On this December night, Whitechapel teemed with activity as half-starved men and women struggled to eke out enough pennies to survive another night. Gaunt-faced men bartered with ill-tempered pub men for the leavings of another's supper; boys begged for scraps, for pennies, for rags to wrap around their frozen feet. In doorways and alleyways, babes froze in their mothers' arms.
There was gin everywhere, and the desperate populace reeked of it; it stank in the sweat on the brows of hopeless men half-mad with consumption and hunger. It spilled on tabletops as men scuffled over cards and imagined insults. It gave the unfortunate women of Whitechapel Dutch courage as they strutted down the cobbled streets, beckoning like sirens to the lads, to the men, promising the same thing gin did.
Gin and sex; tears and flopsweat ran in rivulets down the filthy streets, and everything got lost in heavy fogs thick as blankets. Fog was the eiderdown of the lowest classes, the mob; fog was the curtain that shielded their degradation from aristocrats and royals, who also blamed the denizens of Whitechapel for their terrible lot in life. Fog was the wool pulled over the eyes of all Londoners as politicians blamed not the poor, but the Jews, for all the suffering and premature death.
And the poor blamed God.
Somewhere in the bitter night of eight December, 1888, fog was the cloak of a madman who lurked on every street corner, glided silently down every alleyway, knives and torture instruments at the ready. His name drifted like a wisp of nightmare, a twisted handkerchief soaked in blood.
Jack the Ripper.
He had gutted two women, and because they had been whores, the sister bangtails were sure the police would never find him - because the police would never look. They would take their fine, swaggering walks down the streets, accosting the beggar boys and winking at the landladies; then they'd make a few noises about "leads" and "information" and retire to their fine offices to smoke and ruminate... and another poor girl would be found in the morning, flies buzzing inside her petticoats, blood congealed beneath her like a mattress thrown in the middle of the street.
Lyin' down on the job: It was a coarse old joke in their line of work when you found a mate of yours had been murdered. It made her death less terrifying to sneer at her, say she got what she deserved, stupid whore. Piece of trash. Only stupid whores got killed. Smart ones got out somehow, got married, got a business going.
Just last night was long enough, and the nightmare that was this awful life would be over.
But not by dying.
No one gave prostitutes respect, not even other prostitutes. Any girl to give up her virtue was a Judas to her sex, no matter how hungry she got or how many starving brothers and sisters waited for the money she made. No one was tougher on a brand-new streetwalker than the older ones... because here was another fallen angel, another soiled dove, and it was more disgusting than any proper lady could stand. So them last bits of propriety hated the pretty new ones... and then once she got slagged-looking, lost some teeth, reeked of gin - in short, had lost her womanly virtues - then she was a bit of all right, one of the sisters of the streets.
It was the fault of the fog, all the butchering; if there hadn't been any fog last night, there wouldn't have been another murder. The streetwalker's name had been Mary Kelly. What a fool that chit had been, to wander about in the fog, hanging on to gentlemen and promising to do things their fine wives could not even imagine.
What a right fool.
"I 'eard she wasn't all there. In the 'ead," Barbara said.
She leaned forward and tapped her skull, paper-thin lids fluttering from all the gin she'd had to drink that night. She still had all her teeth, which were white and fine. Her eyes had gone dead, though; it was the look that said that the streets had already claimed her, though she insisted she had just got to London three weeks before from the north country, and had launched herself in the profession only because her aunt, who was going to teach her how to embroider linen, had died of the influenza.
Elizabeth had known Barbara was lying from the first moment they met.
Elizabeth worked alongside Barbara these nights; explaining that she was too afraid to go on her own. Barbara was grateful for the company. The gentlemen didn't mind; they had no shame when it came to their needs, and the prospect of enjoying the pleasure of more than one doxy-or at least of having her look on-thrilled and excited them.
Still, trade was a little slow tonight, and there were fewer men of the higher classes strolling amongst the general heathenry. Jack had scared them off. Several of the other girls had announced that they were giving up for the evening, and planned to congregate at the Three Bells for as long as they could nurse a single glass of gin.
"We ought to go in, too," Barbara muttered, stamping her feet to warm them. The sad peacock feather in her bright red hair drooped in the wet weather. She had on a low-cut dress of dark pink and a shawl of puce; the ensemble did nothing for her ivory complexion, yet who was Elizabeth to say anything? She was wearing all black, like a widow.
"Can't go in yet," Elizabeth muttered back at her. "Jimmy would have my head on a platter if I came back with nothing but two coppers." She sighed heavily. "You're right not to have a man to answer to, Barbara. All they cause is trouble."
Barbara's smile was sour and mean. It made her look tired and old, and in their trade, that was not good.
"Men. Bleedin' barbarians. Look what they've driven fine girls like us to do. It would be better if we could make our own way in the world without them. All of us." She sniffed. "You're a fool, Elizabeth, to let your Jimmy boss you like 'e does."
"He takes care of me," Elizabeth said quietly. "He's good to me, in his way."
"What, he puts the bruises where the paying customers won't see them?" Barbara huffed and readjusted her shawl around her shoulders.
"No. It's not like that," Elizabeth replied. "You should come and meet him, Barbara. He'd take care of you, I guarantee it."
Barbara raised her chin and sniffed. "I'll never 'ave a man, my fine girl. Save my shillings for myself and someday, take a ship to America and leave this 'ellish place forever." She looked around in disgust... and there was much that was disgusting to see.
"America," Elizabeth said wistfully. It was a favorite topic between them, going to America. Elizabeth knew Barbara would never go there, but talking about it passed the time. And both our days are numbered...
"I'll go to New York and I'll be a lady, and keep slaves like the Americans." Evidently she did not realize that the Americans weren't allowed to have slaves anymore. "I wants some'n, I'll snap my fingers."
Barbara demonstrated, then shrugged as if she was ashamed of wanting anything more than a doss and a slug of gin, and tucked her hands inside her armpits. "I'm catching my death, Lizzie-lass.
Let's go in."
"One more hour," Elizabeth protested, glancing about, surveying the pickings. A few men sauntered along the opposite side of the street, but they appeared to be as poor as she and Barbara were. One had his elbows sticking out of his jacket. The other was covered with grime. Her stomach turned at the thought of his touching her.
She added, "Could be the rich men are still at the theatre, that's why they're not about."
"They're not about because they don't want their bellies slit open." Barbara glanced up and down the street. "Cor, with this fog, we couldn't see Jack come up on us if he was ten feet away. It's too dangerous out here." She turned shining eyes to Elizabeth. "Let's go in, lamb. It's not a good night."
Elizabeth shrugged her halfhearted resistance. Then, a rat skittered down the street and she jerked, startled, though God knew she saw more rats in a day in Whitechapel than there were diamonds in Queen Victoria's jewels. Shadows danced in the darkness, making phantoms and nascent nightmares, and she thought about what had happened to the prostitute Mary Kelly last night. The girl had been very young and beautiful - new to the trade - and she'd been gutted like a fish.
It could happen to any girl in Whitechapel, in the dark, in the fog.
© 2003 Nancy Holder. Taken from Blood and Fog, published in the UK by Pocket Books. Reproduced with kind permission of Pocket Books.
