Jack the Ripper Victims Series: The Double Event (28 page)

Conway didn’t stand in the way of the marriage of Annie and Mr. Phillips.

“She is a treasure, but I won’t miss having to support her,” he said. “Now that I have my Katie back, we’ll do just fine.” He referred to her singing.

Sensitive to the financial state of the bride’s parents, Mr. Phillips suggested a small affair. Conspicuously, Conway made no effort to pay for anything, and clearly to save embarrassment on all sides, Mr. Phillips took care of the bills.

The wedding took place in a small brick church in Holborn. A happy day it was for Annie and Katie, despite the news that Charlotte Neet, who had been invited to the wedding, died in her sleep two nights before.

Mr. Phillip’s father and two sisters were in attendance at the church, as well as Katie, Conway, Thomas, and Katie’s sisters. She had located her sisters in Bermondsey by finding Emma’s husband, Mr. Matthews, at the pub where he organized his lumpers. She’d had a tearful reunion with her sisters that included an apology to Emma for the way she’d spoken to her in the fish market years earlier. 

After the wedding, Mr Phillips gave Katie the gift of a fine white cotton pocket handkerchief with red and white birds-eye border. Then he
took Conway aside and said, “I’ll take good care of Anne, but I want you to know, I’m not an easy mark for mumpers.”

Conway looked under his beetling brow at his son-in-law and balled his fists. But after a moment he relaxed, swallowed his pride, and smiled, pretending he hadn’t been referred to as a beggar.

Annie is my second chance and she’s leaving. But am I not going with her?
Like a master ship builder, Katie had poured heart and soul into the creation of a beautiful vessel, only to see her launched under the command of an unknown captain piloting her into foreign, perhaps dangerous, waters.
The better part of me
is
going with her, while my thoughts remain behind in an empty shell
. 

Katie had worn her new silk and velvet bodice, skirt and bonnet to the wedding, but in the weeks that followed she didn’t have an opportunity grand enough to warrant wearing them again. Feeling hollow without Annie in her life every day, she needed a new goal to make her want to rise each morning.  Katie put the new clothes on for inspiration and the answer came to her in an instant.

~~~

The next morning, Katie sat on the bed in their room, darning socks while Conway sat at the table reading. “Now that Annie is gone,” she said, “and Thomas will start his apprenticeship with your printer, there’s no reason why I should not add to our earnings as a singer.”

Conway had no response.

“The first thing would be for me to join the sing-alongs at the Adam and Eve,” she said.

“There’s too much drinking that goes on there,” Conway said flatly, without looking up from his reading. “The temptation is too great—you’ll take it up.”

Clearly he intended that to mean
no
and for that to be the end of it, but Katie wasn’t finished. “You could go with me.”

Conway shook his head vigorously.

“I’d do it after supper and you could watch me.” A pleading in her voice said she’d already lost the argument.

“I have no cause to want to do that,” Conway said.

“You’ve never known me to take a drink, and have no reason to fear it now. Think of the money. If I can impress the landlord at the Adam and Eve and he hires me to sing in The Garden of Eden—”

“Garden of Eden, ha!” Conway said with contempt. “That back room has grown to swallow most of the tavern proper. It is a den for drunkenness and debauchery. I can’t eat my supper there without some lushington stumbling past my table with his dollymop. You start singing there, it’d soon be you hanging on his arm.”

“You have no cause to talk to me like that.” The outrage was worth a try. “You compare me to a
prostitute
?”

“Katie, dear, it’s part of the job in those back rooms.”

“That’s
not
true.” Letting the outrage go, she tried calm and reasonable. “There are perfectly respectable women who have performed there and gone on to find great fame. The impresarios of the great music halls—”

“How do you think they get hired?” Conway returned to his matter-of-fact-tone. “You’ve heard what passes for singing in the music halls.”

“I only know what I hear—”

“—And you’ve heard music hall singing. I sold my publican gin for tickets two years ago and took you to Charring Cross Theatre.”

“Yes, I remember. The singing was not good, but that only encourages me. I am so much better.”

“
No
. We’ll not talk about it again.”

“We
will
talk about it.” Katie said, her voice becoming shrill. “You have no reason not to trust me.”

“Don’t I?” Conway finally looked up. His aging face was heavily lined and bore stern features. “You took a bottle of gin from me long ago, and then, one day years later, returned it. I don’t think you drank any of it, but you must have wanted it. One day you may want it again. You also kept money from me.”

Katie’s heart was racing. Her gaze narrowed as she looked to her memories. “How?”

“You think I’m such a glock I wouldn’t notice a loose board?”

Katie’s scalp prickled, her jaw became tight, the grip she had on the sock and darning needle was painful. “Why wouldn’t you say anything?”

“Why should I?” He said it too calmly. “If you’d done worse, I’d have put you out, but you didn’t.”

Her jaw popped under the pressure, sending a pain along her teeth. The dull gray sock she was holding turned red—she had punctured her left thumb with the fat, dull darning needle. “You are a cold man, Mr. Conway,” she said, wide-eyed and raging. “You have played me for a fool. I wish I’d never met you!”

“By tomorrow you’ll have changed your mind. From the day we met, you’ve always known which side your bread is buttered on.”

Her efforts as a young woman to seduce him to gain a new life undermined her righteous indignation. Her mother’s words came back to her from long ago: “Life is hard on pretty girls. Pretty girls want things and have ways of getting them. Be careful what you do, Katie, to get what you want.”

She turned her eyes away from Conway and he turned his back on her. She held her bleeding thumb as he moved to the door. No quicksilver welled up, nothing
good and pure
, only the ghastly red.

“I have business,” he said without looking back. “I’ll be back just before supper. We’ll eat at the Adam and Eve, but there will be no singing.”

“I
will
sing for the landlord of the Adam and Eve, and he’ll hire me for his back room!”

“I give you a choice, then, between me and the singing,” Conway said, still facing the door. “If you choose to sing in those places, don’t come back here. I won’t have you.” He walked out and shut the door behind him.

Katie collapsed on the bed, her tears and blood dampening the bedclothes.

I have little that isn’t truly Conway’s. He even keeps my secrets.

Since shortly after she’d come to live with Conway, Katie had confined her possessions to the two shelves he had given her in the set of five against the East wall of their room.  Presently she had little more than when she arrived. The travel bag that had belonged to her mother had rotted away long ago, but it was an easy matter for her to gather up everything she owned and fold it into a blanket to carry with her.

Katie would take all she’d given to their marriage. She found Conway’s old waistcoat, the one she’d repaired on the day they met, and added it to her possessions in the blanket. The garment fit Katie better than it did Conway. Having repaired it with so many stitches over the years, it belonged to her now. With that as a new standard, she turned to a pair of Conway’s boots she’d repaired with red thread. They were a little big for her, but those were added to her possessions out of spite.

She would go to Annie and Mr. Phillips, but didn’t want to embarrass her daughter by taking her troubles with Conway to her doorstep. No, she would go to Emma.

Katie put on her fine silk and velvet bodice, skirt and bonnet. She looked around the room. Would she miss it?  She remembered thinking how fortunate she was when Charlotte praised her home, but that was when she’d believed Conway cared about her happiness.

I’ll miss it only if Emma won’t take me in and I have to live on the street.

Katie left the room and walked southwest, coughing in the thick hazy air. She’d hardly made it to the nearest street crossing when Conway, coming from the right, saw her.

“Where are you going, dressed to the nines?” he asked.

Katie kept walking.

Approaching swiftly, he followed her across the street, got ahead and stopped, facing her. Katie pushed past, to continuing without a word. Conway reached for her, but she shrugged him off. He grabbed her upper arm and spun her around, ripping the shoulder of her bodice and popping loose the top two abalone buttons. They fell to the pavement. Conway’s right foot trod on one. The other was kicked away into the street by her own clumsy efforts to maintain her footing.  As she faced him, he stepped back a little, revealing the button under his foot. The bright piece of shell was broken in two.

“I asked where you’re going.”

Katie looked him in the eye. “I’m going for a visit with Emma.”

“And why are you carrying a stuffed blanket?”

“My things,” she said without emotion. “You gave me a choice. If I stay with her and decide to sing, I won’t be back.”

“You have obligations to me.”

“You
gave
me a choice.”

Conway stared at her for a moment. Her gaze remained level and calm. A troubled look gripped his features and he aged in that moment, before her eyes. He was ten years her senior. She could well imagine he hadn’t expected to be alone and didn’t want it. For a moment his expression said he regretted the way he’d treated her, but clearly his pride would never allow him to admit it. Nor would it allow him to keep her from leaving after giving her the choice.

“Don’t stay long,” he said.

Katie stepped around him and walked away.

“We have work to do,” he called after her. “You have responsibilities.”

She didn’t look back.

Katie had easily impressed the landlord of The Black Anchor, Fredrick Poulton, with her singing. He hired her to sing in his back room for a wage based on how much drink was sold during the hours of her performance. His math was intentionally convoluted. Katie would be cheated, but she had her chance and that was what mattered.

Mr. Poulton gave her songs to learn that celebrated drinking as a salvation for the working man, that ridiculed marriage and condemned labor as slavery. The songs were poorly written and the music lacked character.

The Black Anchor’s back room was named The Four Winds, and it did look like a good spot for farts to convene. The area was twenty by forty feet, its walls painted with a thin coat of bright red paint. Twenty rough, round tables and too many rickety chairs were supported by a sagging floor. When singing, she occupied a clearing in one corner.

In the two months she’d been at it, she’d received much praise for her performances. She’d also been ogled, laughed at, pawed, and even spat upon. Katie put all she had into her voice and endured the abuse. One night someone from one of the great music halls would come in and hear her and be inspired to hire her for the stage.

Her fine silk and velvet clothes looked older by the day and were a fair reflection of the way Katie felt. She had repaired the ripped shoulder of the bodice. Emma had given her five brass buttons to replace the five abalone ones. Katie saved the three abalone buttons that remained until such time she might replace the two that were lost and put them all back on the bodice. The garment didn’t look as good with brass, but it would do for now.

The Black Anchor was within a mile of Emma’s home and easy to get to in the early evening, but somewhat frightening to walk home from when she was finished late at night. She was in the habit of walking most of the way with one of the barmaids, Rebecca Fitwerks, who lived near Emma. The two women had in common the fact that they had both left their husbands. They enjoyed having a smoke together and sharing their experiences on their walks home.

“It’s good to be away from Richard,” Rebecca said one night about her husband, “but I don’t truly have a home now. Barbara has a new beau. She’s asked me to find other lodgings.”

“Barbara Olesen,” Katie asked, “the barmaid?”

“Yes.”

“I too have no real place to call my own,” Katie said. “I fear at any time I might be asked to leave my sister’s home. Emma received me with open arms, but Mr. Matthews told me if Conway came for me, he’d have to turn me out, said he wouldn’t go against another man’s will when it came to his wife. I give Mr. Matthews most of my earnings and do what I can to help. We get along well, but he complains about the crowding, and I know he’s looking for a reason to put me out. Perhaps he thinks if he does I’ll return to Conway. I would go to my daughter before I would return to him.”

Katie had sent Annie a letter, telling her she was staying with Emma, and was troubled she didn’t hear back from her.

“It is the way with men,” Rebecca said. “A good man will stand with a cruel one when it comes to his wife. The neighbors could see my bruises, but none would help me. Men want us in the worst way, but they don’t trust us. I will not return to Richard. I won’t live that way again.”

Rebecca stopped walking and turned to Katie with bright eyes. “We could get a room together,” she said.

Katie smiled hesitantly. Others at The Black Anchor had said Rebecca periodically turned to prostitution to get by. The idea of Rebecca bringing strange men into her home was unsettling. Katie shrugged as they continued walking. “I know Mr. Matthews isn’t happy with me being there,” she said, “but I pay so very little. A bit more and he’d be happy enough.”

“You said it’s crowded.”

“Yes, there’s also my other sister, Margaret and Mr. Matthews’s youngest brother and his wife and two young boys. Margaret is quiet, too quiet. Something inside her was broken in the workhouse long ago. The little boys are a terror. Emma is glad to have me, but perhaps only because she gets so cold in the night. Mr. Matthews sleeps in another room because of his loud snoring and I sleep with Emma. She cuddles up close. I don’t mind. It’s nice and warm.”

Rebecca didn’t seem disappointed. “Let me know if things change,” she said.

~~~

Mr. Matthew’s grumbling increased. When Monday came, a day when Katie didn’t sing at The Black Anchor, she took the time to go see Annie and ask for money. 

Surely Mr. Phillips would not begrudge her a little help if she did it only once. Conway was the one he considered a beggar, not Katie. 

She spent much of the morning walking the three and a half miles to her daughter’s home, a modest little house in Holborn. The dwelling belonged to Mr. Phillip’s family and was of the old type of architecture almost gone from London, with its heavy wooden beams and projecting upper story. She stepped up and knocked on the door and waited, but no one came to answer.  and waited again. Eventually she heard movement inside and the door opened.

“Mum!” Annie said. “Come in.” She was hastily dressed and slightly bent.

“I’m sorry for the surprise. Did I wake you?”

“No, I’ve been ill, but I’m getting better.”

“What is it? Why didn’t you call on me to help?”

“Some say it’s the water again,” she said, embracing her abdomen. “Many people hereabouts have it. I didn’t want to bother you. It’s almost over now.”

Katie cupped Annie’s cheeks in her hands. “My sweet girl,” she said.

Annie’s lips tightened into a forced smile. “Why have you come?” she asked.

Annie was obviously uncomfortable being treated like a child. Katie released her and stepped back.
She is my better now.
She swallowed hard and lowered her gaze. “You received my letter?”

“Yes.”

Why then hasn’t she written to me?

Because she’s been ill.

“Then you know I have left your father and am staying with your Aunt Emma and her family. I am singing at a tavern, The Black Anchor, in their back room, The Four Winds.”

“That’s wonderful. You have such a beautiful voice.”

“Yes, but Mr. Matthews will not continue to have me if I cannot add more to the family budget.”

“And so you will return to Papa?”

Will she make me beg?

“No. I’d hoped you might help.”

Annie became silent for a moment. Then, as if it had suddenly dawned on her what her mother was asking for, she had a look of concern. “I would if I could, but you know Mr. Phillips will not wish to help. At present, I have two shillings I can give you, but he will know about it and won’t be pleased.”

I came all this way for something that will make no difference.

Clearly Annie saw the disappointment on her face.

How embarrassing.

Annie turned to a small cabinet by the door and opened a drawer and took out two coins. “If it will help, please take it.” She offered them to Katie.

“I earn that much in a day,” The pride in her voice was too much.

“It’s all I have.” Annie’s eyes held a look of hurt.

What has left her feeling wounded? I’m the one who has need!

“I’m sorry I troubled you while you’re ill.” Chagrin that she couldn’t keep the indignation out of her voice turned to more anger. “I’ll come back for a visit when I am richer, when I have work in a music hall.” She turned away to start the long walk home.

“Mum, I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I would give more if I had it.”

She continued to plead for her mother to be reasonable, to come back and start their visit anew. Annie’s voice receded into the distance as Katie walked swiftly toward the river and the Waterloo Bridge that would take her home. She was fortunate that the bridge had in recent years been nationalized and there was no longer a toll charged for foot traffic.

How can it be that Parliament is looking out for me more than my own flesh and blood?
That was ridiculous—her anger had got the better of her again.

The last thing she heard from Annie was, “You can always go home to Papa.”

To rest up a bit before beginning the return trip would have been good. She was not used to so much exercise. Coughing fits dogged her all the way home.

Since Katie had endured Conway’s close scrutiny when it came to finances, she well understood her daughter’s situation with Mr. Phillips. That evening she sent a letter of apology to Annie.