A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper (3 page)

Bernice had a worse reaction. Her mouth became a thin, lipless line of worry and her face lost its color. Martha put her arm around her and gave a squeeze.

Before taking her turn, Polly allowed herself and Bernice time to recover. She watched the girl worry at the hem of her skirts and chew her lips. The silence stretched on and the darkness continued to deepen. Polly glanced at the sliver of moon overhead, watched leaves and a piece of paper blown up the alley on a breeze. A mournful horn sounded from the direction of the river.

As Sarah opened her mouth to protest the delay, Polly interrupted. “Whatever the cause,” she said slowly, “flaming breath or glowing eyes, the girls aren’t going to regain their wits because they are truly already dead. Mr. Macklin isn’t just taking their souls; he’s scaring the life right out of them. It happens so quick, their bodies don’t know yet and keep moving about, like a chicken with its head cut off, but much longer, years sometimes. The families of the poor girls don’t know as they sleep each night with the dead in their homes.”

Bernice’s grimace sagged. Her mouth pinched inward. She began to quake. Her eyes and mouth went wide and she screamed, got to her feet, and ran down the alley to the east.

The three remaining girls laughed and hugged each other.

“I’ve never seen her so scared,” Polly said.

“Did you see her lamps?” Martha asked. “And her mouth looked like she’d sucked on a lime.”

“I’d say she pissed herself,” Sarah blurted between guffaws.

Realizing that Sarah wanted that to be true, Polly felt sorry for Bernice.

“You’ve won again, Polly,” Martha said. She offered the gin. “This is for you. Happy birthday.”

“Happy birthday,” Sarah said.

The jar remained half-full. Polly quaffed the gin all at once, then coughed and choked, smiling at her friends through the pain.

As the laughter trailed away, Martha became serious. “I must go. The match boxes won’t make themselves. Da will remind me of that with a whipping if I’m
too
late.”

“I told Mum I should help her with mending,” Sarah said.

The two girls made their goodbyes and stood. Polly sat back against the lodging house and watched the shadowy shapes of her friends swim a bit in her vision as they hurried away.

2

A Song

Although Polly had been given gin in her water periodically throughout her life, she’d never had so much of the undiluted drink at once. She slumped in a stupor against the hard brick, enjoying a euphoric calm and distance from her cares for a time.

The few people who passed by paid little attention to her. She knew that in the crowded city, filled with unfortunates, few of its citizens would become concerned about the condition of a young girl as long as she appeared alive and whole. Still, she knew the dangers of the streets. As she found herself lacking the coordination to sit up properly, she began to worry that someone might come along and take advantage of her. By the time she decided she should get up and make her way around to the front of the building, she was stumbling drunk.

Looking to the left at the end of the alley, she experienced the confusion of double-vision. Dizzied, she staggered on, and fell to the paving stones twice. Rubbing her knees with her hands the second time, she felt wetness and sought the wall of the building for support. She stumbled again and fell forward, striking brick with her forehead.

Her stomach turned over violently and she vomited. The smell, so biting and acrid, sickened her further. Polly heaved again and again.

Then the Bonehill Ghost came for her. With his glowing eyes, like two lamp flames, he emerged from the darkness. Alcohol fumes overpowered Polly. Remembering Bernice’s words about the danger of his gaze, Polly turned away. Her vision swam, even as she tried to escape. He seized her in his iron grip and tried to turn her to face him. With vision skewed, she couldn’t tell if she looked in his direction. Against all urges to the contrary, Polly closed her eyes.

Mr. Macklin had Papa’s voice, but he sang the song Martha offered to a jangling, sweet yet dreadful tune.

“The soul of you, the whole of you, that’s all what you can preach.

“The soul of you, a hole in you, as what your screams beseech,

Polly wailed at the top of her lungs to drown out the song so she wouldn’t hear the last line. She thrashed as he dragged her into shadows and beat her backside. When done, he threw her into deeper darkness and left her there to cry. The pain of her beating lessened and her dizziness and retching resumed. She heaved until her abdomen ached and her head throbbed.

Polly regained some control over her vision. She believed she was in her own bed, yet the room was too dark for her to be certain. Much of the pain and nausea had subsided, and she found sleep.

Singing his song, the Bonehill Ghost returned for her in dreams. Trying to wail away his song again, Polly found herself mute.

“The soul of you, the whole of you, that’s all what you can preach.

“The soul of you, a hole in you, as what your screams beseech,

“When darkness wants to sort you out, no more or less shall do.

“I take my time, and when I’m done, there’s nothing left of you.”

With the last line completed, Polly found her feet, and ran blindly. The only light within the blackness came from Mr. Macklin’s eyes. With them closed, he came for her repeatedly, thrusting his jeering face toward hers. Each time, she remained unaware of the closeness of his visage until he opened his eyes. Polly caught brief glimpses of his thin, dark features, the hooked nose, the heavy dark brow, the slack but cruel lips. She’d turn, and flee, screaming. Polly spent the night colliding with hard objects in the utter darkness as she dodged about to avoid him.

She awoke in her bed in the morning, still in her clothes, more weary than she’d ever been. Her father must have found her outside and placed her there. The bed he shared with her brother, in the opposite corner of the room, stood empty. Daylight came through the window. Her backside and legs were bruised and a scab-crusted wound marred her forehead. Despite a severe headache, she rolled over and slept dreamlessly until her father arrived to check on her some time later.

The unlocking of the door roused her from sleep. Her father opened it enough to look in. His haggard face had a hateful look about it, and strangely, a touch of shame. “I saved you from a terrible fate,” he said.

She knew that must be true. When she opened her mouth to speak, he shook his head. “No,” he said. “I will hear nothing from you. You’ll get up, do the laundry, finish two dozen pelts, and cook potatoes for supper. Eddie and I shall be home this evening at eight o’clock. Tomorrow, we go to church.”

Papa took his children to church only when he thought one or both had been up to no good. Polly believed in God because her mother had, although Caroline didn’t seem to put much stock in the Church of England.

“You don’t want to depend on the Vicars to lead you,” she’d warned. “Some are not good men. Don’t ever let one get you alone.”

Polly had asked why, but her mother gave no explanation.

Caroline had required her to memorize numerous prayers. For Polly, they were merely words that belonged to priests. She’d never been curious enough about her religion to learn much about it, yet the belief remained.

With the added insult of her aching head, bruised legs, and unsettled gut, Polly knew that another miserable day lay ahead, yet she felt happy to be home and whole.

She should never have laughed at another’s fear of the Bonehill Ghost. She should never have spoken the demon’s name while playing a game. Never again would she scoff at the darkness.

Please, O Lord,
Polly prayed,
protect me from the terrors of the night.

As she went about the day’s work, she couldn’t get Mr. Macklin’s sweet and sour tune out of her head. Having run the full song through to its end so many times, Polly decided that Martha had been wrong to suggest the verse would make one mad. Then a frightful thought occurred to her:
Perhaps, I
am
mad, and don’t know it.

3

Labor

Meeting Martha, Sarah, and Bernice the following Monday in Gunpowder Alley, Polly tried to recite the end of Mr. Macklin’s song, but her friends wouldn’t have it, and clearly didn’t want to believe the tale she told of the demon’s visit.

“You had a drunken dream,” Martha said, “that’s all.”

As time passed, Polly began to entertain misgivings concerning the reality of her visit from the Bonehill Ghost, although knowing his entire song, words and jangling tune, seemed to push back on those doubts. Walking home alone after dark on occasion, she’d get a chill feeling that the demon stalked her, her small hairs would stand up, and she would hasten her step.

* * *

In the summer of 1860, Polly was sweeping out their lodgings one afternoon when she discovered a lockbox with a large padlock on it under the bed her father shared with her brother. She wanted to know what the box held, and asked her father when he came home in the evening. He had a troubled look, and she thought he’d become angry with her. She backed away, intending to drop the subject and serve him and Eddie their supper.

“You’re not to know about that box,” Papa said. His tone held something of anger and fear. He turned to Eddie, who sat at the table in anticipation of the meal. “Neither of you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Papa,” Eddie said. He appeared to be without curiosity.

Polly nodded her head for her father and he seemed satisfied.

The mystery tugged at Polly’s thoughts for several days.

“What do you know about the lockbox?” she asked Eddie. “Does it hold something of great worth?”

He shrugged. “Something he’s been given to open. Someone lost a key, I suppose. Whatever it holds doesn’t belong to us.”

The next time she looked under Papa’s bed, the box was gone. With time, she stopped thinking about it.

* * *

Martha Combs found work in Holborn, finishing shirts, and ceased to spend time with Polly. Sarah Brown did some sort of work for her uncle that she wouldn’t talk about. Polly saw increasingly less of Sarah as the months passed.

Polly and Bernice Godwin had worked at home as fur pullers on and off since 1853, and spent much time together. At fourteen years of age, they both wanted to find better work. Bernice had her father’s blessing to look for a job.

“You’ll stay home, do your piece work, and keep house,” Papa had told Polly. Even so, she believed she might persuade him if she found work. With heavy competition for labor, positions rarely became available.

“I’ve heard the Ryan paper factory needs a rag sorter,” Polly told Bernice one day. “Tomorrow, I’ll go try to get the position.”

Bernice’s eyes became large and she shook her head. “The rags are collected from all over the city. They don’t care as some come from the worst places. The vermin, the lice, the disease—you shouldn’t want that.”

Polly reconsidered.

While they looked into jobs at the Jessup cotton spinning mill, Polly spoke to her brother about the possibility. “Eddie told me the boss there pushes his workers to move fast to meet quotas,” she told Bernice, “and the steam-powered machinery snatches a limb or a life at least once a month.”

Bernice took a job at the white-lead works for a short time. One day she returned home with a haunted look about her. “I quit. I found out the girl I replaced wasted away and went mad. Then I learned that happens to most of the girls as works there—five already this year.”

The rate of accidents, poisoning, and disease, and the stress upon the body of the different types of work available had all become discouraging factors. Polly imagined industry as a hungry giant that preferred to feed on the young and tender, chewing or biting off a limb, crushing a head or chest, setting a poisoned trap to catch the inexperienced off guard, leaving many unfortunates ill, maimed, or dead.

They stuck with the devil they knew: fur pulling. The task involved pulling the loose undercoat from rabbit pelts so that the furs would not shed the down once they were used to line garments. The action created a myriad of tiny broken hair fibers that floated freely in the air. The girls could not avoid breathing the particles into their lungs. The undercoat that didn’t float away, they saved in bags to sell for a small sum per pound.

Polly’s father and Bernice’s mother each paid the deputy of the lodging house, Mrs. Fortuna, a little extra to allow their daughters to perform their labors at home. The girls worked together so they could talk, sing songs, and keep each other company through the hours of toil. They alternated the use of their families’ respective rooms with the idea that an open window on the off days would allow some airing out. The strategy seemed to do little good. The casements faced west, and a golden beam of sunlight slanting in through the open sashes in late afternoon always revealed thick motes of the tiny fibers still floating freely within the chambers.

By 1861, most of the inhabitants of the lodging house, those who’d been living there for any length of time, had wheezing, labored breath. When Old Mrs. Fletcher died in a coughing fit, Mrs. Fortuna had had enough. She forbade the girls to do their work within the lodging house.