A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper (24 page)

After filling out several forms and an application for relief, she joined a group of six other women. Following a lengthy wait in a small featureless room with benches along the walls, a matron in a black uniform gave them each a card. Polly saw that her own name had been written on the one she’d been given. The matron led them into a large room with a slate floor much like any public bathhouse. The room held ten gray metal troughs with a pipe poised above each one.

“Strip, and bathe,” the matron said. “Fold your clothing and place it on the shelf with the card I gave you on top.” She gestured toward a shelf at waist height along one wall. She turned a valve and water flowed from the ends of the pipes into the troughs. “Use plenty of soap.”

When done with washing, the women, one at a time, were required to stand in a small alcove while the matron doused them with a bitter smelling powder. They were each given a gray uniform, instructed to don it, and the woman in black led them to a high-ceilinged hallway with benches along the walls. Seated on the benches were other women in the same gray uniform.

“Have a seat and wait to see the doctor,” the matron said. She asked one of the women in Polly’s group to follow her and they passed through a threshold into another room.

Despite the rough fabric of her stiff uniform, Polly was grateful to feel warm, clean, and comfortable for the first time in a long while. Her fears continually tried to surface and take hold of her thoughts, but she pushed them back down.

One by one, the matron took each of the women through the threshold and brought them back. They didn’t seem the worse for it. When Polly’s turn came, she found on the other side of the threshold an odd-smelling room with gleaming cabinets filled with a strange assortment of instruments, glass containers, and books. A young medical officer stood beside a padded table in the middle of the floor. He was all business as he performed a quick examination of Polly. Then she was returned to the large hallway with the benches and told to take a seat.

Once all the women had seen the medical officer, the matron addressed them again. “If you are offered relief, your clothing will be washed and stored with your personal items until you leave.” As she spoke, her eyes came to rest on Polly.

For a moment, Polly thought the matron spoke to her alone. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll not be here for long.”

The matron glared, and the woman sitting next to Polly stifled a laugh.

What does she know that makes my words humorous?

“While here,” the matron continued, looking around at all the women, “you will earn your relief through labor. If you are not offered relief, your clothing and possessions will be returned to you this evening before you leave. Because you currently wear workhouse property, and will want your possessions returned, you must ask for permission to leave the premises. If you have other family members with us, they must leave with you.”

“Is permission ever denied?” a young woman asked. Her pale face, haggard with worry, was a mirror of Polly’s own concern.

“No,” the matron said impatiently, “but the process of release is a lengthy one.”

Polly wanted to ask how long the process took, but had not gathered the words to voice her question before the matron turned and left the room.

When Polly was a child of seven years, she noted that her Aunt Della always appeared troubled. She had a tendency to stare into the distance, even when there wasn’t anything to look at, and to become quiet and remote. On one occasion, Polly watched the woman slip into a more frightening state. Aunt Della’s eyes glazed over, her arms began to quake, and her fingers to twitch. Polly placed a hand on her aunt’s forearm to steady her. The woman cried out as if she’d been harmed. Aunt Della apologized for frightening Polly once she’d calmed down. Later, Polly told her mother, Caroline, about the incident. “My sister was in the workhouse for a time,” her mother said. Polly had asked what that was like, and Caroline merely shook her head and said no more about it. That had left too much to Polly’s young imagination.

If I stay, I’ll know what others have known
. The thought produced an uncomfortable rhythm in her breast.

Despite her dread, Polly’s experience of the workhouse so far had not been bad. Perhaps things had changed since her aunt had sought relief. Given the chance, the institution itself might convince her that the old stories were tall tales.

I have nothing and nowhere to go. If they accept me, they’ll feed me and keep me warm. But at what price?

As the moments stretched on, she tried to decide whether to wait or attempt to flee.

While she waited, she hoped her application would be rejected.

32

The Workhouse

At the beginning of 1883, Polly had been in the workhouse for nine months. She spent her days at labor, sewing or picking oakum, the latter task the more unpleasant of the two. While seated on a hard bench for hours on end, she unraveled tarry rope that had been cut into one-foot lengths. The monotonous toil left her hands with sore joints, and with tender skin, constantly cracked, and bleeding. She suffered severe back and joint pain until her body settled into the routine, after which she endured with a permanent dull ache in her spine.

Yet the workhouse wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. Older inmates explained that changes over the years had brought improvements to the institution. Although a dull, lifeless place, filled with hopeless and disheartening faces, the labor wasn’t so different from the piece work she’d done so much of in the past, and the environment had given her stability of a sort, and a respite from the drama and apprehension of her life. Having had little to drink for several years, alcohol had little power over her, though the craving had not left her entirely. She missed Tom, her father, and her children. Telling herself that what she endured was worthwhile, Polly had stayed longer than she’d thought she would, perhaps out of a sense that she owed penance for having abandoned her children.

For all that, in early March of 1883, the relentless monotony of life in the workhouse seemed to catch up with her and the place felt increasingly like a prison. Despite the impression of being imprisoned, Polly knew she could leave at any time with reasonable notice to the staff. She knew she missed out on life every minute she remained, but at first she fought the desire to leave.

The mindless daily labor gave her too much time to think. Polly visited again the fantasies of reckless behavior she’d had in her youth, those of becoming a pickpocket, a palmer, or a highwayman, and her favorite fancy of becoming drunk and running naked through the streets. The appearance of Mr. Macklin chasing her in the daydream discouraged her little. Her urge for drink had risen up and quickly became insistent.

She couldn’t help imagining a new life on the outside. Surely Papa did well enough again that he’d help her out until she found a way to earn her keep. Finding work would take time, and Polly knew she’d want to drink right away. Again, she considered prostitution. Her monthly curse had ceased to visit long ago, so she had little fear of pregnancy. She thought through imagined scenarios of her approach to men as clients, the sexual acts they might get up to, what might happen, and how she’d respond. Even those imagined transactions with abusive clients seemed life worth living compared to her current drab existence.

By the end of March, she’d made up her mind. She wrote to her father, and began the process of release from the Lambeth Workhouse.

* * *

Papa took her in.

Polly immediately set out to earn what she needed to have a drink. Having repaired her clothing as best she could, she looked for a good spot from which to solicit, one near Papa’s room, yet not so close that he would likely happen by.

Polly took up a position out front of the Hour Glass pub at the corner of Queen’s Row and Westmoreland Road. She feared that as soon as she felt vulnerable, the child within her would demand protection again. A man, on his way into the establishment, jeered at Polly and made obscene gestures. The girl did emerge within Polly’s mind, but seemed to stand naked and unabashed, her dignity having withered away. The child had lost her innocence. What troubled Polly most about the loss was how quickly she turned her thoughts away from it.

The first man to respond readily to her overtures was a drunken fellow emerging from the pub. A laborer of some sort, he seemed even-tempered and relatively clean.

“You’ve little experience,” he said. “I can tell. For what I want, I have a threpney bit.”

Polly knew she could get a glass of gin, a full quartern, for three pence. “Yes,” she said.

Her client took her to the small paved yard beside the pub and pushed her up against a stack of crates against one wall. He got her skirts up, began rubbing his penis in the cleft of her backside and quickly spilled his seed without penetration. Polly thought that easy money.

The next client took her while inside the busy Horsely Tavern at midday. He’d surprised and delighted her when he paid the fee for a drinking box. She thought he intended to feed her a meal or buy her drinks before they found a secluded spot elsewhere to complete their transaction. He reached under her skirts as soon as they sat down in the booth. With the opening to the drinking box two feet wide and the walls barely five feet tall, she feared they’d be seen. When he began choking her, she
hoped
the patrons saw and stopped them. Polly tried to cry out. He applied enough pressure to prevent that, and let up periodically so she could catch a breath. He penetrated her vagina while struggling to keep her on the bench-like seat.

Thankfully, he found release faster than her last client. When done, he sat up, put his clothing back together, promptly paid her, and left. Polly pushed her skirts back down and exited the tavern. She’d got much worse violence from her own family before. Still, the experience had upset her so much she immediately found a pub, and spent most of what she’d earned on a glass of gin.

With time, she maintained her intoxication well enough that she ceased to care what sort of man she found or what he did to her.

* * *

“If you’re going to drink like that,” Papa said when she came in late, stumbling drunk, “I needn’t give up my bed for you. Tonight you sleep in the army cot.”

He’d borrowed the decrepit contraption from a neighbor three weeks earlier when Polly had come to stay with him. During the first week, she’d made an effort to sober up before returning to Papa’s room at night. Once she understood that he knew she was drinking, she’d dropped all pretense.

“I can’ sleep in ’at t’ing,” she slurred.

“If it’s good enough for a Royal Army officer, it’s good enough for you.”

Polly grumbled, yet lay down on the thing. She wiggled restlessly trying to get comfortable and the cot collapsed. She lay in the wreckage, unwilling to get up. Papa made no move to help her.

* * *

The following Sunday, while Polly nursed a bad hangover and Papa glowered and cursed her, she decided that if she offered him some of the money she’d earned to help pay for food and lodging, he might treat her better.

“I don’t want your tarnished coin,” he said. “I don’t know where you’re getting your money, and I suspect you wouldn’t be proud for me to know.”

“I’m working at the Ellis Shirt Manufacturers,” she lied. “I’ve done piece work for them. Now I have a position.”

“A flam not worth the breath it took,” Papa said, giving her a look of disgust. “I don’t believe you, girl. I know you
too
well.”

“What have I ever done to you to deserve such mistrust?”

Papa merely shook his head.

Though she knew full well the answer, she preferred to play innocent. “You have no sympathy for me?” Polly cried. “I’ve worked hard all my life, and for what? I worked hard for you when I were young, and what did you give me for it? A beating if I complained. And what do I have now?”

“You have what your lies have got you. You have a demon after you.”

Polly swung her fists at Papa. He dodged out of the way. She went at him again, and he shoved her. She fell into a heap on the floor.

“I’m sorry to say you’re no good. I want you to find other lodgings right away,” he said, “and be gone tomorrow.”

“I will, and gladly!” Polly shouted.

She exited the room and walked along Maydwell Street toward the Surrey Canal, her anger slowly subsiding. Polly recognized her words to her father as a shameful sign of ingratitude. Thinking of the times Papa had saved her from Bill’s abuse only made her feel worse. One more night with him, she decided, and then she’d find a room of her own and leave him in peace.

* * *

Stumbling home drunk late that night she fell by the side of Albany Road. At first, she wasn’t willing to get up. Then she thought of the cot, which Papa had repaired, and how much more comfortable that would be than the gritty stone footway. She got to her feet and made her way home. As usual, she banged on the door for her father to let her in.

She’d become insensible on the doorstep by the time he opened the door. He grumbled several curses at her and got into his bed. She went in, and collapsed on the cot.

In the night, Polly awoke with a need to visit the privy. Locating the box of matches and the lamp on the bedside table, she lit the candle within, then moved out through the back door and into the facility.