A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper (25 page)

Sometime later, she found herself asleep, still sitting on the pot, and didn’t know how long she’d been there. The candle still burned in the lamp on the seat beside her.

She took up the lamp and made her way back inside. Lying down on the cot, she felt as if the life drained from her limbs by the moment. She reached out to set the lamp on the table and let go of it. A metal clang reached her ears, but curiosity didn’t grip her. Her eyes had already closed. Blessed sleep waited just beyond.

* * *

Papa shrieked and began to wail. Polly opened her eyes to see bright flames licking at his bed clothes. She got up and threw her blanket onto the fire. Her father scrambled to escape on the other side of the bed.

Polly’s blanket burned.

Papa got the padlock off the front door and they tumbled out into the street crying repeatedly, “Fire!” He ran back in, and Polly watched as he lifted first the ewer and then the basin on the cabinet beside the window and threw water from them onto the flames.

Neighbors on either side came out of their rooms. Some carried vessels that held water. They approached the doorway to Papa’s room and handed the vessels to him one at a time. Within a few minutes the fire was out. Some of the neighbors began to retreat back into their homes, while others stood around watching and talking. They looked at Polly, who stood by, watching dully. Despite the thick cloud of her intoxication, the meaning of their stares got through to her, and the shame became all-consuming. Briefly, she thought she saw a set of glowing red eyes, watching her from the onlookers. When Polly tried to get a better look, they were gone. She crouched down on the pavement, her arms draped over her head, and watched for her father.

Blackened, he finally emerged from his room. The hair had burned off the left side of his head and left the skin an angry red. The damage made his expression all the more fierce as he walked straight to Polly, lifted her by the collar, and struck her in the face several times.

* * *

Polly awoke in a bed in a strange room, perhaps that of one of her father’s neighbors. She discovered an aching new gap in her teeth.

She got up, looked around, and found no one in the chamber. Daylight came through the window. The door was unlocked, and Polly walked out.

Shame and grief snapping at her heels, Polly fled back to the Lambeth Workhouse.

33

Bargaining

Polly had been in the workhouse for less than a month when she received a post from Tom Dews.

Dear Polly,

Please forgive me. I left because I was harmful to you. I believed your father would take you in. After talking with him, I know I was wrong.

I drink in moderation now and am working every day at the Spratling Smithy in King and Queen Street. I have not been drunk in a year. I crave your company more than ever, whether you drink with me or not.

You cannot be happy in the workhouse. Please consider coming to me at your earliest convenience. I have a room at 22 Morecombe Street. If you will keep house for me, I will earn enough for us both and you will not need employment.

My neighbor, Mr. Frederick Barnes, has kindly written this for me to you.

Yours, with deep affection,

Tom Dews

Polly didn’t know if she should trust Tom any more than she trusted herself, yet the workhouse had already worn her down again and she wanted out. Despite the shaming experience she’d recently had with her father, her desire for alcohol had not gone away and she knew that she would eventually drink again.

She remembered the times she and Tom had had on Jane Street, how he’d set the example in how much to drink and she’d not exceeded that standard. If he had returned to that discipline—if she could return with him to that discipline—Polly felt she might learn to live again.

Better to drink with one who cares for me than to do it alone.

* * *

Tom welcomed her to his room on Morecombe Street rather formally, his approach to the reunion sober and deliberate rather than jubilant. The room held the usual items: a rope bed with straw mattress, a wardrobe, a cabinet, with basin, ewer, and chamber pot, and a table and chairs. He had organized his possessions and cleaned the surfaces in his room, all of them swept and dusted. The effort won her heart.

For supper Tom had boiled a chicken and then reduced the liquid to a rich, concentrated broth. He toasted bread, and they dipped the slices into the chicken reduction.

Tom offered her a drink of whiskey which she declined. Although she knew she would drink again, Polly wasn’t ready. With full stomachs they eventually found their way to his bed. His touch remained the same, warm and caring. Polly let go of her sordid past, at least for a time, and allowed herself to love and be loved.

* * *

After that first night, Polly took over the cooking and housekeeping.

She wasn’t able to keep her past at arm’s length for long. Certain incidents haunted her: having asked God to take the life of a child in her womb, abandoning her children, setting fire to her father’s home, and her years-long dishonesty toward Bill. Burning guilt from all the wretched things she’d done while drunk kept her from wanting to drink again. Tom extended the invitation whenever he took a drink. True to his word, he drank in moderation, and never insisted that she join him. Still, believing her abstinence disappointed him, Polly kept a slight emotional distance between them.

“We aren’t the same, Polly dear,” he said one early spring evening in 1884, after they had been together for close to a year. “I long for a return to what we had on Jane Street.”

“Yes,” she said sadly.

“If you had a drink with me—a daffy would do it—I’m certain we’d find ourselves again.”

“A daffy would just make me ill-tempered. I always want more.”

“As do I, yet we have each other, and in the past that were enough to keep us on the straight and narrow.”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid of drink. Give me more time.”

Tom nodded, and dropped the subject.

* * *

In late summer of 1885, enough time had elapsed since Polly had set fire to her father’s home that she was able to consider the incident without too much pain. Examining several more of her dishonorable acts, she discovered that the shame of them burned less acutely as well. With that realization, on August 27, the day following her true birthday, she knew her desire for drink wouldn’t be held back much longer. Polly decided she’d wait to have a drink with Tom until the evening of August 31, the date her childhood friends, Martha Combs, Sarah Brown, and Bernice Godwin, had given her as a substitute birthday.

In her mind’s eye, Mr. Macklin took a draft from the bottle chained around his neck to toast her decision to drink.

You’ll have no cause to trouble me,
she told him,
for I’ll drink in moderation.

On the evening of the 31st, she assured herself that she would go slowly as she had a small glass of gin with Tom. With the drink in her, she lost all reticence, and the distance between them melted away. They laughed and talked for a long while and then went to bed.

“You were right,” she told Tom after they had made love. “I haven’t felt so close to you since I came here.”

* * *

As 1885 finished out and 1886 progressed, Polly’s drinking increased steadily until her consumption matched Tom’s.

In June, word came from her father that her brother, Eddie, had been involved in a paraffin lamp explosion. He had burned to death. Polly and Tom bought new clothes and attended the funeral. She spoke to her father graveside once most of the mourners had left.

“I’m sorry to say I hadn’t seen Eddie in over twenty years,” she said.

“He were happy, I think,” Papa said.

Polly felt awkward. She wanted to tell her father how sorry she was for setting his home ablaze, yet couldn’t think of a good way to broach the subject. Relief came as Tom approached.

“You’ve met Tom,” she said.

“Yes, while you were away. Good evening, Mr. Dews.”

“Good evening to you, sir.”

Papa turned back to Polly. “I think he’s done you some good. You look well.”

She knew he meant that she didn’t look and act like a drunk.

“Thank you,” she said. “You do too.” She was glad to see that the burn he’d received that terrible night hadn’t left a permanent scar.

Papa gave her a kiss on the cheek before saying goodbye. For some reason, she couldn’t feel it.

* * *

By 1887, Polly and Tom whiled away most nights drunkenly, and she would sleep late each day, neglecting the housekeeping.

Tom said little about her shirking for a long time, yet in the autumn, the problem began to come between them.

“You aren’t doing your part,” he said. “I work hard for us both, and you have little to do.”

“I toil long hours,” Polly said, putting on more outrage than she felt, “keeping our dunnage washed, the larder full, and preparing your meals.”

“Yes, but you do not sweep. Slops are not cleared away completely. Pots and dishes are left crusted with spoiled food. The floor has not been scrubbed for months. The room reeks of the filth caught in the corners. My clothes fall apart and aren’t mended.”

“Perhaps you should buy
new
clothes.”

“You do not earn a wage. You cannot tell me what I should buy.”

“You aren’t my husband! With our agreement, I’m not expected to earn a wage.”

“Please,” Tom said, lowering his voice, “we’re talking about the housekeeping.”

Polly didn’t want to fight. She relaxed and let go of her anger. “I’ll try harder.”

* * *

With the drinking at night, Polly awoke late in the day, hungover and too tired to do her work. She found relief from hangover, as well as some extra vitality, in daytime drinking. Since Tom gave her money to do the shopping, which included buying alcohol, and he didn’t ask for an accurate accounting of funds, Polly easily hid extra spending on gin. She kept a small supply on hand that Tom didn’t know about, hidden in the new boots she’d bought to attend Eddie’s funeral.

With a glass of gin in the morning, her pain went away, her spirits rose, and, with the short-term energy alcohol gave her, she became motivated to work. Knowing that inevitably her mood would drop quickly once the high began to fade, she hurried around, trying to get as much done as she could. Even on the way down, though, the residual effects of intoxication helped her to care less about not completing her housework.

In brief lucid moments, Polly felt deep shame, but horribly, her selfish, compelling need drove her like a taskmaster. She found the experience frightening, yet couldn’t seem to turn from her course.

Polly ate less and drank more, remaining sodden with alcohol, day and night.

34

The Lush

Polly awakened to Tom’s voice. He pulled his hammer from his belt and set the tool on the floor before crouching down beside her.

She’d become sore lying on the hard floorboards. How long had she been there?

“Polly, you’re drinking away everything we have,” Tom said.

She remained groggy and intoxicated from the gin she’d had earlier.

“I found the bottle of gin you hid in your gallies. I know you’ve been drinking in the daytime. I’d hoped if I treated you well and gave you time to do as you pleased, you’d get over whatever troubles you, and things would get better.”

Polly didn’t listen carefully. She needed another drink
right away
to soothe her aching head.

“I’m sorry I asked you to drink with me,” Tom said, shaking his head. “Now I must take it away.”

“No!” Alarmed, Polly had a burst of energy and sat bolt upright, then grabbed her head as if to hold her skull from breaking apart.

Tom got up slowly.

She had no time to reason with him. Polly picked his hammer up off the floor, and quickly found her feet. She caught up with him as he moved to the table where they left the bottle they shared. The threat was clear. Tom reached for the gin. She had to stop him.

Polly brought the hammer down on his fingers.

Tom cried out, cradling his hand. Blood ran from between his fingers as he toppled over onto the floor, howling in pain.

Polly stepped back, and dropped the hammer. Horrified and instantly sober, she hurried toward him.

“Get away,” he cried and thrust out his left arm in defense, inadvertently striking her in the face. Polly shrieked as the blow bowled her over backwards.

She found her feet quickly and turned back to him. “I don’t know what happened,” she said.

“You broke my fingers!”

Polly tried to move toward him again. She stopped as he glared at her. Blood dripped from her nose onto her chemise.