The Ripper's Wife Read online

  After Bobo’s birth, I just didn’t bounce back the way I expected I would. Everything seemed to leave me exhausted no matter how much I rested. For the first time in my life I found myself looking forward to stealing afternoon naps. While May laced me into my clothes I’d find myself darting longing looks back at my bed, going through the day counting the hours until I could return to it. Most mornings I couldn’t even rise and have breakfast with Jim no matter how much I chastised myself for not being the wife I had always wanted, and intended, to be. But whenever I spoke to Jim about it, he always smiled and kissed me and told me not to worry my pretty head about it. He’d rather see me smiling and well rested when he came home in the afternoon than yawning, with dark circles round my eyes like a raccoon, offering him his marmalade in the morning. So I took him at his word and started having my breakfast in bed at whatever hour I happened to wake up. Often I remained in my wrapper with my hair in curl rags until half past noon.

  And what good would my rising at the crack of dawn have done anyway? Even if I’d been there, smiling across the breakfast table, to greet Jim, would it have really made any difference? The servants still looked to Mrs. Briggs for their orders. They treated me like I was a little girl playing at house and not the real lady of it.

  That woman contradicted me every chance she got! Time and again I’d plan a special menu for a dinner party only to sit down and find something completely different being laid upon the table. Whenever I dared question the cook about it she’d get all haughty and say, “Well, Mrs. Briggs said . . .” And when Jim and I threw a ball, I’d sit down with the conductor and plan the music the orchestra would play, only to find, when it began, that the program had been changed entirely. Once I bought a lovely vase only to discover, when I went to fill it with a specially ordered bouquet from the florist, that Mrs. Briggs had taken it upon herself to return it and exchange it for another. When I confronted her, she didn’t deny it. She said my taste was “a tad too flamboyant,” so she had changed it for “something more suitable.” Then, she actually turned to my husband, touched his arm, and asked, “Don’t you agree, Jim?” And he did!

  It was even worse after Bobo was born. While I was confined to bed recovering Mrs. Briggs took full charge, and after I was up she was ill inclined to step aside. I dearly wanted to bar all the doors to that woman, but I didn’t have the power. Indeed, it seemed like everyone but Edwin was mystified as to why I disliked her. Even Jim deferred to her. She was always saying, “Jim, I suggest . . . ,” “Jim, I really think . . . ,” “Jim, you should . . . ,” or “Don’t you agree, Jim?” Of course, he always did. It was as though I, his wife and the mother of his son, counted for nothing in that house!

  Whenever I tried to talk to him about it, Jim would laugh it off and suggest that perhaps I might be being “just a tad ungrateful” to someone who was only trying to help me. Or he would laugh and ask “But, darling, don’t you prefer being a lady of leisure?” Only Edwin truly grasped what was happening, but having him lean over my shoulder, give a witchy cackle into my ear, and whisper in a wicked, raspy voice, “Double, double, toil and trouble; fire, burn; and, cauldron bubble,” whenever he saw Mrs. Briggs working against me really didn’t help rectify the situation any.

  No matter how many times I showed my husband in the dark that I was indeed a woman, by day- or gaslight he treated me like a little girl. He and Mrs. Briggs foiled my every attempt to grow up. It didn’t matter how many nights I took off every stitch and let my hair down and rode him like a thoroughbred; morning always came and I was reduced to feeling like a little girl in pigtails, short skirts, and pinafores again, playing at house and hosting pretend tea parties with her dollies. Is it any wonder that there were days when I just didn’t feel like trying anymore?

  Jim’s frequent business trips only added to my woes. He often traveled to London, Manchester, and even across the ocean to New Orleans and Virginia. I hated being parted from him for so long. The days and weeks would drag by. To my surprise, I found myself missing my old roving life. Maybe I truly did have the wanderlust in my blood like Mama? I would have loved to have gone with him. But I had a baby now. I wasn’t a bride anymore; I was a wife and mother. The home and the hearth were my place now, not ocean liners, luxury hotels, and casinos. No honeymoon lasts forever. Maybe later, when Bobo was older and away at school, Jim would take me with him and it would be like another honeymoon. I hoped so; I hated to think that the grand adventure of life was over and all I really had to look forward to was sitting by the fire with my knitting and the vicarious thrill of romance novels.

  Of course, I had Bobo to console me. Dressing him was my favorite pastime. I didn’t let his little phallus stop me; I simply covered it up with layers of lace, ruffles, embroidery, and ribbons. I was determined to enjoy myself while I had time; he’d be a big boy wanting short hair and trousers soon enough. As his hair grew, I put him down to sleep in curl rags every night and soon he had a fine head of satiny brown-black corkscrews. I played with him every day as though he were a living doll, changing his little outfits half a dozen times or more, leaving them all scattered on the floor for May to pick up. I bathed him in rosewater and made such terrible messes feeding him that Jim began to wonder if I didn’t need glasses to help me find the baby’s mouth. Was there something about holding a spoonful of porridge that rendered me blind? Jim wondered.

  But, in those early days, I discovered that babies sleep a great deal and there were only so many hours in which I could indulge in such play. It’s hard to dress a grumpy, shrieking, squirming baby the way one would a doll.

  I don’t mean to imply that life was entirely without diversion, only that it had lost some of its vibrancy and luster. To put it bluntly, I was bored. Genteel games of whist with other members of the Currant Jelly Set, the usual dinner parties, society balls, the opera and theater, obligatory afternoon calls, ladies’ luncheons and tea parties—there was a sedateness about it all that bored me to tears. It had all become so stale and predictable.

  There were so many nights when I’d find myself standing in a crowded room, smiling and chattering away as though I hadn’t a care in the world, and I’d still feel all alone. I’d be all too aware of the forced smiles and the coldness hiding behind them. I was in this world but not truly of it, and believe me, there is a difference. Sometimes I’d forget myself and launch into an anecdote from my carefree Southern youth, recollecting all-night riverboat parties on the Mississippi, floating balls, with the scent of honeysuckle, jasmine, and roses borne upon the river breeze, delightful times when I’d drunk rum punch and danced till dawn with handsome young bucks and flirty-eyed belles just like me, then slept the day away, rising in time to have supper for breakfast, only to suddenly become aware of silence so profound you could have heard a pin drop. I’d stop and look around and see them all struck dumb and scandalized as though I’d just admitted to opening the door to the postman stark naked. The rest of the evening they would be darting glances at me and whispering behind their fans or in little huddles that dispersed as soon as I drew near and I’d overhear snatches of conversation like “not just fast—swift, my dear, swift!” I just knew they were talking about me.

  I was crestfallen. I knew I had been careless, but I couldn’t help it; I was just being me, and, sometimes, I forgot that wasn’t acceptable anymore. But, to my mind, I wasn’t an actress, and I didn’t think it was fair that I should have to spend my life playing a part for a hard-to-please audience hell-bent on disliking me. If I had to pretend to be someone else in order for them to like me, then they didn’t really like me. I just didn’t see the sense of it.

  Sometimes I felt like Edwin was my only friend, and having lost my own brother, I valued him all the more. We spent a great deal of time together, probably, in hindsight, more than was wise.

  I never knew when he’d burst in on me, shake me out of my doldrums, shouting, “Devil take the office!” when I asked why he was not at work, and slap a hat on my head and a cloa
k around my shoulders and drag me off to the dime museum or an afternoon matinée. “Nothing’s better than a penny dreadful brought to life!” he always said. Any sideshow featuring freaks or magicians was sure to attract Edwin. He’d readily volunteer to let the strongman lift him over his head or to step forward and tug the bearded lady’s whiskers, daring to let his eyes drift down to her bosom as he did so, and he’d pay to kiss the fat lady, and he never tired of telling about the day he had shaken the Elephant Man’s hand. The instant any magician asked for a volunteer from the audience Edwin was on his feet with his hands waving.

  He was forever trying to perform magic tricks, dreaming of the day when he could abandon the office forever, he hated cotton and bookkeeping so, and take to the stage as “Edwin the Extraordinary.” But he was the most inept magician I ever saw. His tricks always went hilariously wrong.

  I remember once when I was hosting a ladies’ luncheon and he attempted to entertain us with a trick involving a handkerchief and the contents of a pepper shaker; poor Edwin made the mistake of standing next to an open window on a windy day and pepper went flying everywhere. We were convulsed with sneezes and our eyes were streaming and stinging, and one poor lady’s sneezing brought about similar eruptions from the other end that mortified her so completely that she would never come to our house again.

  Another time Edwin lost the tame white dove he had been practicing with for months and thought it had landed on Mrs. Hammersmith’s hat, but when he went to catch it he discovered it was only a stuffed bird nesting amidst the silk cabbage roses and he had quite ruined her new hat, mangling it with his big, clumsy man’s hands when he snatched the dove off. She sobbed hysterically when Edwin offered her a handkerchief only to have a dozen rainbow-colored ones all sewn together come rushing out of his pocket and proceeded to beat him about the head with her handbag several times, all the while calling him a dunce, a mutton-headed dolt, a nincompoop, and an absolute fiend—I personally thought the last was rather strong. After all it was only a hat, and not a very pretty one at that. Afterward, when I put a piece of steak on the swollen lump on his forehead, he tried to make a joke of it, wondering if the brick she was carrying in her purse was solid gold.

  A month rarely passed without him dragging me off to the Anatomy Museum, which I daresay sounds a tad improper, on the select afternoons when ladies were admitted. They boasted over 750 wax models that were authentic replicas of all the human organs and even had displays depicting the birthing process and various surgical procedures to “advance science and learning,” and Edwin insisted we had to see them all. He’d stand before the exhibit about “self-pollution” eating his toffee corn and joke that the placard that described it as “the most pernicious evil practiced by man upon himself” contradicted the sign over the front door that shouted in huge gilt-edged black letters: MAN KNOW THYSELF! and have me laughing so hard I almost burst my stays.

  Sometimes we even attended séances together, which were then still quite fashionable. We’d sit in the darkness, part of a circle of joined hands, while the medium went into her trance. Spirit hands rattled tambourines, tilted the table, and wrote messages on sealed slates. Cloaked by darkness, Edwin would sometimes lean over and let his lips graze my neck or cheek, nip my ear, or blow on my face, and beneath the table his thigh always pressed against mine, and I could not evade these attentions without breaking the circle. I tried not to let it trouble me too much. We were having so much fun; I was never bored with Edwin, and I didn’t want to spoil it.

  Worst of all were the days I spent alone. I’d get so bored I could scream. Bobo would be napping, I couldn’t abide Mrs. Briggs, my friendly overtures only made the servants colder, no book or fancywork could hold my attention, and I would just sit there feeling sorry for myself. So I’d dress myself up in a fine frock and feathered hat, intending just to go for a walk, and find myself drawn like iron filings to a magnet straight to Woollright’s Department Store.

  It was the grandest store in Liverpool, a great big glossy new department store crammed with every conceivable luxury. I’d buy ready-made dresses, or fine fabrics I’d send straight to Mrs. Osborne, my dressmaker, furs, shoes, handbags, hats, fans, gloves, and jewelry, corsets and other undergarments, silk stockings, robes and nightgowns, parasols, perfumes, scented soaps, pretty little knickknacks like china pug dogs and soapstone Chinese dragons, vases, books, candy, pastries, sheet music, furniture, curtains, carpets, lamps, picture frames, fine china, crystal, newfangled gadgets for the kitchen to bewilder the cook, and clothes and toys for Bobo, even when he was far too young for them. I would find myself buying him marbles when I knew perfectly well that a baby that age would surely swallow them, and hoops to run after when he was barely walking, hobbyhorses he couldn’t yet straddle, and plaid knickerbocker, Zouave, and velvet suits à la Little Lord Fauntleroy, and wide-brimmed straw hats with grosgrain streamers to set off the long curls I planned to cultivate like prize-winning roses on his dear little head when he was still in the cradle. And, if that doesn’t beat all, one day I even bought a fully equipped dollhouse and not one but three gilt-edged porcelain tea sets painted with cabbage roses—the toy department had it with the roses done in pink, blue, or yellow and I just couldn’t decide which—for a daughter I didn’t even have and, as far as I knew then, might never have. I bought silk and velvet neckties and dressing gowns for Jim and Edwin, and even Michael in my never-ending quest to make him like me. Once I even bought him an elephant foot umbrella stand and a stuffed aardvark (I was trying to make him smile).

  I’d end up spending the best part of the day shopping, so I’d have to rush to get home in time to welcome Jim. When I unpacked all my parcels my bedroom was awash with so much tissue paper and boxes you could hardly see the carpet.

  Deep in my heart, it worried me. Shopping was becoming like a drug I reached for at the least little twinge of boredom or loneliness. I was as dependent on it as Jim was on his arsenic. It filled and gave me something to show for all the empty hours. The smiling faces of the salesclerks were such a welcome change from all the disapproving frowns of the people who filled my life now. I often sat, chin in hands, on the side of my bed, staring down at my purchases spread out on the floor before me. Sometimes I’d feel so disgusted with myself I’d vow that tomorrow I would take them all back and never do this again. I had my books, and my embroidery, to occupy me, and I might even take up china painting again, or maybe I could find some sort of ladies charitable society that would truly welcome my help. But somehow, no matter how good my intentions were, my resolve always crumpled and I managed to talk myself out of it. I always found a reason to keep everything I bought; I never returned a single thing.

  Every month the bills got higher and I’d find myself a nervous wreck, prostrate with worry, sick headaches, and a sour stomach, worrying what Jim would say, but he never said a word about any of it except to comment on how pretty I looked in my new finery or how thoughtful a gift I’d chosen. He even said the elephant foot umbrella stand I’d given Michael was “charmingly exotic as well as utilitarian” and the stuffed aardvark was “the perfect conversation piece every parlor requires” and that he was the luckiest man in the world, to have such a beautiful wife who always chose such nice things for him, his family, and friends.

  I loved him so, and every day I kept vowing I would do better, that I would make myself into a wife worthy of him. I kept promising “tomorrow” and every day when that tomorrow actually came I said “tomorrow” again and went on just the same, wallowing in bed until half past noon and spending money like it was water and gallivanting around to dime museums, freak and magic shows, and melodramas with the irresponsible, irresistibly charming Edwin. My metamorphosis into that perfect wife was as much a failure as one of my brother-in-law’s magic tricks.

  6

  Bobo was just taking his first steps when I found myself pregnant again. One moment I was standing there with my arms outstretched, my son toddling toward me in a rose satin gown t
rimmed with blue rosettes. The next I was flat on my back, staring dizzily up at the spinning ceiling, trying to see it through a starry haze.

  Jim was adamant. I’d dallied too long and we simply must engage a nanny. Now that I was expecting again I couldn’t possibly take care of myself and Bobo too.

  The sickness that had dogged me in the early days of my first pregnancy, usually passing by mid-afternoon, this time was unrelenting. I couldn’t keep a thing down and began to lose flesh. Dr. Hopper ordered me to bed, and I rarely left it, rising only sometimes, for a few hours, in the late afternoon or evening.

  Once again, Mrs. Briggs reigned supreme at Battlecrease House. Jim entrusted her with finding us the perfect nanny. Mrs. Briggs was to handle the whole thing; I wasn’t even permitted to sit in when she was interviewing the applicants. She was to have first and final say about the woman who would take care of my children! No matter how much I wept and raged about it, Jim stubbornly refused to see it my way. “Children need discipline, Florie, not sugarplums ten times a day,” he said.

  The nanny Mrs. Briggs chose for us was Alice Yapp, an innkeeper’s horsey-faced spinster daughter from the aptly named Nag’s Head. She still figures in my nightmares, staring at me with big fishy eyes swimming behind the thick lenses of her steel-rimmed spectacles, hair the color of horse chestnuts scraped back in a severe bun to fully reveal a face as friendly as a hatchet. I wouldn’t have been surprised to awaken in the night and find her standing over my bed with an ax. We hated each other at first sight. I begged Jim to dismiss her, to find someone sweet to look after our children, but he and Mrs. Briggs were in complete accord that “children need structure and discipline, and that’s what nannies are for.” The moment Nanny Yapp took Bobo in her arms, I started to lose him. She contradicted me at every turn, pouring her always politely worded grievances into Mrs. Briggs’s all too willing ear and worming her way into the good graces of the whole household staff; she was after all one of them and I was the outsider. We were like chess players trying to outmaneuver each other, and the children—my children—were the poor little pawns.