Ripper (6 page)

“Oh yes, of course.”

Mother had been vehemently against any censorship in art; I remembered her eyes flashing when she spoke of the controversy surrounding Pre-Raphaelite art. She defended them, calling them “innovative” and “truthful.”

“The model for many of the paintings was my father's lover and then wife, Elizabeth Siddal. She was the model for the Ophelia painting you mentioned. Her grave was among those that I attended back there.”

“So she was your mother?”

“No, I never met Elizabeth—Lizzie, as he called her. She died a few years before my birth. In fact, Gabriel was not even my actual father. I have no idea who my parents were. He found me alone in the streets, an orphan of about four years old. He was already a widower then and very lonely.”

“Your name is Siddal … he gave you Elizabeth's maiden name rather than his surname?”

“Precisely.”

We were passing the park now. Night stars and swirled cloud-shadows speckled the late afternoon sky.

“My father had loved his wife, Elizabeth, intensely, even obsessively. Besides modeling for the group's portraits, she also painted and wrote along with them. My father loved her, but he struggled with monogamy, and had affairs with several of his models. He felt great guilt over this, particularly when Elizabeth learned of the affairs. She miscarried his child, and her health declined. She became depressed and ceased writing her own poetry. She soon died from an accidental overdose of laudanum.”

The cab took a hard right and I held on to my seat.

“My father never fully recovered from Elizabeth's death. He felt guilty for cheating on her and responsible for the death of the baby. He began drinking too much and overdosing on chloroform. As you pointed out, he gave me her last name. I was always grateful to Gabriel for giving me a home. But my growing up was rather haphazard. While many my age attended boarding schools, my father taught me himself. I was present at all of his dinners with his artist friends and his mistresses; he had bizarre pets—a pair of wombats that he would dress up for fun. My father was interesting, but I felt a little suffocated by his fixation on the dead Elizabeth. She was this ghost in our household that would never leave his shoulder. His obsession deteriorated him, and he died a few years ago.”

We approached the Kensington neighborhood. I knew that my time with William was about to end, but I still had more questions.

“So, if you were raised in this family of artists, how did you choose to become a physician?”

“We have very few members of our family who have chosen the medical profession, but an artist's life wasn't for me. And Gabriel always encouraged me in my pursuit of becoming a doctor. He provided for me in his will with some money that remained from his book royalties. It was enough to cover my expenses at Oxford. And now I have a nice living arrangement with my father's sister, my aunt Christina.”

“That is extraordinary! You
live
with Christina Rossetti. I love her poetry. Is she still writing?”

“A little. But now she dedicates her life to helping prostitutes find more wholesome professions. Quite literally, she has opened her home to them. Instead of paying her for my room and board, I work in her house as a sort of live-in physician. Though most of the women she houses are much more stable than the women you see in our second floor ward at the hospital, they still have their lingering medical and mental issues. I live upstairs, making myself available for assistance whenever I am at home.”

“So you never have any free time. Even when you go home at night, you might have to work.”

“I don't mind. Christina is reasonable. And she works all the time herself. Her dedication to the women who come to her is limitless.”

“Does Dr. Bartlett know about her work?”

“He does. Indeed, often he sends our more hopeful and stronger patients to her when they are stable enough to leave the hospital. She has had much success in placing them in millinery or seamstress work—housing them until they can support themselves.”

As William helped me out of the cab, I saw light through the parlor window. Grandmother would be in there by now. And she would be angry. I had not only missed tea and cribbage, but also dinner.

Then I saw Ellen's beady eyes peering around one of the curtains.

My mind raced. I had been so absorbed by William's story that I had not thought how I would explain my absence; and now, I would have to explain who I had been
with
.

As if reading my thought, William said, “I should probably leave now. Am I not correct?”

“I am afraid that you are.” My reply tasted sheepish, and I cringed inside.

William bowed slightly and departed.

I ascended the front steps, summoning a plausible, acceptable story: I had been walking in the park. I had stayed too late and had by chance met a physician who worked at the hospital. He had offered to escort me home. This had seemed prudent.

Grandmother would rant, lecture, and threaten.

Still, I knew that in the end, nothing would change for me.

Seven

I
think they're doing nothing except making everyone nervous. The women, the children in the main ward, they can hardly feel comfortable with these uniformed constables and inspectors circulating everywhere.”

Sister Josephine had just left the nursery, and I finally had an opportunity to vent to Simon about the situation. It was Wednesday, and Scotland Yard had maintained a sporadic and yet oppressive presence at the hospital since Monday.

Simon's mouth curved into a smile as he examined a newborn baby boy's eyes using a small instrument with a concave mirror. An “ophthalmoscope,” he had called it.

“You know, the theory is that the murderer might possibly be a physician or medical student,” he said. “But I have also heard that the police have been questioning butchers and other workers in the area. Try not to take it too personally.”

“Still, I wished they would ask their questions and leave. They could at least take suspects to the station to question them. Have they questioned you?”

“Twice, actually. They interviewed me in Dr. Bartlett's office on Monday, then again yesterday. They have spoken to all of the male workers here. I think there are no leads, and I am inclined, like you, to think that they should move on, or at least maintain a more discrete presence.”

I watched Simon as he turned to examine another baby. He possessed a cool handsomeness, his forehead marble-smooth, uncreased even when he concentrated. Since yesterday, besides working alongside of him, I had assisted him in three deliveries, and his perpetual control even in stressful moments impressed me. He seemed dedicated and kind, spending more time with patients than most of the physicians did. Perhaps because of his kindness, or perhaps due to our bond from the morning when he returned with me to Kensington, I felt more comfortable with Simon than I did with William. And yet oddly, in spite of all this, there was an enigmatic strain to him, a veil in Simon beyond which I could not see.

The baby Lizzie, when we reached her, concerned us both. She had continued to lose weight, even just since Monday.

“Has Josephine found a wet nurse for her?” I asked, after Simon had listened to her chest with a stethoscope.

“I do not believe so.”

“Rose Elliot? Is she still here? She just had a child, perhaps she still has milk. I know she needs to rest, but after losing her own child it might help her to care for Lizzie.”

Simon straightened, paused. A flicker crossed his gaze momentarily.

“An excellent idea, Abbie.”

Later that same day, I assisted Dr. Bartlett during a surgery on the third floor.

He had congratulated me, the day before, on my triumph over Rose Elliot's husband. That incident, to my relief, had gone mostly unnoticed—I think due to the overall chaos in the ward and also the general preoccupation of staff members with the Polly Nichols murder.

The particular patient Dr. Bartlett was operating on was a middle-aged woman, an alcoholic, who was one of the second floor patients. She was anesthetized with chloroform. I stood beside Dr. Bartlett at the operating table and gazed into the woman's open abdomen.

“Here is the mass, Abbie,” he said, removing a lumpy substance from the woman's liver. After placing it in a metal pan held by one of the attending nurses, he explained to me that the woman suffered from tumor growths in the liver. Although he had removed this one, the tumors would probably continue to return more aggressively until she succumbed to the disease.

I listened intently as Dr. Bartlett explained the surgery. He was an expert in surgeries and conventional deliveries, and he was not afraid to attempt new surgical practices. At one point the previous day, Simon had explained that Dr. Bartlett not only taught at various universities but also traveled a great deal; according to Simon, the horizontal-cut caesarean I had seen the previous week was not practiced widely in Europe. Dr. Bartlett had learned the practice from African midwives, and believed that it caused less blood loss and abdominal trauma in an already dangerous procedure.

I watched as Dr. Bartlett stitched up the liver and then slowly, carefully, stitched up the woman's abdomen. Many of the attending nurses had left for their other tasks. Our conversation moved away from the details of the surgery to more personal matters. He asked after my grandmother and how she was doing.

“Quite well.”

His eyes met mine very quickly before refocusing on his continued stitching, the long needle moving in and out of the skin tissues.

“You look remarkably like Caroline, Abbie.”

I had forgotten that one of the reasons I was here was because Dr. Bartlett was a family friend. I swallowed, suppressing the lump of grief that began to swell in my throat. I knew very little about Mother's life in London before she eloped and gave birth to me. Even Grandmother rarely talked about her.

“How well did you know my family?”

Dr. Bartlett did not take his eyes off his work as he spoke. “Decently well. Your grandmother for years has donated generously to various charities. In fact, she was one of our main financial supporters when I began this hospital.”

I sniffed in spite of myself. Giving to charities, for Grandmother, was quite “vogue.”

He had finished the stitches and, after laying aside the needle and thread, he began wiping blood away from the wound.

“I dined with her and with Caroline a few times. Caroline, as part of her artistic pursuits, attended a few of my surgeries in the operating theatre at Oxford.”

“Operating theatre?” I asked.

“Essentially a place exactly like this surgery room, except that the surgery is conducted on a sort of stage surrounded by an auditorium where medical students and physicians might observe the surgery. Once in a while, artists attended my lectures—to learn more about the anatomy and structure of the body as they painted. Your mother was one of those artists.”

He turned to wash his hands in a nearby basin.

“Lady Westfield and I have corresponded through the years, but unfortunately I lost touch with Caroline once she moved away from London.”

The air became heavy with the unspoken. I felt sure Dr. Bartlett was aware that the reason I had returned to London was Mother's death.

Gracefully, he changed the subject.

“Abbie, on Friday evening, would you join me and some of the other physicians at my home? We meet frequently for socializing purposes, though we also review scholarly topics and medical ethics issues together. I value their input as I develop this hospital, and I would very much like you to be included in these meetings.”

“I would love to attend!”

“Wonderful.” He moved to leave the room. “I cannot accompany you, but I will send my carriage. About seven o'clock?”

“Yes, that will work well.”

As I left the operating room to assist William in the second floor ward, I felt a flurry of excitement. Through allowing me to attend the surgery and now in this invitation to his house, Dr. Bartlett was treating me with the same respect he gave the younger physicians who worked with him. I had not said anything to him about possibly pursuing a career as a physician, but I felt encouraged, now, that he would not make any issue of my gender. I made a mental note to ask him about medical school.

I had not seen William since Monday when he escorted me back to Kensington; however, the second floor ward was so busy that I scarcely had a chance to talk to him. Almost every bed along the wall was filled. For three hours, I did nothing but change sheets and chamber pots, and help some of the nurses give medicine doses to patients.

Shortly before it was time for me to leave, I found myself in a side room of the second floor, a sort of laundry room, folding towels and bedsheets. My feet and back ached and I wanted nothing more than to sleep.

“I see you survived Lady Westfield's wrath the other evening.”

William stood in the doorway. His stance was awkward, unusual for him.

“Yes, I'm still here.”

I felt myself flush against my will. The story of William's bohemian upbringing had intrigued me, and I wanted to know more of him. Also, as always, his presence could be so disorienting. I felt my heart thud repeatedly inside my chest.

There was a strange pause in the air. I steadied my breathing and placed another folded towel in a basket.

“I heard that Dr. Bartlett invited you to his house.”

“Yes. Are you going to be there?”

“No. Christina will be volunteering at New Hospital—it's another hospital for low-income women, actually quite similar to Whitechapel Hospital. She will be there late on Friday and wants me to stay at the house with her ‘friends,' as she calls the women who live with her.”

His eyes flashed, a little mischievously—as if he were about to tell me some gossip. He lowered his voice and stepped closer to me.

“Dr. Bartlett lives in a huge house at the end of Montgomery Street. His house is quite posh, but the street is rather—transitional. He does not live alone; for years, he has lived with three other men. None of them have families of their own, and all are dedicated whole-heartedly to their work. The only time they live apart is when one or more of them lectures for a term at Oxford or travels abroad for study or research purposes.”

“Are the others physicians as well?” I asked.

“No. That is the interesting part. Each has his own profession that he excels at. Marcus Brown is an accomplished scholar of philosophy and history. John Perkins is a devoted theologian. And then there is Robert Buck. Although he occasionally helps treat patients, he truly is more of a biologist than a physician. I'm sure you know that he has an office here and specializes in botany, zoology, and herbology. He has collected plants, fish, and animals from all over the world. No home has ever contained so much talent and intellect within its walls as the Montgomery Street house—it could be a
university
or even a museum. It's sprawling and fascinating. There is one particular gallery on the second floor, near the top of the stairs … ”

“Dr. Siddal!” Josephine's voice rang out on the stairs. “We have a delivery!”

William lingered near me for two more seconds, as if he wanted to say something else.

“Dr. Siddal!”

He exhaled loudly, flashed me a brilliant smile, and then hurried from the room.

The moment I finished the laundry, I felt I could leave. A quick peek out of the laundry room window showed me the bleak dusk settling upon Whitechapel. Wind whipped across the street, scattering trash and bottles. The heaviness of the atmosphere had a pre-storm appearance, and I involuntarily clutched my arms as goose bumps broke out across my skin. The carriage already waited for me in front of the steps, and I rushed from the room hoping that the driver had not been there too very long.

In my hurry, I collided with a man who had just stepped onto the landing from the stairs. If he had not caught my arms at the elbows, steadying me, I would have plunged straight past him down the stairs.

“I'm sorry,” I stuttered, feeling foolish and embarrassed. Then I glanced up at him.

He was well-built, with startlingly green eyes and curly dark hair. I had not yet seen him around the hospital. He was perhaps in his mid-thirties, and might have been one of the hospital's young physicians. His eyes arrested me, and for a split second I could not look away.

“Are you all right?” he asked. He smiled, and yet his eyes sparked more rogue than kind.

“Yes, quite. Thank you.”

I continued quickly down the stairs, feeling his eyes upon my back.