Jack the Ripper Victims Series: The Double Event (13 page)

Before Mr. Winders left for work, he turned to her again. She thought he would give some parting words, but instead, his right fist shot forward and struck her in the lower jaw. His angry face rose above her as she fell back. Elizabeth balled up on the floor to defend against further harm, covering her head with her arms. She heard the door open and close. After waiting another moment in silence, she looked up to see that Mr. Winders had gone.

Rubbing her sore lower jaw, she discovered a loose tooth on the left side.

Elizabeth packed her belongings. What she couldn’t carry with her, she left behind and would never see again.

As she walked to Mr. Pimberton’s house, looking forward to her March 7 wedding date with Mr. Stride helped distract her from the pain in her jaw. She was headed for something better, something
much
better.

Elizabeth and Jon were wed in a small ceremony at St. Giles in the Fields Church, with two witnesses provided by the presiding reverend. Afterward, she lived with Jon for a short time at a tenement in Hampstead Road. They set out with a vigor to conceive children. He didn’t have the experience in bed that Mr. Winders had, yet with Elizabeth’s help, Jon slowly developed into a serviceable lover.

She had hardly settled into her new home when word came that a room had become free in the tenement just north of Mr. Stride’s shop. He’d appealed to the landlords of the tenements on either side of his property for a room almost a year earlier. His planning and patience had paid off at the right time.

Over the course of a week in May of 1869, Elizabeth and Jon removed to the new second floor lodging in the tenement beside the shop. The drafty single room wasn’t much. Through the flimsy walls, she heard the next-door neighbors' conversations. At times, though the words were spoken at conversational levels, she understood them quite clearly. A single window looked out onto laundry lines that crisscrossed the space at the rear of the block of buildings above a courtyard that held a dozen or more lavatory sheds. The building formed a “U” shape around the courtyard, with a gap that led to the street. The small coal grate fireplace in one wall of the room didn’t draw well. When the wind blew hard outdoors, entering the courtyard through the gap and rattling the windows, Elizabeth and Jon had a choice of enduring the smoke that accumulated in the room or opening the window and suffering a reek lifted from the privy sheds below.

Elizabeth found a public bath house within a quarter mile of the new room, a much easier walk than the nearly one half mile to the one nearest the old room. Jon went to the public baths once a week without having to be reminded, unlike Mr. Winders who would have gone several weeks if Elizabeth had not browbeaten him into bathing more regularly.

Jon left home most days to work as a carpenter in various locations. In his spare time, he worked on the shop and Elizabeth helped. At night, after supper, they continued their quest for children.

One evening, as Jon had difficulty reaching climax, Elizabeth inserted a finger into his rectum and quickly brought him to release. When he’d recovered from the thrill, he looked at her suspiciously.

“That was truly a wonderful feeling,” he said, “but how did you know…?” His voice trailed off as he seemed unable to form the question fully.

She knew her features betrayed her distress with the question. Liza took her time, then finally came forth with something for Elizabeth to say. “I’ve not told you this because I didn’t want you to think poorly of me or my family,” Elizabeth said. She thought her expression of distress worked well with what she would say. “My mother was a prostitute before she married my father. She taught me a few things.”

Jon swallowed, frowned, and sat up. He looked at her quietly for a moment, then said. “That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a mother would teach her daughter.”

Elizabeth shrugged and moved quickly to clean herself at the basin. Sensing his unease and knowing he wanted to ask more questions, she kept her face turned away. Eventually, the tension left the room.

~ ~ ~

She had not seen her twin in over a month. Lettie came to see Elizabeth at her new home in the tenement in Chrisp Street, and the work in progress on the shop.

“Jon and I have found suppliers for the pastries and coffee we want to serve,” Elizabeth said as Lettie looked around. “We bought the cutlery and dishes we’ll need for serving our—” She put her left hand to her jaw to soothe a sudden pain.

Lettie must have seen her grimace. “Is the tooth still troubling you?”

“Yes, I should have it out. I’m afraid I’ll lose more if I do.”

Elizabeth led Lettie into the room in the rear and showed her a new coffee grinder with a big hopper and a large coffee roasting cylinder that turned with a hand crank. The grinder was bolted to a table in a corner with a bowl of ground beans under it. The roaster, already blackened from use in the fire place, sat on the hearth.

“Jon had to make improvements to the flue to make room for the contraption. I’ve spent many hours grinding beans and perfecting my roast. The devices are top notch. I didn’t ask about the expense, but Jon weighs each purchase carefully. I believe he’s investing the bulk, if not all, of his savings.”

“You’ve found a good man, Long Liz, one willing to risk everything for you,” Lettie said.

She’s right,
Bess said,
you must risk everything for him as well.

Not if you want to keep him,
Liza said.

“Yes, he’s a good man,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not certain I deserve him. There are things…” She stopped and shook her head, still unwilling to talk about her deepest shame.

Lettie allowed silence, then said, “Something is bothering you; something besides that tooth that needs out. You’ll tell me one day, I know you will. Whatever it is, I won’t think the less of you for knowing it.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together tightly.

“Speaking of good men,” Lettie said, “I have a new beau, Mr. Joseph Snelling. He’s in the Royal Navy. Let’s hope he’s as good a man as the one you found.”

“I do hope so,” Elizabeth said. “I met Jon thanks to you, and I’ve never been so grateful.”

Lettie waved away Elizabeth’s words, patted her belly, and said, “I need a tightener. Let’s find a new tavern for our luncheons.”

~ ~ ~

“What shall we call our enterprise?” Jon asked, as the repairs to the building and preparations for the shop neared completion.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Elizabeth said. “I once worked for a gentleman named Olovsson. I was the maid of all work for his family in Gothenburg. Herr Olovsson liked my coffee. He told me that one day I should have my own shop. Later, he helped me when I was destitute, finding a position for me—the one I held just before coming to England.”

“Olovsson,” Jon said, as if trying out the name.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Olovsson’s Coffee Shop sounds good to me.”

Jon was silent for a moment, then said, “If he meant that much to you, then, yes, that would be a fine name.”

He prepared a framed wooden surface, carefully painted the name of their new shop on it in bright blue, then hung it on the front of the small building.

Elizabeth wrote to Fru Leena Jensson and told her about her new life. She included in her post an envelope containing a message for Herr Olovsson—one that told about the coffee shop and the name she’d given it. She requested that Fru Jensson pass the envelope on to the gentleman. She hoped he would be proud of her, and happy to have his name on the establishment.

The shop in Chrisp Street opened in June of 1869. The quality of Elizabeth’s coffee drink was higher than that of other coffee houses in the area. Before long Olovsson’s Coffee Shop had a regular clientele. For the next year, as problems cropped up, Elizabeth and Jon worked well together to solve and learn from the difficulties. They went through several pastry suppliers before finding one that provided goods of consistent quality. The caliber of coffee they got, even from the best supplier, varied some, but Elizabeth sorted the beans and blended them for the best results. She stayed well away from alcoholic drink, even when Jon partook and encouraged her to join him. They worked hard and their efforts paid off; the business grew and they enjoyed an increasing income. Jon gave up carpentry and devoted his days to helping run the coffee shop. Elizabeth had found the something better she’d been seeking. For the nonce, she was happy.

Elizabeth’s damaged tooth became so loose, she had to have it out. Jon helped her remove it by the string and door knob method.

The angry constable left his mark on you,
Liza said.
Every time you notice the gap between your teeth, you’ll think of him. If he knew, he’d be pleased.

Elizabeth would have liked to blame Bess for the loss—for having encouraged her to live with Mr. Winders—yet she’d only be blaming herself.

Elizabeth never heard back from Fru Jensson or Herr Olovsson. She wondered if they had received her correspondence.

In mid-1870, the price of coffee beans began to rise. Jon had heard from suppliers that a fungus, known as rust, had destroyed most of the coffee crop in Ceylon, from which the bulk of British trade in the beans came. Olovsson’s Coffee Shop tried to charge more per cup to compensate for the loss, but they began to lose customers, and were forced to drop the price back to what it had been.

By the autumn of 1870, Jon was taking carpentry jobs again. Some, far away from home, took him away for days on end. Elizabeth had difficulty handling all the labor in the shop on her own. Despite the hardships, she kept the place going while Jon was away.

Lettie and her new gentleman, Mr. Joseph Snelling, were wed. Elizabeth attended the ceremony. Jon was away, staying near a distant job site. After the couple married, Elizabeth saw less of Lettie for a time.

~ ~ ~

While Elizabeth and Jon cleaned up after closing the shop for the evening on a day in November, he became quiet for a time, then asked, “Do you have any reason to think you should have trouble getting pregnant?”

Elizabeth thought again about the stillbirth at Kurhuset and her venereal disease. She knew from discussions with staff while at facility that syphilis by itself would not render a woman infertile. But if she’d had other venereal diseases simultaneously, the possibility existed that she had indeed lost the ability to bear children. Certainly, she’d been exposed to a great many risks during that time period.

Accuse him
, Liza suggested, as Elizabeth stacked dishes and sorted utensils.

“I’ve heard that a man with a crook in his members will not sire easily,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Don’t blame me for
your
problems.”

Following her words, Jon’s silence unnerved her more than his stare. Finally he said, “I’ve never heard such a thing before. For all you know on the subject of getting jiggy, you must have spent your young life in study.” He shook his head and turned away, then grumbled, “Besides, it’s not that crooked.”

Elizabeth felt bad about making him doubt himself.

She had rarely spoken of her history for fear that unsavory aspects of her young life might get out. On several occasions, though, she’d revealed some bit of knowledge that most decent women should not possess. Jon had the good manners not to pry, but she could tell that the increasing number of revelations had left him mistrustful. He wasn’t a prude, and at times Elizabeth had wanted to take Bess’s advice and be honest with him about the past. The risk that Jon’s feelings for her might sour, stood in her way.

In her desire to end the discussion, she threw utensils into the water in the washtub. She banged dishes together.

“I’m sorry,” Jon said, gently putting his hands on her waist. “It doesn’t do any good to cast blame.”

Elizabeth was slow to put away her frustration, yet she turned to Jon and allowed him to embrace her.

~ ~ ~

In January of 1871, Jon’s father called him home to Sheerness to help repair a ship, the HMS Megaera, for the Royal Navy. He would be gone for several weeks.

“I don’t think I can hold the shop together for that long by myself,” Elizabeth said.

They lay together on the straw mattress of their bed after a long hard day. Jon had returned by midnight from his carpentry job. He still had saw dust in his hair, and the particles made the bed uncomfortable. Glad to have him home for the night, Elizabeth didn’t complain. Jon held her and slid his left leg between her legs all the way to her crotch. She savored his warm body on chilly wintry nights.

“I must go,” he said. “The pay is greater than what I earn in the city. We need it to keep the shop going. If the price for coffee gets much higher, we’ll be paying customers to drink it. Your coffee is what brings them in. We won’t do well just serving tea.”

Elizabeth began to protest again, but he put his mouth on hers. Within moments he had entered her, and she had nothing further to say.

~ ~ ~

One Sunday evening in February, while Elizabeth cleaned up and made preparations to open the coffee shop the next morning, Lettie came to visit. Jon had not yet returned from Sheerness. Elizabeth had roasted the coffee she’d need for the next week, and still had the grinding of beans to get done.

“I’m knapped,” Lettie said with a guilty expression.

“Congratulations!” Elizabeth said without reservation, although a slight pause in her grinding of the beans had perhaps revealed something of her envy. Elizabeth had told her twin about the arguments she’d had with Jon about getting pregnant.

“It couldn’t come at a worse time.” Lettie spoke as if a little bad news might prevent resentment. “Joseph is leaving on a voyage to Australia.”

“That’s wretched luck.” Thinking of her difficulties with Jon, Elizabeth wished briefly that she were so unlucky, and that gave her a humorous idea. “You could stand in for me for a while. We look so much alike, Jon will never know, and he’ll be so pleased to think his wife is expecting.”

“You are a funny woman, Long Liz.” Lettie chuckled, then became silent for a time, her thoughts far away and her expression shifting as though she were puzzling something out.

Her arm sore, Elizabeth stepped away from the grinder.

Lettie seemed to emerge from her reverie to take over at the crank handle. “Joseph is in Sheerness now,” she said. “I wonder if he will run into Jon. They’ve never met, so they won’t know each other even if they do.”

“When does he leave for Australia?”

“I don’t know. He’d already left, but his ship was damaged in a storm and put in for repairs.”

“His ship is under repair in Sheerness?”

“Yes, HMS Megaera, I think.”

“That’s the ship Jon’s working on.”

“Good—I feel much better about it.”

Elizabeth nodded and smiled. “Curious.”

~ ~ ~

When Jon returned from Sheerness in late February, he had a possible plan for their future. “We might sell the property and move the shop closer to the docks. I spoke to a gentleman named Pelham in Sheerness who owns a property closer to the London docks in High Street. That’s closer to all those laborers who need your coffee to help them wake up in the morning.” He had a big smile like a hawker trying to sell something that had gone bad.

“Pelham’s place needs work. It’s bigger than ours, worth more, but he might be willing to make a trade so he doesn’t have all the expense of repairs to his place. Sounds like we might operate the shop and live in the property if it works out. Father likes the plan, and will draw up the papers if we go through with it. I have a meeting with Pelham in a week.”

Elizabeth nodded her head enthusiastically, and he seemed surprised.

“Even if it works out, it’ll be a lot of work,” Jon warned. He seemed a bit deflated since he didn’t have to pitch so hard. His duffer’s smile had fled. The flash of enthusiasm in his eyes cooled slightly as perhaps doubts surfaced. Elizabeth could see that he was tired from his travels and all the hard work. For the first time, she saw how the years had worn against him.

“We already have a lot of hard work,” she said, “There’s no reason we can’t do it in another place.”

~ ~ ~

Jon and Mr. Pelham came to an agreement. Elizabeth continued to run the Chrisp Street coffee shop through the spring, while Jon made repairs to the store front portion of the new property. In the evenings they moved their belongings from the Chrisp Street tenement to the large loft above the rear room of the new property. Although the loft would be their new home, it would be repaired last since they needed to get the shop opened quickly.

“With the warm weather coming, the holes in the walls won’t be so bad,” Jon told Elizabeth as he showed her around her future home. “The holes in the floors are dangerous, but I’ve discovered the extent of the rot, and, you see,” he said, pointing, “I’ve marked the edges with white paint. The beams underneath are solid enough. The floorboards aren’t, so don’t walk there.”

As bad as the place looked, the hope in Jon’s eyes reassured Elizabeth.

By the beginning of summer, they were out of the old property and committed to the new. Business was slow at the coffee shop for the first few weeks. Following that, they did better than at the old location. Jon had repaired the floor in the loft, yet still needed to replace the temporary patches in the walls with more permanent materials.

The teeth on either side of the one Elizabeth had lost became loose and ached in her lower left jaw. By mid-July, she could stand the increasing pain no longer, and begged Jon to pull the teeth. They weren’t loose enough for the string and door knob method. He fetched his pliers and a bottle of whiskey for her pain. Elizabeth refused the drink.

~ ~ ~

In August while Jon was away, Lettie came to the shop on a Sunday to help with coffee preparations. “Joseph’s ship,” she said, “the Megaera, has been wrecked on St. Paul’s Island.”

Elizabeth took her friends hands into her own. “Where is that?” she asked.

“In the Pacific Ocean, southwest of Australia.” Lettie’s voice trembled and her eyes glistened with tears. “It’s a tiny piece of land at the ends of the Earth. The crew is stranded. They are too many for all to be rescued at once. They have supplies, but must survive until help comes.”

“We’ll hope for the best,” Elizabeth said, embracing her friend.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Lettie said. She pulled away, forced a smile, and wiped at her tears.

~ ~ ~

Jon came home early on a Thursday in September spitting mad. “I lost a job today because some-bloody-one told my client that I worked on the Megaera. The story of the wreck is in the Illustrated London News! I tried to tell him the hull had failed and I didn’t work on that part of the ship. He wouldn’t have it. Let’s hope he doesn’t spread the word.”

Whether Jon’s client did or not, word got out, and it had a detrimental effect on his reputation as a carpenter right when they needed the income the most. The price of coffee had continued to climb. Olovsson’s Coffee Shop tried again to raise what they charged for their products. The competition took business from them when they did. Again, they had to restore the old prices. Despite the increased numbers of patrons at the coffee shop, Elizabeth worked harder, selling more coffee, but earning less per cup. At least she had his help on the days when Jon had no other work.

~ ~ ~

The final repairs to the loft were made in October, 1871. Homey if nothing else, their one room dwelling above the shop had a corner hutch for clothing and linens, a chest for blankets and sundries, a large bed Jon had constructed of cherry wood, a table and chairs, a small desk, shelves, a curtained window, and a Persian rug. Elizabeth and Jon celebrated with a romp in bed. Afterward, they lay side by side, enjoying the warmth of a room with no drafts.

“Perhaps, if you saw a doctor,” Jon said, “we might find out something we could do to help you become pregnant.”

Elizabeth tried to laugh off the suggestion. “We already know how to make babies,” she said. “You were good tonight.”

“No, I mean there might be something wrong a doctor could fix.”

Elizabeth feared that a doctor’s examination might reveal something of her history, that the physician might see some evidence of her venereal disease and have a talk with Jon about it.

“I won’t suffer a crow to examine my most private self,” she said with a touch of outrage.

Jon’s face became tight with anger. “I don’t think you want very much to become a mother. Why do you think I work so hard if not to give what I build to my children?”

“I would hope you do it for us, as well!” she said, outrage in her voice. “I’m not merely breeding stock, am I?”

“Of course not, yet I made it clear to you that I wanted a family.”

“Have I not met your every effort toward that end?”

“Well, yes, but your behavior—your words…”

“Words do not make children.”

“No, but it’s as if you’re hiding something.”

“Because I don’t want to be looked upon as half a woman?” Elizabeth wanted him to believe she saw his questions as an insult to her womanhood, even though her anger was, in truth, at herself. She feared that as a consequence of her own actions as a young adult, she had thrown away the precious gift of motherhood. Looking again at the possibility, she had difficulty maintaining her self righteousness, and Jon seemed to see that.

“Do you believe you cannot have children?”

“I
don’t
know.”

He turned away, and went downstairs. When she heard sawing, she presumed that he continued his work on the damaged rear door frame.