The Anatomy of Death (29 page)

Derwent pouted and played the aggrieved party. “But you’ve given me no time to defend my actions. And besides, I have other suggestions for your campaign that might interest you.”

“You’ve already told me that you have no interest in the cause.”

“True, my own cause is at the top of my priorities. But any kind of thorn in the side of the British government suits me, no matter how small. There are several strategies we have not discussed, strategies that pose no more danger to the perpetrator than a stiff fine.” He tilted his head to the door, urging his brother on his errand.

“Well, are you coming or not?” Patrick said to Florence.

Again Derwent answered before she had a chance to reply. “Be off, man. I’ve said I’ll walk her to the station.”

With a shrug, Patrick farewelled Florence, picked up the jug, and grabbed his coat. Soon his heavy footsteps on the stairs were rattling the thin tenement walls.

Florence’s common sense told her to call out to Patrick, make him wait for her, but she found a heavy mist clouding her mind as thick as the fog that had descended on the London streets earlier that evening. It was the alcohol clouding her judgement, she knew, but she didn’t care.
This must be how Dody’s patients feel after being given an anaesthetic
, she thought. Awake yet oblivious to the operation being performed.

The room was cosy and her lids heavy. She still had plenty of time for the tube at Mark Lane, and she didn’t doubt that Derwent would see her safely there. She had put him in his place, had she not? Shown him who was boss. And besides, she
was
interested in hearing what he had to say that might give the cause more publicity.

He moved to a set of rough-planked shelves in one of the room’s dark recesses and returned with a half-empty bottle of Irish whiskey. Pulling the cork with his teeth, he moved to fill Florence’s empty glass, but she covered it with her hand before
the first drop fell. Not all her common sense had deserted her, she was pleased to note.

“You enjoyed it enough with the ale, why not try some on its own?” Derwent said.

Florence’s jaw dropped. “You put that in my ale?”

“Only a drop, just to sweeten it up a trifle.”

“In that case, no thank you, I’ve had enough,” she said with indignation.
You should never mix your drinks
—it was one of the many instructions her mother had given her before her first season out, and one of the few society rules she’d ever thought worth sticking to. She had no desire to make a spectacle of herself in public.

“Suit yourself.” Derwent took a pull from the bottle, shovelled a few pieces of coal onto the fire, and dragged another crate alongside hers.

She shot him a wary look.

“You wouldn’t deny a man the warmth of his own—well, his cousin’s—fire, would you?” He moved the crate closer still.

“No,” Florence answered primly. “Provided that is all you are doing.”

He made the sign of the cross. “Upon my mother’s grave.”

“Patrick implied that your mother was still very much alive.” She let the matter drop. “You suggested you had some other ideas that might draw attention to our cause.”

“Oh, yes, so I did.” Derwent laughed. He’d been doing a lot of laughing since her arrival, and Florence wondered how long he’d been drinking.

“Well …” He paused to take another swig of whiskey, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Have you thought about violating public property?”

Florence delved into her cloudy thoughts. “We pull slates
from roofs, damage politicians’ cars—that sort of thing. And you know about the golf course—where rich and influential men play to the exclusion of women.”

Derwent slapped his knees and guffawed. “And who in hell—”

“Language, please.”

“I do beg your ladyship’s pardon.” Derwent began again, “Who the dickens cares about what happens to politicians’ cars excepting the politicians themselves? Or the privileged few who can afford to play golf. You need to find ways to reach the ordinary workingman.” He pulled his beard as he thought. “I know, how about one of yous shinning up Nelson’s Column and putting a suffragette bonnet on the esteemed hero’s head?”

Florence could not contain herself. The laughter began in her belly and spread through her body until she was shaking with it.

Derwent laughed, too. “Or daub some priceless work of art with streaks of white, green, and purple. Or put a corset around the waist of Prince Albert in the park—that kind of thing?”

Florence almost doubled up. Derwent slapped her on the back like he would a chum in a bar, rocking back and forth on his crate.

“Yes, very amusing,” Florence said when she had recovered. “Though I cannot see how this especially affects the ordinary workingman—or woman. Did you know, Derwent, that more than eighty percent of the women in England are workingwomen? And men have the temerity to tell us we should stay in our homes!”

Derwent ignored her words. “You should take life a little less seriously, Florence McCleland,” he said. “You’re very
beautiful as it is, but when you laugh, the world is a better place for it.”

He moved towards her and at once she got to her feet. “It’s time for me to leave,” she said soberly, trying to restore some of her dignity. If only the room would stop spinning.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Derwent said. “I’m not that sort, despite what people say. But any man would weaken if he saw your face as I did just then, glowing in the firelight.” He reached for her hand and kissed it. Before she knew it, he was doing the same to her lips, pressing his body into hers, making her aware of every contour of his hard-muscled physique. Her body responded to his with a pleasant ache and a quiver she had not felt for a long time.

But since the poet, Florence McCleland had vowed never to let a man touch her with passionate intent again. No nun took her vows more seriously than Florence did the guiding principles of the cause, especially those pertaining to purity and dignity. She pushed him away. “Stop!”

He stepped back as if doused with cold water. “Florence, please—you can’t do that to a man!”

“I can and I will. I will find my way to the station now, alone, thank you very much. That’s twice you’ve proved that you are not to be trusted.”

He moved to grab her, but Florence moved faster. She lunged for the whiskey bottle and smashed it against the mantelpiece. Holding the jagged remains by the neck, she feinted towards him. He backed off, his eyes never leaving the splintered bottle, and raised his palms. “Don’t be a fool, Florence. A woman of your station won’t survive out there on the streets alone at night.”

“I made it here, didn’t I? I think I’ve proved that I’m quite capable of looking after myself. And I’m sure I’ll be a lot safer alone on the streets than I would be with you.”

And then she reminded herself of the other guiding principle of the suffragettes. Hope.

F
lorence hesitated at the tenement entrance, peering across the yard through the grainy darkness of the alley. Damp, sooty air stung her cheeks and chilled the tip of her nose. A sleeping drunk who had been huddled in the building’s doorway when she arrived was still there.

He stirred, and Florence tightened her grasp on the broken bottleneck. But after unfolding one bleary eye, the man stared vacantly at her for a moment, then rolled over and began to snore once more.

Her heartbeat calmed. She dropped the jagged bottleneck into her beaded reticule and stepped over the man and into the yard. A few brisk steps took her through the alley to the arch connecting it to the street. Once more she paused, propped her umbrella against the wall, and worked her fingers into her gloves. She gazed nervously around her. In places the fog had lifted. There was activity in the High Street, where before
there had been none.
You must appear confident, even if you are not.
That was what she always told the Bloomsbury group before a mission. She turned up the collar of her coat, adjusted her feathered hat to a jaunty angle, and stepped out.

A man struggled along on the other side of the road, hunched over a barrow jammed with household items. In the dim light she made out a protruding chair back and what looked like the legs of an upturned table. The man was heading in the same direction as she, and he walked with a purpose; he did not seem drunk or looking for trouble. She would follow close behind, she decided, so he might provide protection if necessary. With any luck, she might even find a cab before she reached the station.

Her low-heeled boots clacked on the pavement.

After a few paces the man slowed and glanced over his shoulder at her. “Piss orf. I ain’t interested.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Acting the toff won’t work eiver—I said piss orf.”

“Oh, no, you’ve got me quite wrong. All I wanted to do was follow you to the station. I mean you no harm.”

“Women, nuffink but pests.” He spat on the ground. “Ya fink I wanna be saddled wiv anuvver when I only just got shot o’ the last? You fink I’m pushin’ around me worldly possessions for the fun of it? I’m lookin’ for a new gaff, that’s what I’m doin’. Na piss off or you’ll be sorry.”

How typical; the first sober man she encountered had to be a misogynist. “Ignore me, then,” she called back. “I don’t care. I’ll just follow a short distance behind—”

Something flew through the air, cutting off her words and splattering into her face. She gagged; spat warm globs from her mouth. With the back of her hand she wiped her lips—it
was fresh horse dung. “Horrible man!” she screamed after him, shaking her umbrella.

The barrow trundled on to the sound of bitter laughter. Damn him and all his kind! He would probably call in at the next public house and recount the hilarity of his encounter at her expense.

That set her thinking. Derwent had sent his brother to the White Hart. Perhaps he was still there. Patrick would see her safely to the station.

There were plenty of pubs around. Almost every street corner in this part of London sported a drinking or gambling establishment of one kind or another. But she knew the White Hart would have to be convenient for the brothers to fill their ale jug.

She doubled back down Whitechapel Road and spotted the White Hart’s illuminated sign almost immediately, a white stag’s head against a blue background. The pub stood among a line of dreary terraced shops on the High Street, a stone’s throw from the alley leading to Derwent’s lodgings.

The name of the pub, the White Hart, had been repeating itself in her mind since Derwent had mentioned it, and she couldn’t think why it seemed so oddly familiar. Other than a few sheltered visits to Olivia’s soup kitchen, she had never been to this part of London before, though she did know it by reputation. It was an area of the utmost deprivation and depravity, where even the police were loath to venture.

Florence needed all her wits and courage to overcome the next challenge. A group of laughing, shoving people spilled into the street outside the pub. She negotiated her way along the bumpy pavement towards them, took a deep breath, and pushed her way through the narrow door and into the smoky interior.

The Hart was a crowded, stinking place, packed with hardened drinkers of both sexes. As she elbowed her way towards the bar, she noticed how emaciated many of the men were, how they leered at her through hungry eyes. The women wore an abundance of paint and laughed lewdly and loudly, exposing gapped teeth and shuddering bosoms. It was hard to imagine Patrick O’Neill drinking in a place like this—Derwent yes, but not Patrick.

Finally she reached the publican, who was struggling to pull the ale fast enough to keep up with demand. He seemed the only sober person in her vicinity, his face flushed with the effort of providing for his thirsty customers and not from the liquor itself. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can you help me? I’m looking for an Irishman named Patrick O’Neill.”

The publican ignored Florence in favour of a woman standing next to her, as round as she was tall. “No more for you, Nelly,” he said. “Not till you pay for that last one.”

“Ow, come on na, Bill, give us some tick. You can’t ’spect me to go out in the street on a night like this.” She put a skinny, pleading hand out to the publican and Florence realised that the woman only appeared rotund because of the multiple layers of clothing she wore; perhaps it was all she possessed. “Besides,” Nelly added, “ol’ Jack loved nights like this—I wouldn’t be safe.”

The publican pressed his finger to his lips. “Hush, Nelly, talk of the Ripper don’t do trade no good at all.”

“Give us anuvver then and I’ll keep me mouf shut!”

The barman poured Nelly another gin and then answered Florence’s question.

“Patrick O’Neill, you say? He left a while back, miss.” He looked her up and down, wiped his hands on his grimy apron. “Now if I was you, I’d get my chauffer to drive me straight
on ’ome. Jack the Ripper ’asn’t been up to ’is tricks for twenty years now, but there’s plenty of others about ’opin’ to take ’is place, mark my words.”

Nelly cackled and nudged Florence with her elbow. “Jill the Rippers, too—watch out for them threads of yours, your ladyship, there’s some out there wouldn’t fink nuffink of cutting yer froat for that fancy coat. Do what Bill says, ducks, and go on ’ome.”

Easier said than done, Florence thought, panic rising. And as if on cue, quick, bony fingers began to tug at the silky pockets of her sealskin coat. “Oh, please leave me alone,” she pleaded, trying in vain to brush the fingers away.

I
t should have been a ten-minute walk from Aldgate Station to O’Neill’s lodgings, but both Dody and Pike had trouble negotiating the rutted pavements and crooked cobbles, and it was more like twenty minutes before they reached their destination. The George Yard building was a tall, red-bricked tenement accessed from the High Street through a brick arch and then a small alleyway.

They stopped in the yard outside the tenement and stared up at the dimly flickering windows. “I can’t believe Florence came here on her own,” Dody said, unsure which was the stronger emotion accompanying the fear she felt for her sister: intense anger or incredulous admiration.