Ripper (7 page)

Eight

A
rabella, you smell.” Grandmother wrinkled her nose. “You smell like infant vomit.”

The carriage ride to Lady Catherine's house for dinner was tense. I had arrived home later than Grandmother had expected, and I had only a few minutes to get ready for the dinner. I had washed, but apparently not well enough.

“I'm sorry. I did wash. The hospital odors can be so strong.”

Grandmother sighed loudly and looked out the carriage window. Still without looking at me, she said, “Please make an attempt not to embarrass me tonight. Lady Catherine has arranged this for
your
benefit.”

“What do you mean, for
my
benefit?”

“Cecil Clairmont, a barrister, will be there, as will his fiancée, Mariah Crawley. She is Violet's ward. She is your age and a trifle libertine, but otherwise … ” Grandmother's voice trailed off a bit. “The point is, as I told you last week, there
is
someone at the party whom Catherine and I very much wish for you to meet: Chester Clairmont. He is Cecil's nephew. He is a student of the law, not much older than you, and the Clairmonts are an excellent family.”

We had stopped. The carriage ride only lasted a few blocks, given that Catherine also lived in Kensington; it was quite ridiculous that we took a carriage at all.

The driver stepped down to open Grandmother's door.

“If Chester is not much older than me, how
old
is Mr. Clairmont?” I asked. I was perplexed at the thought of Cecil Clairmont marrying a girl my age.

Instead of answering me, Grandmother merely turned as she stepped out of the carriage, her eagle eyes sharp on my face. She clenched her teeth a bit.

“I know you were raised among the Irish, Arabella, but, once again, do
not
embarrass me tonight.”

She smiled daggers.

The party proved to be as dull as I had expected. It was suffocatingly small, with only Lady Catherine, Lady Violet, Mariah, Cecil, and Chester in attendance.

Cecil was in fact old, at least fifty. Chester was twenty-one and the spitting younger image of his uncle. As I had expected, Catherine seated me next to him at the table. Despite being young, Chester had terrible allergies and was already balding. He talked the entire meal about himself, about his law studies and travels. I tried to be polite, but he bored me out of my mind.

Mariah, across the table next to Cecil, appeared much more interesting.

Tall. Elegant. With her black curly hair piled high on her head, Mariah might have been a model for the sketches in the magazines I browsed. But she looked even lovelier than the magazine illustrations due to her bold and distinct aura. She talked very little during the dinner conversation, and yet her sharp eyes did not miss anything. Once she caught my eye and smiled.

Mariah's demeanor intrigued me, particularly as, in spite of her well-dressed appearance, she seemed a misfit here at the Kensington dinner. I wanted to speak to her, but it was difficult to escape Chester. Finally, when she left the table to refill her glass, I drained my own, excused myself from Chester, and followed her.

While we stood near the punch bowl, she took a nearby plate of gooseberry pie and, without even bothering with utensils, began to eat it, staining her fingers sticky red in the process. She did not seem to care about the stains, and after licking her fingers a bit, she wiped them clean with a napkin.

Catherine had already introduced us earlier, and now, to make conversation, I congratulated her on her engagement.

She lowered her voice, even though we were well out of earshot of the rest of the dinner party.

“Thank you, but you should know that the wedding is never going to happen.”

“Excuse me?” I nearly choked on my drink.

“The date is set for early January, but of course I'm not marrying him. Just look at him. Can you imagine what a dull life that would be?”

As discretely as possible, I glanced at the table. Catherine, Violet, and Grandmother continued to chatter; Chester Clairmont watched Mariah and me and looked about ready to refill his drink, too. Cecil Clairmont had already fallen asleep at his seat and was beginning to snore.

“All right. You're absolutely correct,” I said quickly. Chester rose from the table. Mariah and I didn't have much time. “So why are you engaged to him?”

“Makes things a bit more fun, doesn't it?” She winked. “I have a lover, and we're planning to run off the night before the wedding. The whole thing will make a splash. It will be quite scandalous. In fact, I doubt Lady Westfield will want you to be my friend anymore.”

She smiled warmly. Briefly, I wondered if she was making this up, joshing with me a bit. I could not believe that within minutes of knowing me, she would confide all this. But something in her eyes told me it was true.

Chester had almost reached us.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I whispered.

Her reply came instantly. “Because you look like you would understand.
And
because you look like you won't tell a soul,” she added as she gave me a quick peck on the cheek and departed. She left a faint scent of honeysuckle behind. Chester had just arrived at the punch bowl.

As Chester rambled on, I watched Mariah walk back to the dinner table. She was correct. I would not tell a soul. Grandmother had called her a libertine; I found her intriguing compared to my monotonous Kensington life, and I saw the possibility of a new friendship.

Two workdays passed quickly, and on Friday evening I arrived at Dr. Bartlett's enormous white gabled home. William had been correct about the street seeming transitional. Though the outside of Dr. Bartlett's house was quite well-kept, most of the houses on the street were much more worn and seemed abandoned. I also saw gutted workhouses and factory buildings. The street was mostly dark, as there were no working streetlamps.

As I stepped out of his carriage, I felt curious and excited about the impending evening. I anticipated that this would be very different from my evening at Lady Catherine's.

“Welcome!” Dr. Bartlett exclaimed as he opened the door for me and took my coat.

He led me to an enormous drawing room immediately to the left of the front entranceway. The room had dark green patterned wallpaper and long narrow windows heavily curtained in sage velvet drapes; it had a grand, earthy feel. Giant potted plants abounded along the walls and in every corner of the room. I saw at least three large fish bowls; one, under a gaslight in the center of the room, was huge, globelike. This globe aquarium absorbed and reflected prisms of light above it into every angle of the room. Unlike the two smaller aquariums, this aquarium contained jellyfish. They were tiny and silver—each a pulsating thimble with long tentacles floating behind like hair. Part of Dr. Buck's collection, undoubtedly.

Across the room, past the fish bowl, several young men, many of whom I recognized as physicians or medical students from the hospital, sat around smoking cigars, small glasses of gin or sherry in their hands. The conversation lulled a bit when they saw me, and I saw glimmers of disappointment in the gazes that flashed toward me. Undoubtedly they thought that a woman would cramp and exasperate their conversation. The only warm gaze came from Simon. He drank only wine.

Several men, whom I took to be Dr. Bartlett's housemates, sat beside the large bookcases near where we stood. Like Dr. Bartlett, the housemates appeared to be middle-aged or late middle-aged—except for one.

I stifled a small gasp when I recognized the youngest man as the one I had slammed into when leaving the hospital. He stared at me now with his leopard green eyes and cast me a nod. My curiosity rose regarding his identity. I had thought he was possibly a physician at the hospital, but he lounged on an ottoman near the others in a manner that seemed far too familiar for a subordinate physician.

He stayed where he was while the others rose to meet me.

Dr. Bartlett began introducing them at once.

“Abbie, this is Reverend John Perkins.”

Reverend Perkins stepped forward and took my hand. Dressed all in black, he wore a clergyman's collar; however, unlike many of the pleasant, powder-haired clergymen in England, he exuded shrewdness. More lion than lamb, I concluded. Tall, and sporting a long pepper-colored beard, Reverend Perkins—though polite—had an imposing and formal appearance.

Dr. Marcus Brown, meanwhile, was of average height, had short brown hair, and seemed much friendlier. He stepped forward to shake my hand and we exchanged pleasantries.
The scholar
, I remembered William saying as he introduced himself to me.

“Do you teach at Oxford occasionally?” I asked.

“Yes.” He chuckled lightly. “But not medicine. My mind is not inclined anywhere in
that
direction of study. I lecture for the history and philosophy departments at Kings College. Robert here,” he said, patting the man next to him, who I assumed was Dr. Buck, on the back, “is our scientist—both botanist and zoologist, specifically. You can find him lurking around the laboratory upstairs at Whitechapel Hospital, though he has his own laboratory here that he shares with Julian.”

Dr. Buck, tall and spectacled, seemed almost as formidable as Reverend Perkins. He stepped forward, giving me by far the firmest handshake of the group.

After meeting them, I wondered when the younger man would arise to greet me, but when I looked toward the ottoman again, he was gone. Discretely, I glanced across the room to where the small group of guests sat.

He was not there, either.

Dr. Brown placed a drink in my hand.

“Is Scotch all right?”

“Perfect, thank you.”

I had never had a Scotch. I rarely drank anything stronger than wine, but having noticed that most of the others drank hard liquor, I did not want to seem weak.

For the first time, I noticed that Dr. Bartlett and his housemates had no servants. They served the drinks, closed the drapes as the evening progressed, and turned the lamps on and off.

Two hours passed; my head began to swirl after I unwisely drank a second Scotch. I became hesitant to talk too much for fear that anything I said at that moment might sound foolish. Then, perhaps because of the alcohol, I felt a wave of nausea.

“Are you quite all right?” Simon whispered from where he sat beside me.

“Yes, quite. I'm just going to find the water closet.”

“It's upstairs. Do you need me to … ”

“No, no. I can find it myself.”

I focused on walking steadily as I crossed the drawing room. I paused at the jellyfish aquarium when another small wave of nausea swept over me. Stepping closer to the glass, I waited for the bout to pass. The talk and laughter from the other part of the room funneled away, and I became completely absorbed in the swimming creatures. I had only seen sketches of jellyfish in books, and they had seemed much larger than these. Also, no sketch could ever do justice to their gossamer loveliness.