Nine Buck's Row

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Nine Buck's Row

Jennifer Wilde writing as T. E. Huff

For my mother
,

with love

1

Widow Jameson might be a notorious gossip, but she was still the best seamstress in East London, the only one Marietta would trust with her elaborate costumes. It was growing darker outside, the slate gray sky smeared with fading orange banners as I waited impatiently for the widow to finish mending the cloak. Marietta had instructed me to bring it to the music hall as soon as it was mended, and it was a long walk to Garrick's. I didn't relish the idea of being out after dark. No one did nowadays, not after the series of murders that were causing all the East End to panic.

Widow Jameson gathered up the heavy folds of honey-colored satin, her needle darting in and out along the hem to secure the black fox fur trim. I glanced around the cluttered shop, eyeing the bolts of cloth and racks of lace without really seeing them. Through the murky glass windows in front I could see the congestion of Charlotte Street, dingy gray brick walls spread with darkening violet shadows, carriages rattling noisily over the cobblestones, pedestrians moving rapidly now that night was falling. Soon the fog would veil everything with a swirling gray-white mist that not even the gaslights could penetrate. I prayed the widow would hurry.

“'Ere, Miss Susannah,” she said, giving the cloak a final pat. “I reckon it's good as new 'n fit for a queen to wear. Such a lovely color 'n such fine trimmin'. Ain't many can afford such fancy duds. Your aunt's gotta real sense-a style. I reckon
she
don't have much trouble findin' the means-a gettin' such a cloak.”

“I'm in rather a hurry, Mrs. Jameson,” I said coldly, ignoring her sly dig. “Are you finished?”

“She still at Garrick's?” the widow inquired, reaching under the counter to pull out a large white cardboard box.

“Yes,” I replied, patience wearing thin. Everyone knew Marietta was still at Garrick's. She was the main attraction at that rowdy music hall, a celebrity of sorts, at least in this part of London.

“Hateful way for a woman to make a livin',” Widow Jameson continued, “singin' them risk-kay songs 'n dancin' them Frenchie dances 'n showin' the men 'er legs. 'Course, I guess it's all in th' eye of th' beholder. Still, ain't th' sorter thing I'd want
my
daughter to do.”

I frowned, furious with the old gossip yet forced to agree with her. I didn't approve of Marietta's way of life, but I was hardly in a position to comment one way or another.

I had been born in Devonshire and brought up in a beautiful red brick house with weathered white slate roof, dark green ivy growing up the walls. There were wild gardens and flagstone walks and a pond with a cracked white fountain. My life was serene, secure, and I was surrounded by love. My father was a lawyer, tall and handsome, full of robust good humor, and my mother was a famous hostess, celebrated for her gracious charm. I grew up in an atmosphere of wit and great warmth, one contented day melting amiably into the next. Then, when I was twelve, the typhoid epidemic of 1882 struck the countryside. Both my parents were taken ill. Both died. I was sent to stay with neighbors until my mother's younger sister could come for me.

I had never met my aunt, but I had always been curious about her. She had left the family home and fled to London years before, and my mother was always evasive about her. Marietta Clark was the kind of woman polite society spoke of in whispers, a flamboyant creature not very particular about the men she associated with. I knew that she was an actress, though I discovered later that “actress” was hardly appropriate to describe the sort of thing my aunt did on stage.

Marietta came to fetch me. She was dazzling in her elegant satins and curling plumes. In her late twenties, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, yet there was something hard about her. The lovely features might have been chiseled from smooth white granite, and the sapphire blue eyes were cold. She was the first woman I had seen who openly wore make-up. The lips were scarlet, the high cheekbones rouged, the delicate lids rubbed with soft violet shadow. Her elaborately curled hair was golden brown, too glistening to be natural. I was, of course, fascinated, even though I sensed she was hardly elated to be taking on the responsibility of a twelve-year-old child.

The red brick house was sold to strangers. My father, it seemed, had been making several unwise investments, and he had left very little money. Marietta took me back to London where I was promptly installed in a genteel but slightly down-at-the-heels school for girls. I remained there for the next four years, or until the money ran out, and then Marietta took me in with her for want of anything better to do. For the past two years, I had lived with her in the large, cluttered top-floor apartment on Old Montague Street, doing the cooking, keeping the rooms in order, waiting on Marietta, fetching and carrying, running errands, staying out of the way when she entertained one of her gentlemen friends in the parlor with lilac draperies and the large purple velvet sofa.

Marietta wasn't cruel, she was just indifferent to me. When she happened to think of it, she was quite generous, seeing that I had plenty of new dresses, though I seldom had occasion to wear them, giving me money for books and sketch pads and paints. Knowing that I loved music, she had replaced the old upright piano with a newer one, although I was forbidden to play it when she had one of her headaches. Marietta was selfish and vain and shallow, incapable of affection. I was little more than a personal maid and housekeeper to her, but we got along well. I had learned how to humor her when she was self-pitying, and I had learned to avoid her when she was in one of her tempestuous rages.

It wasn't a happy life, but it wasn't so bad. There were books, and there were my watercolors, and there was my friend Millie who lived downstairs and loved to chatter and share daydreams. Although she was constantly demanding when she was around, Marietta was out much of the time, and I had the place to myself. Then I was free to read and paint and indulge in all those fantasies typical of every eighteen-year-old girl. I visualized a tall, dashing soldier in dazzling gold and blue tunic and white breeches. He would sweep me up and take me away to the country where there were trees and flowers or, better yet, to India where there were marble palaces and silk brocades. Such fantasies were harmless, and they made the bleakness a little more endurable.

In reality, the only men who had shown any interest in me were those every young girl is warned against. East London abounded in them: handsome sports out slumming and looking for a likely lass, jaded roués in monocles and top hats wearily prowling the streets for some kind of diversion, soldiers from the Tower of London searching for excitement, stevedores from the docks, confidence men and worse. I ignored them all, even though Millie assured me I was missing some smashing good times. I might be Marietta's niece, but I had no intentions of ending up like her.

“For a miss in a hurry you're certainly gatherin' wool,” Widow Jameson said primly. “You've been standin' there th' past five minutes, starin' at space—”

“I—I suppose I was,” I admitted.

“You ain't
worried
about nothin', are you, Miss Susannah?”

“No. Of course not. I was just—”

“Wouldn't
blame
you none,” she interrupted, clattering on, “what with all these dreadful things happenin' right in our own backyard. First that Tabram woman found on th' stairs of one of th' George Yard buildings. Thirty-nine times she was stabbed, they say, and blood simply
pourin
' down the stairs! And then poor Polly Nicholls, stretched out there near the gutter on Buck's Row. Throat slit from ear to ear, and her body all cut up—well, some things're not even fit to
mention
!”

“Please—” I protested. “I—I'd rather not hear about it again—”

“Right across th' street from the slaughterhouse they found her. Last Friday night, it was, and Scotland Yard
still
ain't gotta inkling who done it! It's one of them bloody furriners, I can tell-ya that much. No
Eng
lishman'd do such heinous deeds! They're callin' 'im The Ripper—”

“I really must hurry,” I said, reaching for the cardboard box containing the cloak. Widow Jameson slapped one large hand down on the box.

“Th' cash, dearie,” she said in honeyed tones, her eyes hard.

“Oh—I'm sorry.”

I reached into my pink silk reticule and took out the proper amount of money. The hard look left the widow's eyes as the coins fell into her outstretched palm. She shoved the box toward me.

“Ta ta, dearie. Have a nice walk. Night's fallin' fast, 'n th' fog's already startin' to roll in. You won't catch
me
steppin' outside this shop, not on your life! It ain't safe for a body to be
about
—”

She was a vicious old woman, trying to frighten me like that. I hurried down Charlotte Street and followed Back Church Lane to Whitechapel Road. It was a busy thoroughfare, carts and carriages joggling along the rough cobblestones, pedestrians crowding the narrow pavements in front of the still-busy shops. Above the soot-blackened walls I could see a darkening sky still faintly flushed with orange. In a quarter of an hour it would be dark, but if I hurried I could make it to Garrick's before then.

I wasn't really afraid. I knew these streets well, and I knew how to avoid trouble: walk fast, ignore everyone. During the daytime the neighborhood was boisterous, charged with rowdy energy, but quite safe. After dark it was something else altogether: a jungle of vice and violence. The pubs and alehouses were filled with brawling drunks. The streets were thronged with toughs, thieves, prostitutes and worse. It was no place for a young girl to be. Even the bobbies were dubious about strolling down the narrow, twisting alleys and dingy squares.