*
Thursday, October 4th, 1888
A glowing October dawn threw a welcoming fan-shaped shaft of golden light between the plain curtains that hung across the window in Joseph Barnet’s lodgings. Already noises were stirring in Brick Lane: workmen whistling on their way to their places of employment, the clip-clopping of passing horses and the rumble of iron-rimmed wheels on the cobbles. The street market was being set up as stalls were wheeled into place and secured. A cheering sun rose above Whitechapel to signal the end of another night without incident.
Mary Jane Kelly was not asleep. She had woken at least twenty minutes previously, but remained in the bed, watching the infant sun set the curtains aglow and listening to the steadily increasing bustle from outside.
Joseph lay at her side, still asleep on his back with his head turned to face her. A rough fringe of stubble sprouted from his chin, like so many prickles. She would shave it for him later, a service that she would do with surprising skill, thanks to her woman’s deft touch. When he did it on his own, he invariably cut himself.
Slipping out from beneath the blankets as softly as she could, lest she wake him, she tiptoed across to the window, pulled the curtains apart and looked out. Whitechapel was a wonderland that morning, a forest of smoking chimneys set against a crimson sky with a flaming orange orb at its heart. The street outside was a hive of activity as multicoloured awnings were set up over stalls, brilliant with dripping fresh vegetables and fruit. The sight at once gladdened and repelled her. Gladdened because it showed a certain beauty to which the district did not normally aspire. Repelled because she knew he was out there, waiting and watching, biding his time until the moment was ripe. Fighting down the panic that surged through her breast, she pulled the curtains closed again and leaned against the wall, heart pounding.
“What are you doing?” The voice from the bed was slurred with sleep.
Mary Jane looked back into the room as his bleary eyes tried to focus. “Morning,” she said, trying to force a little cheeriness into her tone.
“Come away from the winder, you silly girl,” he said, not harshly, admiring the sight of her slender body with the flowing auburn hair cascading over her bare shoulders, “you ain’t got a stitch on. The old man across the way’ll have apoplexy if he looks out.”
She giggled, not having realised that she was naked until that moment. Anyone who chanced to look up would have had an eyeful and no mistake. The thought gave her licentious side a brief thrill.
“That’ll liven his day up, then,” she replied with a smile. Leaving the golden view behind her, she returned to the bed and embraced him. “You're not the first man to see me that way, you know, and you ain’t the hundred and first to see me private bits, but you’re the only one who gets anywhere near ’em now. His curtains were still closed anyway. I checked,” she lied. “He’ll never know what he missed.” Lying on top of him, she kissed him softly full on the mouth. The experience of shared mutual desire was new to her and she was still overwhelmed by it. She, who had endured the rough passage of shiploads of men through her passive body, had not had a real lover in years.
Slipping beneath the blankets, feeling the warmth of his body against hers, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and melted into his embrace.
Half an hour later, their passion sated, they lay side by side, breathing easily. He was dozing again. She looked at his peaceful face, so free of the concerns that plagued her mind, ready to spring forth and shred her happiness at any moment. Her eyes began to reveal the worry that was growing treacherously in her breast. She had tried to put it out of mind and to enjoy a little happiness for once, but the time would come when it simply had to be faced. The services of a back street abortionist would solve it quietly, if she could afford one, but it was likely to make her so ill that he would know anyway. Alternatively, she could keep it, but would he accept it, knowing that it wasn’t his? She didn’t even know who the father was herself. How could he pass her off as his cousin come to visit once she started to show?
He yawned. “The night survived.”
She turned her head and looked at him, her fear resurfacing. “For me, you mean. He won’t go for you, Joseph.”
“He’ll have to, if he wants to get at you, because I’ll be in the way.”
Turning to face him, she cupped his cheek in her hand and spoke earnestly. “I’m grateful, Joseph, you know I am, but you can’t watch me all day, every day.”
He was fully awake and found himself staring into the fathomless emerald depths of her eyes. He raised himself on one elbow. “If I have to, I can.”
“No, this isn’t fair,” she answered, rolling onto her back and turning her head away from him. “It’s not fair on you. You have your work, your life. You shouldn’t throw them away on me. I’m not worth it.” The concern was sharpening into self-doubt and she was aware of undeniable self-loathing mixed in there as well.
“Course you are,” he answered, wide-eyed.
She sat up, wrapping the sheet about her to cover her breasts. Her new-found respectability was suddenly making her coy. “All right, you got me off the streets and to safety. But what happens now? I can’t spend the rest of my days hiding and you can’t spend the rest of yours shielding me. You have a living to earn. Somehow this has to end.”
“Not yet it doesn’t,” he said, rising and beginning to pull his clothes on. She slipped out of the other side of the bed and started to dress as well. “In the beginning,” he went on, “I was just going to look after you for a day or two. See if I could fix something up for you to get you started again. Then I got to know you.”
“When I took you into your own bed and showed you what I can do, you mean,” she responded. He did not deny it. “Know me! What’s to know?” she cried. “I am what I am. I’m not proud of it, but it’s my life. Don’t throw yours away on me, Joseph. There’s no sense in that.”
“Mary Jane,” he replied patiently, pulling his boots on, “there’s more to you than this. I know you now and you can have a better life with me. Give it up. Stay with me. I’ve got a job. I can support both of us. I can help you get work. I did it for my sister and I can do it for you. How many times do I have to tell yer? You can’t have been on the streets all your life. What did you do before?”
“Before you found me?” She finished the sentence for him.” Dressed again in her shabby clothes with the ripped hem and darned elbows, she sat on the end of the bed, a nostalgic smile crossing her face. “That’s a rum tale.”
“Tell me about it over breakfast,” he tossed over his shoulder, disappearing through the door in the direction of the kitchen.
“I did have a job,” she told him between mouthfuls of porridge. “I was respectable once, a maid to some rich people in Cleveland Street.” He saw a wistful sparkle come into her eyes as she recalled the memory of a much happier day. “I used to dust everything with a big feather duster and serve meals on white china plates. I had a lover!”
“You what?” Joseph dropped his spoon in surprise.
“I did!” she laughed. “He was the footman. He and me tried out the master and mistress’s feather bed when they were out a couple of times. Ooh, it was lovely, lying there in his arms, watching the glow of the fire and listening to it cracklin'. I’d never been so warm. So, you see, I wasn’t a good girl then either.”
Joe found his spoon again. “What happened?”
“About that? Nothing,” replied Mary Jane in a matter of fact voice. “Nobody ever found out, or if they did, they never said nothing. He left soon after anyway to better ‘imself, and it wasn’t like I was up the duff or anything, so there was nothing to be said. He was going to come back and marry me when he’d made his fortune, but he never did.
‘I was quite happy there, but it didn’t last long because I got a better offer. I found work with one of London’s richest madames. She had a beautiful big house in Knightsbridge. There was a park over the road with long, lus
h lawns and flowerbeds and trees, lovely shady trees. We could sit under them on fine days when we weren’t workin’. They were special days. There were crystal chandeliers inside and sofas with real leather. Red leather, red as a ripe tomato. There were carpets your feet sank into and paintings on the walls. Everything was clean and fresh. I had me own room in the attic, with me own bed and washbasin, although I only slept there after I’d — finished. You know what I mean. I used one of the plush bedrooms for workin’. It was only a little, plain room, but I loved it. I could gaze out of the window over London and see everything.
‘Christmastime was special. Madame had a great big tree, like the queen’s, in the parlour, with candles on it. The house would be full of fine gentlemen and we would be run off our feet keeping ‘em all wined and fed and — you know — but it was so good,” she smiled, her eyes glowing. “I was clean, then, all the time; my clothes were changed every day and freshly laundered.”
‘I remember Madame sent me away on holiday once with a gentleman. We went to France, but I soon came back because I didn’t like him.”
Joseph had now finished his bowl of porridge and pushed it away, reaching automatically for his mug of hot tea. “So how come you left?”
A frown clouded her face. The memory had turned bitter. “Wasn’t my choice. I'd have stayed there till the day I died if I could. It was that good, Joseph. I don't think anyone was happier than I was. Then suddenly everythin' went wrong. There was a scandal. Madame had to flee the country and I lost me job along with all the others.”
He leaned forward in keen interest. “Flee the country! Why? What had she done?”
She shook her head. “She hadn’t done nothing! That’s the rummest part of it all. It had nothing to do with her really. No, it was all down to poor Annie.”
“Who’s Annie?”
“Who was Annie, yer mean,” replied Mary Jane, frowning, tears forming yet again at the back of her eyes. “I doubt she’s alive now. She was another girl and did much the same sort of work as me — cleaning when the clients weren’t around and keepin’ ‘em happy when they was. She was already there when they hired me but we became special friends since we found out we was both from the same part of Ireland. You didn’t know I was Irish, did you?”
“No,” he smiled, sitting back again. “I would never 'ave guessed it neither.”
“I was born there,” she replied wistfully, “in Limerick, but I’ve been over here since I was a nipper. Me dad came over, looking for work, when I was five. Brought the whole family. Went to Wales first, Carmarthen. That’s where I learned Welsh.”
“You can speak Welsh?” he laughed incredulously.
“Why, yes, glwad-y-gan, bach,” she replied, her usual cockney disappearing in the instant, replaced by the gentle lilt of The Valleys.
“What’s that mean, then?” he was still laughing.
“It means ‘land of song, love’,” she explained, “and it’s a right mouthful, Welsh is. They love their singing they do. Not like London, where men whistle all day long. In Wales they sing all the time, and they do it proper too.” The Celtic twang faded and her cockney tones returned. “Went to Cardiff after Carmarthen. I had a family then. Course we split up and went our different ways as we grew up, all of us, looking for work. We kept in touch as much as we could, but that’s all gone since the scandal. I don’t know where any of the others are now or what they’re doing. Four years I’ve been in London, two of them on my own. I speak cockney now, though Oi can still torn on the brogue of the Oirish if Oi wants to, or give ‘em a blaast of The Vaa-lleys, boy,” she smiled, reverting momentarily to the native cadences of both her celtic pasts. “Some of the punters like that. Anyway, Madame was always throwing these lavish parties for her rich and royal friends.”
“Toffs.” The images of green fields and jagged mountains faded from Joe’s mind as she brought him back to Knightsbridge, an elegant part of London that he had walked through, but to which he could never belong.
“Oh, yes.” She had finished her breakfast now and took her own mug of tea, rising and crossing to the window where she could look out on the last of the glorious dawn with the infant sun now riding clear of the chimney stacks. “Kept us on our toes, I can tell you, keeping them fed and plied with drink, taking their coats when they arrived in their carriages, handing them out again when they left, and keeping ‘em happy in between. Anyway, one of them keeps coming back. He even starts calling when Madame’s out and insisting on Annie lookin’ after him till he returns.”
She had her back to him, sipping her tea while gazing out of the window. Joseph came to her side and took her gently by the shoulders. “Do I understand you right about ‘lookin’ after him’?”
Turning to face him, she nodded. “You do. We all kept a discreet distance when they were together. Annie could be quite loud when she got excited, and he lit her wick all right. Lor, she didn’t half blush when she came down again and found us all sitting in the lobby deliberately not saying nothing. Then he disappears with her for a whole weekend.”
“Where did they go?”
“They got married!” The pleasure at divulging the revelation brought a glow to her cheeks and a wicked sparkle into her eyes. “In secret. Some secret, like. She was fair bursting with it when she got back.”
“Married!” An impressed Joseph returned to his seat at the table. That was confirmation to him that the poor could climb out of their poverty if they made the right choices. It was something he had always believed in. “Well, she feathered her nest all right then.”
It was a sombre-faced Mary Jane who rejoined him at the table. The memory had turned bitter again. “Signed her death warrant, more like,” she answered soberly. “It turns out that he was Royalty!”
Joseph set down his tea mug in astonishment. “Blimey. What happened?”
She sat, grim-faced, not looking at him, both hands clamped around her own mug. “One day, when they was both — you know — while Madame was out, carriages drew up outside. He was bundled into one and Annie into the other. Before I knew it, she had closed the house and fled to France. That was the last I saw of her. I don’t know what happened to Annie, but I can’t see any way they'd let her go after what she did. So I was out of work and couldn’t get another job because what I was doin’ don’t carry references.”
A long pause developed between them as Joseph fitted the pieces together in his mind and came up with the complete picture. “I see,” he said slowly. “And you’d lost touch with your family by then?”
She nodded miserably. “That’s right. We was all cast out on the streets and left to do whatever we could. The whole household dispersed. So, there I was on the slippery slope to where you found me.”
“Through no fault of your own.”
“That’s why you got to let me go, Joseph,” she announced suddenly, her innate decency again rebelling against the good fortune that fate had handed her. “There’s no 'ope for the likes of me, no way out.” He could hear the welling tears in her voice, the glowing memory of a happier time fading into the bitter acceptance of what had replaced it. “Once you’re in the gutter, that’s where you stay. Don’t keep me here. I’d only drag you down with me. That’s not for you.”
“Course there’s a way out,” he said, coming round to her side of the table. “I’m your way out. Haven't I told you that often enough? Anyway, you’ll have to stay. You were right. It wasn’t John Pizer. I heard it just now when I was down at the privy. They’ve let him go, released without charge. Whoever is doing it is still out there. There’s no way you’re going anywhere right now, Mary Jane. You step outside at night without me and you'll be walkin' right into him. You’ll have to stay here at least until he’s caught. It’s never too late. You do have a choice. Give it up. Stay with me. Please. We can build a new life together.”
She stared at him, a new question forming in her eyes and a faint hope glimmering in her heart. “Is that meant to be what i
t sounded like? A proposal?”
He did not look away. “Why not, for Heaven’s sake? I suppose it is. I’ve come to care for you, Mary Jane.” He went down on one knee. “I live in hope that you’ll come to care for me and stay with me. My dream is to settle down and have a peaceful life in a good place where I can breathe the clean air, raise nippers, perhaps. Tell me you’ll make my dream come true.”
She faltered, her fingers to her lips, thunderstruck. “Every whore in London has that dream, Joseph,” she replied through a thin film of tears, a faint, grateful smile playing on her lips. “I dare say every whore in the world does. But it’s just a dream. It won’t happen. No one cares about a whore. That’s what it’s like for us. Our lives are over. We’ve lost all hope, all respect. We do what we do because that’s what it takes to rent us a bed for the night, and whatever’s left we spend on gin. It helps us forget what we go through. And, when we’ve forgotten, we can dream again.”
Joseph’s face was taught. “Then stop dreaming. Wake up and face reality.”
“Hark at you!” she cried, turning away, humiliation feeding the rage suddenly rising within her. “You tell me to make your dream come true and stop dreamin' in the same breath! Do you know what reality is?” She turned back towards him, the agony of her situation shining in her eyes. “You have work. You have money. Some, anyway. You don’t have to make a living with yer skirt round yer neck and some ape pounding you like meat up against a wall. You don’t have to shut yer eyes and grit yer teeth when a punter throws up on you. You don’t have to put up with puke-ridden, toothless bastards that beat you up afterwards, and then rob yer of yer fourpence. That’s what my life is worth, Joseph. Fourpence! My body, my self-respect and my blood for four whole pence! What’s your life worth?”
He was pleading now. “It don’t have to be like this, Mary Jane.”
An agonised cry tore itself from her throat. “It does! And it is.” A heartbroken sob followed as she sagged to the floor. “I knew ’em all, Joseph.”
“Who?”
She hesitated a moment before replying in a whimper. “Polly Nichols, Dark Annie, Long Liz and Kate Kelly. I knew ’em all.” Her head was on his shoulder, sobbing. “He ripped ’em up, and I’m next, I know I am.”
He placed his arm round her, hugging her. “Not while you’re with me.”
“He’ll find me,” she whimpered. “He’s waitin', and I don’t want him to do you when he gets me. I couldn’t bear that after what you’ve done for me. One day I’ll be out there on my own and he’ll get me, just like he got the others. I’m a dead woman, Joseph.”
He felt impotent against such raw emotion, but his resolution did not fail. If he could save her, he would. “Don’t talk like that,” he said softly.
She knelt in his arms, weeping on his chest. “Hold me, my Joseph. Hold me and don’t you ever let go of me.”