The House at Baker Street (10 page)

‘Can you?’ she asked softly, without even a trace of hope.

‘We can try,’ Mary said fiercely. ‘Has anyone else tried?’

‘I don’t think anyone else really believes he exists,’ she said, her voice so low I could barely hear her. In the street below people shouted and laughed and cursed and wheels
rattled over cobbles and dogs barked but in this room, we were so still and quiet, the dust in the air barely stirred.

‘He brought me to this,’ the Lady said. ‘From the happy, beloved woman who loved sunshine and laughter – to this.’

I saw her turn her head to look round the dingy dark room.

‘If this is too difficult for you . . .’ Mary said softly. The woman laughed then – not joyously, but one single bitter bark of laughter.

‘Difficult?’ the Whitechapel Lady cried. ‘It is well-nigh impossible. But I will have someone know my story. I’ve kept silent so very long, I’ve been so afraid. And
the truth is, there’s been no one to tell. I’m still afraid, but I must say what has happened to me. It could save someone else. And you have such kind faces. I had forgotten what
kindness looked like.’ She took a deep breath and looked towards the window. There was so little light coming through the cracks, but perhaps through one she saw the tiniest patch of blue
sky, and remembered sunshine on her face.

‘The man who destroyed me was called Jack Ripon.’

‘Ripon?’ Mary asked quickly. The Whitechapel Lady nodded.

‘I know. A name like that has such resonance in these streets, does it not?’ she acknowledged. ‘But this was long before Jack the Ripper. I do not believe it was his real name.
I’m not sure he has one. He told his lie so well, how can he remember the truth?’

‘What did he look like?’ Mary asked.

‘Just . . . ordinary,’ the Lady replied. ‘It was a long time ago, and what I remember – hair colour, accent, the way he dressed – would have changed since then. He
was just one of my husband’s friends – or at least, I thought he was. Just someone who went to the same parties we did. He was not someone I really noticed. I barely remembered his
name. I think perhaps along with a name he put on a face he could change at will. Even after what he did, I believe I could walk past him and not know him. Think of that. The most evil man in
London, and no one can really see him.’ She stopped talking and clasped her hands together for a moment.

‘He came to me soon after I married Richard,’ the Lady continued. ‘I loved Richard, do you understand? I loved him with all my heart, all my soul. But this man . . . this thing
. . . this foul toad had letters of mine. Letters from before I was married, before I even met Richard.’

‘Letters to another man?’ Mary asked.

‘To my first love,’ she agreed. ‘Such a silly, foolish little love affair it was, too. He wrote such pretty letters though, and I was never allowed to spend enough time alone
with him to discover what a shallow man he was, that all his love was a game of words, and there was nothing in his heart. So I wrote pretty little letters back. But then I met Richard, and I fell
truly in love. There were no more letters then.’

‘The letters you wrote to the first man – were they indiscreet?’ Mary asked. Usually she always did the asking; I always watched. My eyes had grown used to the dim light, and I
watched now as the Whitechapel Lady’s hands tightened.

‘No!’ she cried. ‘That was the point. I had written silly little love letters to a man I should not have written to, but the letters themselves were innocent. Richard had known
about him, known I had written to him, he didn’t care!’

Her hands twisted and writhed in her lap – I don’t think it was because she lied, but in memory of pain.

‘Then how could this Ripon blackmail you?’ Mary asked.

‘I’m not sure it was blackmail,’ the Lady said softly. ‘Blackmail is an attempt to gain money or power or something else tangible, usable. I don’t think he wanted
anything. I think he just likes to destroy. He sees something precious and shining and bright and he smashes it. That is what he did to my life.’

I wanted to reach out to her. I wanted to touch her, and reassure her – but I could not. I did not have the nerve. I was not the kind of person who comforted a stranger. But Mary
impulsively knelt before her and touched her knee. I saw the Whitechapel Lady freeze, as if she had not been touched in a long time, and she had forgotten how to react. Then one thin, deathly white
hand stole over Mary’s where it rested on her knee. She touched her, just for a moment, and then withdrew, so shyly, so softly. Mary moved away again.

‘He forged letters,’ the Lady continued, her voice cracking ever so slightly. ‘Oh, they were very well done. He had letters in my style, in my handwriting, on my paper –
but I had not written them. They spoke of acts that had taken place between me and that boy, my so-called first love. Foul, disgusting acts, worse than you can find on any Whitechapel
street.’

‘He threatened to show these letters to your fiancé?’ Mary asked.

‘No, my husband!’ she cried, and she stirred in her chair, as if for a moment she would spring up, come back to life. ‘He did not reveal the existence of these letters until
after I was married. What was the point then?’

‘Destruction,’I murmured. ‘Destruction of your happiness.’

‘Precisely,’ she agreed, becoming still once again.

‘But surely,’ Mary asked, ‘your husband, knowing you as he did, would not have believed in these forged letters?’

‘Why not?’ she said bitterly. ‘The fakes were very good; even I was convinced for a moment. They were interweaved with letters I had really written and admitted to. Besides . .
.’

In the filthy grey light, I could just see her hang her head in a gesture of shame. Poor thing, as if she had anything to be ashamed of now.

‘My husband and I had . . .’ She paused, and then gathered herself again. ‘We had anticipated our marriage vows. We had lain together as man and wife before the vows were
spoken. I know it was wrong, but . . .’

‘Not wrong at all,’ Mary said firmly. ‘You were in love, and knew you belonged together even without the formality of a few words spoken over you. I freely admit, I did the
same.’

Mary glanced round at me, as if anticipating my censure – but how could I condemn them? How could I even be shocked? John and she had loved each other from the moment they met, and there
had never been any doubt, once she had agreed to marry him, that they belonged to each other, body and soul. The vows were almost an afterthought, just a formality to recognize their partnership.
And I remembered my Hector. So tall, so handsome, and I so young and in love. Six weeks had been an eternity to wait for our wedding night – it had been Hector who had been firm, not I. And
even then, we had not waited until night fell . . . oh, I understood passion far more than I understood the black and white rules of the society I lived in. The same rules this man was using to
destroy women’s lives.

‘You understand,’ the Whitechapel Lady said, looking at the glances Mary and I were exchanging. ‘Then perhaps you can understand how my husband might, perhaps, think I had also
committed that sin with my first love? I had not, I had not felt the same desire, but for him, it was so easy to believe. I think perhaps my husband never really understood why I loved him so much,
he never understood he was air and water to me. And those letters, those vile letters, made it sound as if that man and I had done things so sordid, so filthy, a foul pairing blessed only by
hell.’

‘It’s all very clever,’ Mary mused, her eyes dark and troubled. ‘If you wrote the innocent letters, why not the other ones? If you lay with your fiancé before
marriage, why would you not have lain with others? He is creating lies based on truth – a very small amount of truth and a huge mass of lies, but it is enough to rouse suspicion.’

‘Suspicion is what he thrives on,’ the Whitechapel Lady said bitterly. ‘It is meat and bread to him. You must understand, when he brought me the letters, and I saw I had no
escape, I asked him what the price was. He refused to tell me. He just kept saying “we’ll see”. And in the meantime, at every soirée, every garden party, every visit to the
opera, he would appear, whispering filth in my ear. Things he said he had done, what he said I would do, what he thought I could do. But worse than that, I would see Ripon whisper to my husband. It
would drive me mad, seeing him whisper to my Richard, and never knowing what he said to him. I asked my husband what the man had told him, I cajoled him, I screamed at him, I begged him but he
always said they talked of nothing. I could not believe him, and when I accused him of lying, we would argue. He was confused and I was afraid and we took out our frustrations on each other. Our
marriage became a mass of bitter recrimination.’

The Whitechapel Lady moved slightly, and the light fell across her face. I could not see it. She wore a thick veil that blocked out everything underneath it. Her voice steady, cold even, she
continued her story.

‘That man never told me his price. Instead, at the height of our quarrels, he sent the letters to my husband. He had done well. He had prepared the ground. He had split us apart and
destroyed all trust and confidence between us before my husband had even seen the letters. But once he saw them, my husband, my darling sweet husband who worshipped the ground I walked on, and
wanted to believe I had touched no other man but him, shot himself. I found him in the study, the letters scattered before him, the gun still in his hand, all life gone.’

She stopped. She could not go on.

‘I think we can guess the rest,’ Mary said gently. ‘You burnt the letters? And the verdict of the inquest was death by misadventure? The gun went off accidentally whilst he was
cleaning it, was that the story?’

‘That is it exactly,’ the Lady said darkly. ‘How well you understand the way we cover up our scandals.’

‘John has attended some of these cases,’ Mary said to me. ‘It’s amazing how many guns go off whilst being cleaned. The papers are full of these cases. Perfectly sane,
intelligent men who suddenly decide, against all experience and knowledge, to clean a loaded gun.’

‘Suicides?’ I asked, thinking of all the inquest accounts I had read that had given just that story.

‘Probably.’

‘That was not the end,’ the Lady continued. ‘He was there, at the funeral. He stood beside me, in the pouring rain, as they lowered my husband’s body into the ground. It
must have looked as though he was supporting me in my grief. But instead, he kept whispering in my ear: “Why don’t you just die too?”’

Billy, sat in the corner, swore quietly under his breath.

‘He would just turn up,’ the Lady continued. ‘Everywhere I went. Whispering in my ear. I should have told someone what Ripon was doing to me, but who would believe me? Somehow,
the sordid tales of my behaviour had become whispered about amongst my friends. I was blamed for my husband’s death. One by one, my friends left me, and I was alone – except for him. At
every corner, on every road, in every shop or street, there he was, whispering in my ear.
Die, die, no one wants you to live. Die, die, what use are you. Die, die, you deserve to.
Until
finally, I decided to do it. I just wanted peace. I wanted to sleep – no, I wanted to die.’

The room had become utterly still now. You could not even hear us breathe. The only sound was the Whitechapel Lady’s slow, measured words of despair.

‘I took laudanum,’ she told us. ‘But I misjudged it. I was not an expert! I had taken enough to send me into a stupor – but not enough to kill me. Instead, unbeknownst to
my conscious self, I rose from what was meant to be my deathbed and wandered the house in an unwitting daze. I went into the study where my husband died. A fire was lit there. I tripped – I
think I tripped – and fell into the fire. In my inert state I could not pull away. I burnt for several moments before I was found.’

That was when the Whitechapel Lady leaned forward into the light, so we could see her. She raised her veil, and we saw her face clearly for the first time, the face she went to such lengths to
keep hidden. Billy cried out. Mary caught her breath. I put my hand quickly up to my mouth, suddenly nauseous.

The Lady’s entire face was covered in shining red scars, suppurating pustules, badly healed sores. I could even smell the rotting flesh underneath. No wonder that room smelled of lye, she
must spend her life trying to wash away the stink of her own flesh. Her eyes, lidless, stared out at me, unable to look away. Her lips had half burnt away to reveal the blackened teeth underneath.
It was a face out of a nightmare, a fiend from hell to be fled from.

‘I have not seen that man again,’ she said, and now the strange accent was explained. She could not form her words properly with that destroyed mouth. ‘I paid his
price.’

We stumbled out. We had made our polite excuses and left and almost ran down those wooden steps to the square and struggled for breath. Even Whitechapel air smelled sweet at
that moment. I glanced around me in despair; I wanted nothing so much as to leave, run away from that face, this place, her words. I needed to escape. It was an awful thing to do. She had expected
kindness and met instead with revulsion. It was what she was used to, but that did not lessen my guilt.