thought.
It’ll pass soon.

She didn’t respond to her twin’s question.

“Please be careful.”

Again, Elizabeth didn’t respond. She couldn’t believe the murderer’s attention might fix on her.

Lettie is preying upon your fear to get something she wants,
Liza said.

Elizabeth had no idea what her twin might want from her, but decided she didn’t want Lettie to have any hold over her.

“I won’t be going to your sister anymore,” Elizabeth said. She held out her hand to give to Lettie all of what remained of the money retrieved from Mrs. Malcolms on Thursday, almost two shillings.

Lettie looked at Elizabeth evenly for a long time before reaching out to take the money. When several coins dropped into Lettie’s hand, she seemed confused and then sad, yet she tried to smile. “I’m hungry,” she said, touching her stomach. “Would you like to do a tightener?”

What she wants is for you to forgive her
, Liza said, as if that were a horrible motive.

Yes
,
she wants you to forgive her,
Bess said, making the idea sound appealing.

Although Elizabeth tried to open her mouth to say yes, somehow she couldn’t do it. She blamed Liza, even though the voice had never had control over Elizabeth’s person, let alone her decisions. The silence between the women stretched on.

“I’m sorry,” Lettie said at last. She paused before saying carefully, “There’s something you’ve wanted to tell me for a long time, something that troubles you. I would hear it without judgement.”

Of all the people Elizabeth had known, Lettie would be the one to tell about what happened with the old woman, but the opportunity had past.

Again, Lettie stood regarding her twin for some time.

While Elizabeth missed sharing her days with her friend, her pride had precious little else but the grudge against the woman. She pressed her lips together firmly and maintained a chilly gaze.

Finally, Lettie turned, and walked away.

Once she was gone, Elizabeth’s eyes grew warm, then stung with heat. Tears spilled as she headed back to the doss house.

~ ~ ~

Late in the afternoon, Elizabeth worked for Mrs. Tanner, the deputy of the common lodging, cleaning two rooms for sixpence. With the deputy’s help, Elizabeth got her possessions out of the doss house’s locked storeroom because her funds were too low to continue paying the storage fee.

Elizabeth used one of the newly cleaned rooms to prepare herself for the evening. As she scrubbed herself at a basin with a moist flannel, Liza spoke to her.
Lettie is right about the threat in the East End. Flirting with danger isn’t the same as seeking a man. You should stay in until the threat is past.

I seek only happenstance,
Elizabeth thought.
I've happened upon good men; Herr Rikhardsson, Herr Olovsson, Herr Kirschner, Mr. Pimberton, and Jon Stride. I wasn’t looking for any of them and still they found me. Would you have me retreat from the world and miss all opportunities?

An opportunist at heart, Liza was unable to argue further.

Elizabeth dressed in her best: A black skirt, brown velveteen bodice, and a long black jacket, trimmed with fur—all clothing Mr. Kidney had bought for her over time. The clothes were indeed her finest, although she’d worn them so much, they’d become a bit threadbare. No one would notice from a distance. Close up, especially at night, the dark coloration of the fabrics would help hide their condition.

Elizabeth asked one of the women she’d fed earlier in the week to keep certain items that she didn’t want to carry with her. On the street, she approached a flower girl and purchased a red rose clutched within a frond of maiden hair fern.

A certain gentleman she’d seen across crowded taverns and pubs had caught her attention over the last few days. She’d yet to meet and speak with him, but his eyes had shown his interest in her. He’d smiled at her twice. Then, when she’d moved toward him, he’d become lost in the crowd and she’d missed him. As she walked to The Hoop and Grapes pub, where she’d last seen the man, she had a feeling she’d finally meet up with him.