The Ripper's Wife (9 page)

“I almost died, Bunny.” He shuddered at the memory. I put my kitten down and took my husband in my arms and kissed him and stroked the hair I now knew owed its darkness to Indian Princess Hair Blacking.

“I cannot tell you how awful it was, or how afraid I was,” he continued. “It is an illness I would not wish upon my worst enemy. When the quinine failed to work, I felt certain my hours were numbered. I could
feel
my time on this earth slipping away, minute by precious minute, but I was in such agony I almost didn’t care; my body and soul were worn-out from fighting the disease. You cannot even imagine unless you have gone through it yourself, and I pray you never do, my angel. Malaria is a disease that leaves a permanent mark upon a man. Though he may seem to recover, he never truly does, and is forever afterward vulnerable, and that is a way no man likes to feel, much less appear. It shows a strong man just how weak he really is. Some say it is God’s way of reminding a man that he isn’t invincible, some even call it an antidote to hubris, and I cannot but agree. It certainly shakes all the strength and pride right out of you. It was the arsenic and strychnine that saved me, and I take them still to give me strength. Without them . . . I feel weak, but they make me strong—”

“Oh, Jim, forgive me! I didn’t know! I didn’t mean . . .” I began to weep and burrowed against his chest. “I never want you to be anything but well, and when I saw all those medicines . . . I was so afraid you would die and leave me . . . that you would harm yourself.... After all, it
is
poison you’re taking!”

“We all take some poison or another.” Jim shrugged. “But my darling Bunny, you
must
trust me. I am your husband and I love you, and I would
never
do anything that would take me from your side. I have made myself an expert in these matters; I know just how much I can take. I am not so reckless as to gamble with my life, only my money.” He smiled and stroked his diamond horseshoe.

So I let myself be comforted. He was my husband; I loved and trusted him. And I was, as he said, young and inexperienced; I should not have presumed to judge when I myself knew nothing and had no personal experience of arsenic beyond the little hint in the face wash Dr. Greggs prescribed for me, and I had even been timid and afraid of that, my mind chock-full of murderous melodramas and poisoned rats.

What a silly little fool you are, Florie,
I scolded myself as I relaxed in my husband’s loving arms and listened to my kitten purring contentedly against my breast.
You behave more like the heroine of some silly blood and thunder melodrama than a real flesh and blood wife! You really
must
acquire some sense before you make a fool of yourself out where all the world can see; you
know
the Currant Jelly Set won’t be half so forgiving as Jim!

J
im threw a ball at Battlecrease House to introduce me to the Currant Jelly Set. I should have felt right at home, I’d moved in such elite circles all my life, but here I felt like I was standing in the middle of the ballroom on a sinking ship with no hope of salvation.

Their eyes scorched and froze me at the same time, and their nostrils curled like someone was holding a tray of steaming manure right under them. Every time they mentioned the fact that I was
American
one might easily have imagined them substituting the word
half-witted
instead.

They were the most patronizing and condescending set of people I had ever met. Even those who were shorter or of a height with me looked down upon me like Zeus and Hera from the lofty top of Mount Olympus. They would cut you dead over round-toed shoes if almond-shaped ones were all the fashion. Lemonade spilled on a white glove, limp frills on a linen shirt, and a slip of the tongue or a word stuttered or mispronounced were the social equivalents of suicide, and sins
exposed, not
sins
committed,
were the greatest offense in their eyes. It didn’t matter one whit to them if a man slept with his neighbor’s wife, only if it ended up in the divorce court or the penny papers; you could rack up all the debts you pleased as long as you didn’t end up being publicly declared a bankrupt and having your possessions sold at public auction. If you weren’t equal to or better than the person next to you, you were
nothing
. They presented what appeared to be a wall of cold British solidarity—they did after all refer to themselves as a
set
—but they would turn on one of their own without hesitation, like wolves on the weakest in the pack. Smiles hid daggers, and compliments concealed contempt. There was no such thing as sincerity in the Currant Jelly Set.

I couldn’t
stand
a single one of them! The feeling was overwhelmingly mutual. They might embrace Jim as one of their own, but I would be tolerated only on sufferance; I would
never
be one of their exalted number.

But God would grant me a reprieve and, for a brief, blessed little while, make the cold waters closing in on me recede.

As I stood stunned in the midst of the gold and champagne brilliance of the ballroom, chandeliers blazing over my head, I suddenly felt dizzy and weak. The next thing I knew I was lying limply on one of the champagne and gold brocade sofas.

Edwin was leaning over me, nonchalantly sipping champagne while fanning me with my own gold lace fan and urging the immediate loosening of my stays as his eyes devoured the décolletage of my arsenic-green bodice. Jim knelt anxiously beside me, kissing and rubbing my hands, mumbling a jumble of words that seemed to be a litany of diseases; I think I heard “scarlet fever” and “diphtheria” amongst them. A rather prominent doctor was amongst the guests, and he insisted that the crowd of frowning faces forming a tight circle around us retreat and give me air. After whispering a few discreet questions into my ear, he ascertained the cause of my malaise was quite natural and proffered Jim his heartiest congratulations.

“My angel, I am
so
proud of you!” Jim said as he carefully carried me upstairs as though I were as delicate as one of the Dresden shepherdesses on my whatnot shelf and laid me on my bed where cherubs smiled down at me from all four posters.

“A baby,” I kept whispering and stroking my stomach. “I’m going to have a baby!” When I looked in the hand mirror Jim obligingly fetched for me my formerly wan face was truly glowing.

For the next several months I lived quietly. I had a
wonderful
doctor, Dr. Arthur Hopper, whom I chose myself, because of his kind, friendly manner and the fact that he was
not
a member of the Currant Jelly Set and did not equate my being American with being uncivilized and simpleminded. He advised me to curtail my social activities when I tearfully confided how lonely and outcast I felt. I’d been visiting in England many times in my life, though mostly in London and at the country estates of Mama’s friends, but now that I was to make my home here I felt for the first time like a pariah, about as welcome as a leper at a royal garden party. Even my own brother-in-law despised me. I’d overheard Michael scornfully describing me to Jim as “a featherbrained adventuress out to feather her nest with pound notes” and “a vain, superficial coquette concerned only with clothes and hats.” To his credit, Jim refused to hear anything against me and walked out, and I hastily withdrew to the foot of the stairs, pretending I was just then descending, so he wouldn’t know I had heard.

So on Dr. Hopper’s advice and with Jim’s blessing I restricted my socializing to weekly at-home dinner and card parties with a few carefully chosen guests and an occasional night out at the theater or opera. The dreaded making and receiving of calls I could easily avoid by claiming, often quite truthfully, that my condition made me woefully unwell.

The rest of the time I sat in the sweet solitude of my beautiful blue bedroom or the parlor with my kitten, reading the latest novels and magazines. I even read some of the delightfully awful penny dreadfuls, like
Varney, the Vampire
and
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street,
that Edwin always left lying about like a tomcat marking his progress through the house. And I had my nursery to decorate! At last I had the Mother Goose wallpaper and yellow gingham curtains I had been dreaming about!

I spent many happy hours crocheting dainty baby booties and coats trimmed with silk ribbons in various pastel shades so they would be suitable for either sex. I wanted to make all the clothes my baby would wear, so he, or she, would feel my love in every stitch. I did have some skill with a needle after all, and I
loved
doing delicate and elegant fancywork like this, but Jim insisted that our son—he was certain our firstborn would be a boy—be completely outfitted with nothing but the finest from the best department stores and Mama deluged us with baby clothes from Paris and little lace-trimmed gowns made by nuns in secluded Swiss convents perched high in the Alps. She even sent us a suite of Black Forest Furniture carved from heavy dark walnut, in which playful bears climbed and hugged the legs of the various pieces.

And throughout every day I was constantly caressing the beautiful imperial-green jade ring encircled by emeralds and diamonds that Jim had given me. As soon as he knew I was expecting he had commissioned it specially from the jeweler. Always a believer in luck, and charms to lure it, Jim had heard or read somewhere that expectant mothers in China wore rings set with a great big jade cabochon mimicking the shape of a pregnant belly, which they stroked continuously for luck. Even before that, he had given me a charm bracelet with two dozen beautiful dangling gold, silver, jeweled, and enameled lucky charms from all around the world. There was even a silver dolphin to remind me of the one we had seen that beautiful dawn aboard the
Baltic
. Truly, with my big jade ring on my finger, my luck-laden bracelet on my wrist, Jim at my side, and his baby in my belly, I felt like I really must be the luckiest woman in the world.

Every afternoon I liked to go out for a walk, but as my condition became more prominent Mrs. Briggs took it upon herself to take me aside and explain to me, in slow, carefully chosen words better suited to a simpleton, that in England expectant ladies did not show themselves in public.

I resented her interference. I was fully mindful of the proprieties and had already equipped myself with the best set of maternity stays money could buy and I had had several lovely loose silk wrapper-style or Watteau draped dresses made, a smart green and white tartan skirt and jacket for afternoon calls and shopping, and a beautiful black satin empire-waisted evening gown draped from the collar down with black lace to wear on those increasingly rare evenings out. Dearest Mama had also sent me a similar frock of midnight-blue satin veiled with a fine, sheer black netting embellished all over with faceted jet beads and pastel-rainbow-flashing black peacock pearls. And whenever I went out for my afternoon walk I always wore my coat-cloak, which covered me like a tent. It was made of mauve merino trimmed with a bold broad turquoise border along the wide bell sleeves and voluminous hem and had a row of carved turquoise rose buttons down the front. Though Mrs. Briggs deplored it as “too flamboyant,” it always made me smile and feel good to wear it. Jim loved the way my walks and my joy in my coat-cloak put the pink back into my cheeks and every day had a messenger boy from a flower shop deliver a cheery corsage for me to wear upon the lapel.

After the initial sickness had passed, it was, overall, a calm and joyful pregnancy. The only sad moment came when we received word from Paris that my brother, Holbrook, had died suddenly. He had kept his illness secret, even from Mama. He was only twenty-five. Dr. Hopper and Jim concurred it would be unwise for me to travel, so Jim attended the funeral service for both of us. The day of the funeral I sat alone in my bedroom all day with Holbrook’s picture beside me, holding the black-bordered card inscribed
Fell Asleep in God
beneath an engraving of a slumbering angel. I smiled through my tears remembering all the happy times I had spent with Holbrook. I was very lucky to have had such a kind and gentle, fun-loving brother. We’d been friends as well as siblings. Despite being called the “Alabama Adonis,” Holbrook didn’t have a vain or arrogant bone in his body, and by that time I had known enough handsome men to know just how rare and special he truly was.

 

My son was born on March 24, 1882. I remember vividly even after all these years the searing, flesh-tearing red pain. My sense of decorum entirely deserted me. I screamed and screamed. I writhed, twisted, contorted, and exposed myself shamefully, willingly assuming the most undignified and embarrassing positions when Dr. Hopper asked me to,
anything
to end my agony. My body disgraced me in every way imaginable. I thought I was going to die. When Mrs. Briggs came in to warn me that the neighbors would hear me, I threw my chamber pot right at her head. I am both sorry and glad to say I missed her, though the flying splatter quite ruined her dress.

Then it was over. One last push, and he slithered out of me, and I fell back exhausted and immensely relieved to find that after all that I was still alive.

Jim and I named our son James Chandler Maybrick, but that seemed such a big name for such a little boy, we always called him “Bobo.” He was the most
beautiful
child I had ever seen.

“No boy has a right to be that beautiful,” Mama would say when she arrived posthaste from Paris and saw my son sleeping angelically in my arms, smelling of rosewater and milk, and wearing a dainty white linen smock I had embroidered with red roses.

His hair was the same deceptively black-brown as his father’s, thick but straight when I had been hoping so for curls, and his brows were “like two black caterpillars kissin’,” Mama said, pointing out how they almost met above his perfect little nose that turned up just a tiny bit at the tip. I
dreaded
the day when I would have to pluck them. He was certain to cry; then so would I. But oh, the magnificence of his eyelashes! He was born with a double row of them, licorice black, luxuriant, thick, and looking ludicrously long on such a tiny baby. They actually cast shadows on his cheeks.

Jim jiggled the little gold Egyptian eye dangling from my charm bracelet and smiled and said that double row was certain to bring our boy luck. From the day he was born whenever my son lost a lash and I could find it I always kept it in a gold locket set with an aquamarine heart. Later, when he was older, he would bring them to me himself, presenting each fallen lash to me with a theatrical bow, saying, “Here’s another lash for your locket, Mama; may it bring you the
best
of luck!” He was
so
adorable! More beautiful than any angel!

“Sure enough, he’ll be a charmer,” Mama said. “He’s already got bedroom eyes. Look at ’em, Florie, like pools o’ melted chocolate!”

“Oh dear!” I sighed, then laughed until I cried. After all, such worries were
years and years
away! “As long as he never breaks
my
heart, Mama, I shall be content!” I said, and covered my sweet angel with kisses. I had never loved anyone so much.