Ripper Read online

  All of these memories blurred and faded until I found myself in a more solid dream facing the front doors of Whitechapel Hospital. The road was abandoned, the night cool and foggy. I could see my breath puffing out into the air surrounding me as I stared up at the building.

  A window on the third floor opened. I felt my blood freeze as a man crawled headfirst down the brick front wall of the hospital. It was an impossible act, and, even in the darkness, I had to cover my mouth to keep from crying out in terror. I could not see his face; he wore black and his figure was shadowed. He turned his head slightly to his right toward me, and it was then that I knew he was aware of my presence. Whatever his purpose, my intuition told me that it was predatory. I tried to sink into the shadows of the hospital entrance, and I glanced toward the front doors, wondering if they were locked. When I looked back, he was gone. Vanished.

  I felt hot breath on my neck, and, horrified, I knew that he stood behind me.

  I awoke, choking on a scream. Chills shook my body, and yet sweat dripped down my brows.

  The clock over the fireplace showed that it was three o’clock in the morning.

  Five

  The next morning, with great effort, I met Grandmother at the breakfast table. I felt exhausted, having not slept well after the early morning nightmare—it had seemed so vivid. Also, my foot was still swollen from the day before, and it hurt quite a bit. It would be impossible for me to return to the hospital before Monday. Nonetheless, I forced myself to walk on it. The more I walked, the better it felt.

  Grandmother sat across from me, reading a note from Violet and barely looking up except to take a sip of tea. On the east side of the dining room, immediately to my left, Mother’s portrait loomed against rose-patterned wallpaper. Sometimes I wondered why Grandmother kept the portrait up in the room where we ate most of our meals. Mother had been about my age when the portrait had been painted. She looked strikingly similar to me—except that she was beautiful. Her red hair escaped the confines of a ribbon, and I saw my dark eyes in hers. A chill swept through me as I remembered my dream, and I took a burning sip of coffee. She was rotting and wasted now. Nothing could change that.

  Grandmother tapped her fork impatiently against her plate. When I glanced at her, I saw that she was not irritated with me; rather, she was staring through the dining room window at Ellen, who still clutched the milk bottles as she chattered ceaselessly with another maid. Their gossip must have been enticing, as Ellen kept clapping her hand over her mouth and shrieking in astonishment.

  When Ellen finally ended her conversation to run inside, she burst through the front door.

  “We’re all going to be murdered in our beds! Richard! Lady Westfield! Miss Abbie!”

  Grandmother almost dropped her teacup. Ellen, in her hysteria, did drop a milk bottle, shattering it on the floor. Jupe ran around the corner, lapping eagerly at the white puddle.

  “Ellen!” Grandmother pressed her fingers to her temples, exasperated. “Must you affront us with this drama so early in the day?”

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am. But a woman was killed last night, a ’hor it seems from the likes of her.”

  I saw Grandmother’s shoulders straighten at Ellen’s language. Ellen had only been in her employ since the time I had arrived, and I did not anticipate that Grandmother would keep her for very long.

  “’Er body was in the East End at Buck’s Row, near the Whitechapel Hospital where Miss Arabella works.”

  Both Grandmother and I looked sharply at Ellen. The memory of the predator in my nightmare came back upon me full force.

  Now that Ellen had our attention, her dramatics only intensified. “She had her stomach cut out, ’er throat slashed!” Ellen tried to reenact the murder by slicing at her own abdomen and neck with her finger in the air.

  Richard had just entered the room. He began mopping up the spilled milk.

  Grandmother turned to him. “Is this true, Richard?”

  I flashed a look at Richard and barely shook my head. Apart from my own horror at the murder, I feared that Grandmother would forbid me from working at the hospital any longer.

  Richard saw my look. “Yes, madam. But the lady, with her lifework … ” He cleared his throat. “Death by murder is not an uncommon end for many of them.”

  Grandmother turned, staring at me in apprehension.

  “Grandmother, I would like to continue working at Whitechapel Hospital. I’ve been planning to return on Monday. My first day was … enlightening.”

  “You nearly broke your ankle.”

  I had no plans to tell her about the caesarean and the death of the girl. The sprained ankle, as far as Grandmother knew, was the worst of my experiences.

  After a moment of serious contemplation, she waved her hand a little. Her response shocked me. “Never mind, Arabella. Julian Bartlett is an old friend, and you may continue to work for him.”

  She cast a pained glance at the portrait of my mother. I knew that her relationship with me was based on a careful balance between directing my life in the way she would have it go and not driving me away.

  “However, although you may continue to work there, you cannot neglect your current social obligations.”

  Grandmother took a sip of tea as Richard finished mopping up the floor. Ellen walked in with a vase of roses. She seemed calmer. A little. She dropped a pair of pruning scissors twice as she arranged the flowers in the vase on the sideboard.

  Grandmother put on her spectacles as she peered more closely at the note she had been reading: “We have a dinner party at Violet’s next Wednesday evening. I want you to meet a young man who will be there.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. It was starting: her quest to find me a husband.

  Dr. Bartlett met me in his carriage on Monday morning. Though he said nothing, I wondered if his presence meant that Grandmother had contacted him.

  He inquired politely about my ankle, and we exchanged small talk as the carriage jolted its way through the early morning traffic. He opened the carriage window and as we turned onto Whitechapel Road, he lit a cigar. Before the smoke wafted about the carriage interior, I thought that he smelled pleasant—of candle smoke and tea leaves.

  The story of the Buck’s Row murder had been widely popular news, even in Kensington. Whitechapel Hospital worked so closely with such women, and the murder had taken place in the vicinity, so I wondered if the victim had ever been a patient. Unfortunately, I could not bring myself to broach the topic with Dr. Bartlett.

  The moment Dr. Bartlett and I entered the hospital, two uniformed constables and a Scotland Yard Inspector greeted us.

  Dr. Bartlett nodded politely at them as he helped to remove my coat.

  “Abberline,” the Inspector said as he shook Dr. Bartlett’s hand. He was tall, stout, appeared to be in his mid-forties, and had a notepad tucked under his arm.

  He acknowledged me with only a slight nod.

  “Ah yes,” Dr. Bartlett replied, “and Barry and John, your two excellent constables, who have proved quite helpful with our unruly patients.”

  John chucked. “A nice way of putting it, doc. I think you mean drunk patients.”

  Abberline cleared his throat, silencing his constable. He seemed stiff, overly professional as he removed a pencil from his pocket and began scratching notes on the pad with his thick fingers. “We have a few questions to ask you about Polly Nichols, murdered early on Friday morning.”

  Inspector Abberline seemed almost apologetic as he questioned Dr. Bartlett. “You are by no means a suspect. But it did come to our attention that Miss Nichols had been a patient here once.”

  “Yes. She had a severe problem with alcohol when she came into our care and, unfortunately, proved resistant to our rehabilitation practice. It is my policy to insist that patients cooperate with our methods. Miss Nichols did not, an
d she left our care twice to return to the streets.”

  A child began screaming in the nearby ward.

  Abberline shuffled his feet awkwardly. “When did this happen?”

  “The second time occurred the night before her murder, probably only hours before her death.”

  Abberline raised his bushy eyebrows as he continued to scratch notes into the pad.

  “So your nurses might have been the last witnesses to see her alive before she met the murderer?”

  “That’s very likely.”

  “Might we see all medical records that you have on Polly Nichols?”

  “Of course. They are in my office. Please follow me.”

  Before leaving, Dr. Bartlett gave me instructions to help Josephine in the newborn nursery.

  As Dr. Bartlett and the constables turned to ascend the stairs, I saw Abberline pause to stare at me, penetratingly, as if I had suddenly become significant to him. He was too focused, an incarnate bloodhound caught up in a scent. The scrutiny unnerved me, and before turning to pull an apron off a peg, I frowned at him.

  As I struggled to tie the strings, I heard a voice near my ear.

  “And Lady Westfield’s granddaughter finds herself suddenly in the midst of a real-life penny dreadful novel: a patient in the hospital where she volunteers is murdered. Disemboweled instantly, throat sliced open to the spinal cord, the killer so quick in fact that Miss Polly Nichols did not even have time to scream.”

  I turned to find myself facing Dr. William Siddal.

  “But what will young Abbie Sharp do? Is she safe? Will the killer come for her?”

  I took a deep breath, gathering my mental weaponry. I needed to deal with William Siddal. Immediately.

  “I have read many penny dreadfuls, William, but find most to be highly flawed.”

  I tried to pass him.

  He blocked me.

  I tried to get around him again, but he stepped to the other side and blocked me.

  I felt my face redden.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t lie, Miss Sharp, it’s not becoming. My guess is that you do read many penny dreadfuls, but exclusively the ones written for ladies.”

  “Never.”

  “Vampires?” he asked skeptically.

  “Always. Most recently, I’ve read John Polidori’s The Vampyre, and I’m getting ready to start another novel about a female vampire. Carmilla, I think it’s called.”

  He smirked, still testing me. “So you like it when women bite?”

  I leveled my gaze at him so that he would know I understood his insinuation exactly.

  “Perhaps.”

  His eyes widened—a little wickedly, I thought.

  “Now, will you excuse me?”

  A small smile twisted upon his face, and he stepped aside.

  I felt more than a little satisfaction when I walked away. After my terrible day last Thursday, my confidence was returning in small spurts.

  When I reached the nursery, which was through the door behind the delivery area, I found Sister Josephine dressing the body of a dead baby. As she slipped the tiny white arms through a frock, she shook her head. “Mother died during the birth last night. The baby lived only for five hours afterward. Too small, born too early.”

  I felt a small shock when the always efficient Josephine kissed the infant’s forehead before placing her in a small pine box.

  But then Sister Josephine became herself again. As another worker took the box away, she turned and surveyed my dress critically.

  “Your apron is clean.”

  “Yes.”

  She chuckled. “It won’t be when you’re finished here. Select a bottle and let’s get started. We have twenty to feed and change before noon.”

  The room surrounding us was full of squalling infants. Most were newborns, but the oldest looked to be around one year—almost at the age to walk. I picked up one of the milk-filled bottles—a glass bulb with a rubber tube extension. I would have to learn how to maneuver the contraption. All the infants screamed, and it was difficult to decide where to start.

  “Where is the child of the girl who died after the caesarean last Thursday?”

  “Right in front of you.”

  I looked down into the nearest crib at a red-faced and crying baby. Her wail rang out raspy, less strong than the others.

  “That one had a name. Dr. Siddal named her before he left last Thursday—Lizzie is what he called her.”

  I found it mildly surprising that William would take the time to name an infant, but Lizzie seemed like a good name. I took her into my arms, and, sitting in one of the hard rocking chairs next to Josephine, I began trying to get her to suckle the bottle. But she pursed her mouth into a tiny “o” and grasped the air with her lips, not quite getting a tight-enough suck on the tube. She struggled and kicked her legs in frustration.

  Josephine shook her head. “She was born too early. She’ll suckle best from a breast. I’ll try to find a wet nurse for her.”

  “What will happen to her?”

  Josephine shrugged. “She needs to eat. I’ll try her with the bottle when I’m done with this one, but, like I said, she’s too young.”

  The baby in Josephine’s arms had already gulped its entire bottle. She passed that infant to me and I gave her Lizzie. Sister Josephine had no better luck with Lizzie than I had. She finally gave up, saying that when we were finished she would set about trying to find one of the lactating mothers on the first floor to nurse the child.

  When I emerged from the nursery in the afternoon, I felt exhausted. My shoulders reeked of spit-up, and my hands, though I had washed them several times, still seemed saturated by the smell of feces. A foul urine stain marked my apron, a souvenir from a baby boy I had bathed.

  The ward of women and children seemed just as chaotic as the nursery. I saw William, with several other physicians or medical students, walking hurriedly in and out of the ward, inspecting patients and writing notes. Nurses chased children, changed bedsheets, and administered medicine. As I scanned the room, I saw in the bed farthest away from me, nearest to the front entrance, a woman holding a too-still infant. She seemed to be in despair.

  Simon St. John sat in a chair by her bed.

  I had not seen him since the day I fell. I remembered how kind and attentive he had been to me, and I watched him with interest. Though I could not hear what he said to the woman, I saw his long, graceful fingers smoothing the swaddling blanket of the dead infant she held. After a moment, he took the baby from her and began walking toward me.

  “Abbie, I am glad to see you back at work. Your ankle is mostly healed?”

  “Yes, it hurts very little now.” I tried not to look at the dead baby in his arms.

  “Would you mind sitting near Mrs. Rose Elliot?” He nodded back in the direction of the infant’s mother. “She is heartbroken. This is her third stillborn child. And her marriage is truly terrible. Dr. Bartlett is trying to find a way to help her.”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  He took the baby back to the nursery area.

  When I sat in the chair by Rose Elliot’s bed, I did not say anything. She had begun sobbing again, and I did not see how any words of mine could help the situation. But I was there, and I hoped that my presence mattered.

  She lifted one hand to wipe her eyes. It was then that I saw the bruises on her arm.

  At almost the same time, the front hospital doors slammed open.

  “You can’t be in here, Mr. Elliot!” I heard a nurse shouting at the intruder as he pushed past her.

  “Yes I can! You have my wife in here!”

  The man spotted the woman in the bed beside me and began storming toward us. He was tall, burly, and sported a thick mustache.

  “Get up! Get up, Rose
!”

  “No, Jess,” Rose replied meekly.

  I scanned the room. Dr. Bartlett was nowhere in sight, nor the constables who had accompanied him this morning. I saw several medical students in the far part of the ward, but they looked inadequate for a confrontation.

  “Get up, Rose! Now!”

  Then I saw William sprinting toward us.

  As Jess lunged at Rose, William restrained him, pinning his arms behind his back. Jess cursed and shook him off.

  Calmly, William spoke. “Sir, you have to leave. Now. She is under our protection.”

  “I will not leave! Rose, you can’t just run away and think that I won’t find you. Two days away is too much! Get up, now!”

  He lunged at her again, this time to grab her out of

  the bed.

  I stood.

  William once again tried to pull Jess away from us, but the big man swung at William, who ducked instantly, barely avoiding the blow.

  “Get out of my way!” I felt spittle hit my face when Jess shouted at me.

  “No.”

  “Abbie!” William hissed from behind the enraged man. Then, through clenched teeth, he mouthed, “Don’t be foolish.”

  Jess swung at me, and I ducked. Before he could swing again, I sent the heel of my hand into his lower jaw. The jaw cracked and he fell backwards onto the floor.

  Constables Barry and John had finally arrived, rushing forward to arrest him, but then they saw that he was unconscious.

  Everyone in the scene around us moved quickly—the nurses attended to Rose, and another young physician tried to revive Jess. He would need medical attention before he could be arrested. Curious children crowded close to see the excitement.

  Only William stood frozen, staring at me—a delighted bewilderment marked his expression.