Ripper Read online

  “Where did you learn that?”

  “Dublin.”

  I had made an impression upon William, and, strangely, I did not care. It was time to leave. I took off my apron and placed it on a nearby peg.

  Six

  As I stepped outside the hospital, I saw Dr. Bartlett’s carriage approaching from far down Whitechapel Road. My heart still beat wildly from my confrontation with Jess, and I could not stand still. I decided to walk down the street to meet the carriage.

  I walked rapidly, stepping over puddles of water, broken glass. Remembering my chase with the pickpocket, I clutched my bag close to me.

  Although I tried to stay focused upon my surroundings, I also thought about my nightmare. I had dreamt it early in the hours of Friday morning—the same time that the murder had happened. It had been vivid, lacking the fuzziness of other dreams. I had smelled and felt everything around me so clearly. Though the crawling man’s face had been hidden in the shadows, I remember hearing his fingernails scrape on the gritty bricked front of the hospital. I had felt his breath on my neck. Even now I shivered thinking of it, and I clung to the hope that the timing of my nightmare had been mere coincidence.

  Remembering Mother’s episodes, those moments when she seemed trancelike, I wondered again whether she had seen visions. I had never been superstitious, and now I felt odd even considering the possibility that she might have had the “third eye,” as I had heard some call it in Dublin. The vision I had experienced with the pickpocket, of the strange ritual, had jolted me, but the nightmare—the coincidental timing of this dream with the murder—frightened me into thinking that perhaps my visions might be rooted in real happenings.

  Someone slammed into me so hard that I almost fell into the busy street.

  “Get out of my shop, girl!” a grocer shouted at a young woman. He had just shoved her out of his shop into the street. “I will call the police if I catch you in here again!”

  “Sorry, miss.” As the girl apologized to me, she brushed some dirt off her skirt. I saw lumpy, heavy objects in her pockets—apples or plums. Her eyes narrowed at me when she saw that I had noticed her loot.

  “Yes, I did just steal. But don’t judge me. I haven’t eaten in three days and that grocer and his porky wife can spare a few apples.”

  “I’m not judging you.” I turned to resume my walk.

  I heard her sniff. “Whatever.”

  I stopped as my own stomach growled. The girl seemed like a caustic tart, but I could not help feeling badly for her. Finding food was not a problem for me.

  “Here.” I turned back around toward her and dug in my bag for money.

  “Don’t take charity.”

  “But you’ll steal?”

  Her eyes burned in fury. I could see that she was torn between her own pride and her very real need for the money.

  I shrugged and started to put the coins back in my purse.

  “All right! I’ll take them. But I’ll find you, and I’ll pay you back.”

  As she took the money, I noticed the raggedy state of her shawl and the sharp, thin nature of her features. Her accent was Irish, and I wondered how long she had been in the city.

  A young man with a cap ran up to her, caught her elbow. “There you are, Mary! I got the job at the docks!” He picked her up and swung her around in the air three times. “We aren’t goin’ to starve.”

  He also had an Irish accent. Recent immigrants, I assumed. I wondered how long they had been here. Finding a job was certainly something to celebrate.

  I had finally reached Dr. Bartlett’s carriage. I waved at the driver and he stopped for me. Quickly I stepped into the carriage, so as to not interrupt the happy scene.

  Once inside the carriage, my mind plunged back into thoughts of my mother and the visions. I was hungry and exhausted, but everything in me recoiled from going to Kensington at the moment. It was Monday afternoon, which meant that Violet and Catherine would be at the house for tea and cribbage. I would be expected to visit with them, at least for a little while. Even five minutes seemed like too much.

  But where to go?

  I needed to be alone with my own thoughts for a little while. As the carriage progressed, I knew I had to make a decision. Highgate Cemetery, one of the quietest places in London, instantly came to mind. Without thinking any further, I called out to the driver, telling him I had plans to meet Lady Westfield in the Highgate area that afternoon. I felt relief when he asked no questions.

  I entered the open front gates of the west part of the cemetery. The place was heavily shrouded in trees, encircled by a wrought-iron fence and thick shrubbery. The busy noise of the streets disappeared as I stepped inside.

  I began wandering along the first path in front of me and observed the haunting, quirky beauty of the cemetery. I stood within a plethora of chalky, looming, unusually shaped tombstones. Gingerly, I touched a giant grave marker shaped like a lion before I spotted another one shaped like a dog. I had seen the place once before, immediately after arriving in the city with Grandmother. Even then, I had felt an immediate attraction to Highgate Cemetery; it had a strange aura about it, as if it channeled the cryptic, the unbidden.

  I took side paths that meandered haphazardly, and, as I pushed away branches and brambles, I only vaguely worried about becoming lost. I saw and heard no one. After so much time in the city, where even the parks seemed crowded, I embraced the solitude.

  Mother had mentioned Highgate Cemetery a few times. The tomb architecture had intrigued her, and she had shown me some of her sketches of the place. I felt her haunt me now, felt deeply the void she had left for me. I knew I was enough like Mother that I could not calmly accept the path in life that Grandmother would have for me: the upcoming dinner party, the person she wanted me to meet. I saw my life before me, flimsy and uncertain as a house of cards, and I knew that it was up to me to fight for what I wanted for my future. Mother had been an artist. I was not inclined in that direction, but I knew that I needed responsibilities and activities that stretched beyond running a household. I had only worked at Whitechapel Hospital for two days, but I felt excited about the challenges there and wondered about the possibility of working in a hospital for my vocation.

  Many of the side paths I took led to isolated clusters of graves, lone family plots, or single mausoleums. These hidden graves were less attended to; some had even toppled. Yet these ruinous family plots particularly fascinated me.

  Just as I pushed through a particularly brambly side path, emerging into a tiny clearing, I froze, mortified.

  William Siddal crouched near me, pulling weeds away from the base of a tall headstone.

  I tried to back away, back onto the path from whence I came before he saw me, but it was too late. He whirled around. Startled amusement spread across his face.

  We said nothing as he stood abruptly, wiping some dirt off his hands with his shirttail.

  “I … I was just leaving.” I blushed and turned to return to the path.

  “No, please don’t go.”

  “How did you arrive here so quickly?” It was a stupid question. He must have come directly from the hospital; I could smell upon him acidic hospital odors—ammonia, chloroform. But I had not expected to find him here.

  “Carriage,” he smirked. “Same as you.”

  Even now I felt taken by his handsomeness. In spite of his stained and smelly clothing and his mildly disheveled appearance, William Siddal might have been a portrait model. I felt myself hold my breath at his approach. He made me self-conscious now in a way that I had never felt before.

  Then William’s arch expression reminded me that I would have to stay focused.

  He reached his arm out toward my ear.

  I bit my lip to keep from trembling, and I felt my cheeks burn as if they were on fire. I had never felt such a powerful attr
action to anyone. My body’s reaction to William was even more disturbing given that I did not fully trust him.

  Or even like him.

  “A leaf.”

  He withdrew a crisp oak leaf from my hair, and when I saw his dark eyes shine a little, I felt horrified that he might have suspected my thoughts.

  I took another step back, away from him.

  I suddenly felt foolish. In my desire for solitude, I had arrived here, so many blocks away from Kensington, and the long quest had been futile. I had stupidly catapulted myself into an awkward encounter with William Siddal.

  I moved to leave again, but he gently caught my elbow.

  “Don’t go. This is actually a pleasant surprise. You left the hospital too quickly, and I have felt ignited with curiosity about how you acquired, in Dublin, such a skilled knowledge of fighting. What you did today was superb.”

  I stared at him, trying to discern his tone—I thought I sensed a tinge of openness, perhaps even some friendliness.

  “Come on, Abbie. Calm down a bit. You can talk with me while I finish pulling away these weeds from my father’s lover’s grave. The bloody workers never seem to make it back here.”

  I decided that nothing could be hurt by talking to William for a little while. I leaned against a nearby tomb, watching him pull weeds.

  “Your father’s lover?” I felt my interest piqued.

  He didn’t even look up. “Dublin first, Abbie.”

  “Friends in Dublin taught me to fight. We have dodgy streets there, just like any city.”

  “What kind of friends did you mingle with there?”

  I chuckled a bit, but my memories of Dublin were still too weighted by Mother’s death. I felt my eyeballs sting, and I swallowed. I could not cry in front of him.

  William had taken a rag from his pocket to begin wiping away bird droppings and dirt from some of the writing on the grave marker. I could make out, over his shoulder, the name Elizabeth Eleanor. Then I saw the name Rossetti on the marker, as well as on other surrounding stones. My heart skipped a beat as I wondered if William had any connection to the Rossetti family, well-known for its writers and painters. It was not a common name.

  But before I could ask anything, William continued with his questions.

  “And why were you in Dublin?”

  “I lived there for seven years.”

  “Why?”

  I wished he would stop. “My mother was a governess for a family in that area.”

  “Lady Westfield’s daughter had to find governess work in Ireland?”

  “Enough.”

  He stood up, finished with the grave. As he examined my face, I saw perplexity cross his features. Then his expression turned slightly apologetic. I felt softened toward him, a little regretful for being so clipped.

  “Your turn.” I nodded toward the grave marker. “Who is she?”

  He smiled roguishly before looking upward toward the sky.

  “It is nearly five o’clock. Where does Grandmother Westfield live?”

  “Kensington.”

  “That’s what I thought. You have come a long way to find solitude, Abbie Sharp. Can I tell you the story on the way home?”

  “I already know that you like to read, but do you enjoy twisted love stories?” William asked me.

  We had just reached Swain’s Lane, immediately outside the cemetery gates.

  “Particularly.”

  We crossed the street into busier traffic, and William signaled a hansom cab for us. “My father was the writer and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti—one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite group. Are you familiar with them or their work?”

  My heart thumped loudly. “I adore Pre-Raphaelite art, both the paintings and the writings, although unfortunately I have not seen any of the actual paintings—only copies in books—but my mother taught me about their work. I love the paintings based on myths and stories, particularly the paintings of Ophelia and of Pandora opening the box.”

  William looked sideways at me. “So you know about the Pre-Raphaelites’ shocking use of colors. You know of the accusations against them for heresy and eroticism in their portraits.”

  “Oh yes, of course.”

  Mother had been vehemently against any censorship in art; I remembered her eyes flashing when she spoke of the controversy surrounding Pre-Raphaelite art. She defended them, calling them “innovative” and “truthful.”

  “The model for many of the paintings was my father’s lover and then wife, Elizabeth Siddal. She was the model for the Ophelia painting you mentioned. Her grave was among those that I attended back there.”

  “So she was your mother?”

  “No, I never met Elizabeth—Lizzie, as he called her. She died a few years before my birth. In fact, Gabriel was not even my actual father. I have no idea who my parents were. He found me alone in the streets, an orphan of about four years old. He was already a widower then and very lonely.”

  “Your name is Siddal … he gave you Elizabeth’s maiden name rather than his surname?”

  “Precisely.”

  We were passing the park now. Night stars and swirled cloud-shadows speckled the late afternoon sky.

  “My father had loved his wife, Elizabeth, intensely, even obsessively. Besides modeling for the group’s portraits, she also painted and wrote along with them. My father loved her, but he struggled with monogamy, and had affairs with several of his models. He felt great guilt over this, particularly when Elizabeth learned of the affairs. She miscarried his child, and her health declined. She became depressed and ceased writing her own poetry. She soon died from an accidental overdose of laudanum.”

  The cab took a hard right and I held on to my seat.

  “My father never fully recovered from Elizabeth’s death. He felt guilty for cheating on her and responsible for the death of the baby. He began drinking too much and overdosing on chloroform. As you pointed out, he gave me her last name. I was always grateful to Gabriel for giving me a home. But my growing up was rather haphazard. While many my age attended boarding schools, my father taught me himself. I was present at all of his dinners with his artist friends and his mistresses; he had bizarre pets—a pair of wombats that he would dress up for fun. My father was interesting, but I felt a little suffocated by his fixation on the dead Elizabeth. She was this ghost in our household that would never leave his shoulder. His obsession deteriorated him, and he died a few years ago.”

  We approached the Kensington neighborhood. I knew that my time with William was about to end, but I still had more questions.

  “So, if you were raised in this family of artists, how did you choose to become a physician?”

  “We have very few members of our family who have chosen the medical profession, but an artist’s life wasn’t for me. And Gabriel always encouraged me in my pursuit of becoming a doctor. He provided for me in his will with some money that remained from his book royalties. It was enough to cover my expenses at Oxford. And now I have a nice living arrangement with my father’s sister, my aunt Christina.”

  “That is extraordinary! You live with Christina Rossetti. I love her poetry. Is she still writing?”

  “A little. But now she dedicates her life to helping prostitutes find more wholesome professions. Quite literally, she has opened her home to them. Instead of paying her for my room and board, I work in her house as a sort of live-in physician. Though most of the women she houses are much more stable than the women you see in our second floor ward at the hospital, they still have their lingering medical and mental issues. I live upstairs, making myself available for assistance whenever I am at home.”

  “So you never have any free time. Even when you go home at night, you might have to work.”

  “I don’t mind. Christina is reasonable. And she works all the
time herself. Her dedication to the women who come to her is limitless.”

  “Does Dr. Bartlett know about her work?”

  “He does. Indeed, often he sends our more hopeful and stronger patients to her when they are stable enough to leave the hospital. She has had much success in placing them in millinery or seamstress work—housing them until they can support themselves.”

  As William helped me out of the cab, I saw light through the parlor window. Grandmother would be in there by now. And she would be angry. I had not only missed tea and cribbage, but also dinner.

  Then I saw Ellen’s beady eyes peering around one of the curtains.

  My mind raced. I had been so absorbed by William’s story that I had not thought how I would explain my absence; and now, I would have to explain who I had been with.

  As if reading my thought, William said, “I should probably leave now. Am I not correct?”

  “I am afraid that you are.” My reply tasted sheepish, and I cringed inside.

  William bowed slightly and departed.

  I ascended the front steps, summoning a plausible, acceptable story: I had been walking in the park. I had stayed too late and had by chance met a physician who worked at the hospital. He had offered to escort me home. This had seemed prudent.

  Grandmother would rant, lecture, and threaten.

  Still, I knew that in the end, nothing would change for me.

  Seven

  I think they’re doing nothing except making everyone nervous. The women, the children in the main ward, they can hardly feel comfortable with these uniformed constables and inspectors circulating everywhere.”

  Sister Josephine had just left the nursery, and I finally had an opportunity to vent to Simon about the situation. It was Wednesday, and Scotland Yard had maintained a sporadic and yet oppressive presence at the hospital since Monday.

  Simon’s mouth curved into a smile as he examined a newborn baby boy’s eyes using a small instrument with a concave mirror. An “ophthalmoscope,” he had called it.