A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper (28 page)

At the end of the prayer, Polly added her voice to the others, “In the name of Christ. Amen.” Then she rose and followed those moving between the tables to the women’s stairs that led down to the women’s yard, a paved rectangle under the open sky, bordered on two sides by blocks of the workhouse dormitories, and on the remaining two sides by high stone walls.

Dumps Alice waited as usual in the corner of the yard where the two blocks came together. Instead of the workhouse uniform worn by the inmates, the young woman wore a ragged gray-blue linsey skirt that had probably once been indigo, a stained brown woolen shawl, and a wilted gray bonnet. She seemed to move somewhat more freely in and out of the workhouse than did the other inmates, trading her wares: bits of mirror, candle ends, matches, and sundry dumps. When Polly had stayed in the Strand Workhouse, she’d seen Alice coming and going from there as well. She either had agreements with the matrons or masters of both institutions or with the governors of those poor law unions. Her trade wouldn’t earn her enough for a significant bribe, however. Polly assumed that, like so many of the desperate scavengers of London, the woman barely eked out an existence.

While in the Strand Workhouse, Polly had asked another inmate, Grace Feldman, about the woman. “Don’t talk about her,” Grace had said. “She does nothing but good. She might be a
tramp major
.”

“A tramp major?” Polly said.

“Some vagrants are given shelter for a different service. I don’t know what task she’s given, but she doesn’t have to labor as we do.”

When Polly approached, Dumps Alice didn’t look up. The woman kept her face always downcast, in angle as well as expression. She further hunched her already stooped shoulders. Locks of limp, oily brown hair, having escaped the confines of her bonnet and the tight bun at the back of her head, stuck to her forehead and neck.

“I have three buttons,” Polly said. “I should like to trade for cigar or cigarette ends, if you have them?”

Without a word, Alice rifled through the dusty, stained sack which hung from her left shoulder.

Polly had plucked the buttons from garments in the laundry. She had worked many times in the laundry and noted that buttons frequently went missing. Even if she got caught, who would know she hadn’t found the buttons lying on the floor somewhere? Still, her small theft, committed for the best of reasons, qualified as a refractory offense within the workhouse. Polly considered the possibility of punishment worth the risk to see Mary Ann Monk’s craving for tobacco satisfied, if only for a short time.

Alice and Polly made their exchange simultaneously, palming their goods to one another. Polly received one cigar end and that of a cigarette. She turned away, satisfied that her day had begun with a good deed.

* * *

Following the afternoon work period, as Polly headed to the privy, the Porter, Mr. Overguard, approached. “Come with me,” he commanded. Although startled and apprehensive, Polly had no thought to refuse him. A solid boulder of a fellow, he had a stout frame and slabs of hard muscle, black hair, heavy brow and deep-set eyes. She’d imagined that the reason his clothing always looked so threadbare was that it suffered from abrading against his skin. He conducted her to the office of Mrs. Fielder, the old, white-haired Matron. Seeing Dumps Alice seated within the chamber, Polly knew the young woman had told of their trade.

Mrs. Fielder rose from her desk and began a search through Polly’s clothing. She found only loose strands of pitch-streaked oakum, leftover from the afternoon’s labor. “Where is the tobacco?” Mrs. Fielder asked. Her brow arched high, stretching the translucent skin of her eyelids so thin that Polly seemed to see past the architecture of the eyes to the deep sockets of the old woman’s skull. She shuddered to release the vision.

“I dropped it when I saw the Porter coming for me,” she answered, then added quickly, “I’m certain someone else has found it by now.”

Mr. Overguard shoved Polly into a chair beside Alice.

Mrs. Fielder stood over the two inmates and looked at Polly. “I should think you might find
one
or as many as
two
buttons of the same type, but
three?
There is no doubt in my mind as you took them from the laundry.”

She turned to Dumps Alice. The young woman didn’t look up. “Watching through a window of the women’s dayroom,” Mrs. Fielder said, “I
saw
the exchange.”

The Matron had known of the trade, yet had waited until the end of the afternoon work period to administer discipline. At least Polly had been able to give the cigar and cigarette ends to Mary Ann Monk before the work period commenced.

Turning back to Polly, Mrs. Fielder said, “I could have charges brought for destruction or theft of workhouse property what could have you in prison.”

Polly tried to imagine the suffering in prison. The punishment must be worse than what she experienced in the workhouse, but she couldn’t quite imagine how. Still, there would be a lot of people there, some of them innocent, that she might help. Surely, they were in greater need of good deeds than those in the workhouse. Polly would deserve whatever she got, her suffering a worthwhile sacrifice for the help she’d given to Mary Ann.

“Since this is your first serious offense, however—” The Matron turned away, became silent for a time as she looked out the window into the Girl’s Yard. “—each of you shall have two meals withheld and spend a day in a refractory cell.”

She turned to Mr. Overguard. “Take them to the cellar and place them in the cells at opposite ends so they cannot speak to one another.”

The Porter walked them out, through two halls, past the women’s dayroom, and the kitchen to the gloomy stairs that led down into the damp darkness of the stone cellar. Mr. Overguard lit a lamp hung beside the door at the head of the stairs, took it in his left hand, and led the way, glancing back to make sure his charges followed. Polly had been in the cellar before on errands for the kitchen. She suffered no fear. Nor, apparently, did Dumps Alice.

At the bottom of the stairs, the Porter opened a stout wooden door. “In you go,” he said to Alice. She entered without complaint and he shut the door and slid a bolt into place to lock her in.

Polly and Mr. Overguard walked on for some distance, making their way past the covered bins of vegetables for the kitchen, an area of discarded furniture and other household castoffs from the live-in staff, and shelves filled with dusty boxes of written records. A periodic sound of scurrying betrayed the presence of rodents. The Porter batted cobwebs out of their path. As they passed another cell, Polly heard a sound of movement coming from behind the stout wooden door.

She followed Mr. Overguard into a section of the cellar that she had never seen, where a part of the stone foundation had given way and allowed a small cascade of debris to enter the chamber. An open bin filled with mildewed gray rag, no doubt made from old workhouse uniforms, stood against the stone wall. Numerous buttons, like those she’d traded for tobacco ends, littered the floor around the bin.

Finally they came to another cell. The door stood open and Polly stepped around the Porter and entered. Mr. Overguard stared at her curiously, holding the light out to get a better look. She used the opportunity to look at the cell, knowing there would be no light once he left. Polly saw a worn wooden pallet against the sweaty stone wall and a stained bucket on the dirt floor.

“I’ll bring water,” the Porter said as he shut the door and slid the bolt into place.

She had never known such complete darkness.
I might just as well have been dropped into a giant pot of black ink.
Polly waved her hand before her eyes, but couldn’t see it. She felt for the pallet and sat on its edge.

Still, she remained unafraid. Somehow, she’d got what she’d wanted.

What might Mrs. Hooks think if she could see me now?

Of all the sacrifices she’d made for others in the workhouse, her current punishment seemed most proper. To suffer for performing a good deed was what she’d needed all along, what she most deserved. If the situation felt so right, then surely God looked upon her favorably.

Feeling contented, Polly lay back on the hard wooden pallet and slept.

38

A Position

Upon her release the next day, Mr. Overguard took Polly to the Matron’s office.

“I gave you the minimum punishment, Mrs. Nichols,” the woman said, “because I know you’ve been a generous and helpful presence here. I now offer you an opportunity, and I hope you’ll not make a fool of me.”

“No, ma’am.” Polly didn’t want to be given anything. She didn’t deserve a gift of any sort, but she kept that opinion to herself while she listened.

“The Clerk of Works for the police headquarters in Wandsworth, Mr. Cowdrey and his wife, Sarah, are looking for a domestic servant, and I’ve suggested they consider you for the position. You would have room and board. You’d cook and clean and do the shopping for wages of three and ten pence per week.”

Polly frowned. She had no desire to help those who didn’t truly need. That would do her soul no good.

“Don’t you want the position?” Mrs. Fielder asked with a scowl. “You would turn your nose up at a warm bed and more than three shillings? When I suggested you might go to prison yesterday, you had a better response.”

Polly did remember her desire to help those in prison, and with the memory came an idea. If she took the position and then robbed Mr. Cowdrey, he’d surely have her arrested and sent to prison where she might do more good.

“Please, excuse me, Mrs. Fielder,” she said. “If I have a sour look, it’s because my stomach is unsettled. Yes, the position would be most welcome. I’m very grateful you thought of me.”

The matron seemed satisfied. “They are well-respected members of their community, they are religious, and they are teetotalers, so there shall be no drinking in their home. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mrs. Fielder, I do.” At least while with the Cowdreys, Polly would not be tempted with drink. Pleased with the turn of events and the plan she formed, Polly smile quietly to herself, careful not to allow the matron to see her eagerness.

* * *

The Cowdrey home, a modest brick building with gardens in front and back, looked cozy in its middle-class neighborhood of new homes. When Polly arrived in the early evening of May 12, 1888, both Samuel and Sarah Cowdrey answered her knock upon their door. They were a gray-haired couple maybe ten years older than she, Mrs. Cowdrey a little plump and Mr. Cowdrey thin and stoop-shouldered.

“Please come in, Mrs. Nichols,” Mr. Cowdrey said. “Welcome to our home.”

“Thank you,” Polly said as she stepped inside, carrying a small travel bag with her few possessions. The interior, not the least bit fancy, had plain furnishings. Aromas of simple foods hung in the air. The walls and woodwork had a fresh coat of paint, and the floor shone with a fresh polish.

Mrs. Cowdrey must have seen Polly looking at the framed tintype above the fireplace mantle of a group of constables. “We have no children,” she said a bit sadly, “but Sam likes to think of the men he works with as family.”

Mr. Cowdrey smiled and nodded.

Good, a man whose family is the law.

“We have a room prepared for you,” Mrs. Cowdrey said. “Please come with me and I’ll show you.”

The room was about eight by ten feet, with a little window opposite the entryway. A small bed and a cabinet occupied most of the floor. Polly saw that she would be comfortable.

“It’s lovely,” she said.

“Have you eaten?” Mrs. Cowdrey asked.

“No, ma’am, but my understanding is that I’m to do the cooking.”

“Not this evening. You’ll start tomorrow. Tonight you’ll dine with us.”

Polly had not expected such generosity. She felt a tightening of her throat and a flash of shame.

Mr. Cowdrey seemed to notice her discomfort. “Well, I should think you’d want to get settled in, Mrs. Nichols. Come, Sarah, you can show her the kitchen after supper.”

“Thank you,” Polly said as they exited the room.

“I’ll call you when supper is served,” Mrs. Cowdrey said, shutting the door behind her.

Polly didn’t feel good about what she would do to these fine people. Yet, they would recover easily, and her plan would send her where she’d do much more good.

Polly sat on the bed and closed her eyes.
Loving God, although Mr. and Mrs. Cowdrey have grown old, help them to have a family before it’s too late. If she cannot become pregnant, please have some poor woman leave her bundling child on the doorstep.

I might have left Alice for Mrs. Cowdrey, but not Eliza—the sweet child was too easily given to fright.

Polly felt a bit odd toying with such notions in the midst of prayer. Her weariness had caught up with her.

While most of the time Polly thought herself powerless to truly influence the resolve of the Lord, she also hated to think that her words might set him on a course that went against the desires of those for whom she prayed. Wondering whether Mrs. Cowdrey might not want a bastard, she quickly added to her prayer,
If Mrs. Cowdrey would find that desirable.