The Ripper's Wife(18)
I closed my eyes and told myself it was all a bad dream and when I opened them my world would be all right. Tomorrow will be better, I chanted inside my head, over and over again, like a prayer.
Like a possum playing dead, I pretended to swoon. I was glad when Jim laid me back against the pillows and, after a few lingering caresses to my hair, covered me and quietly left. I didn’t know what else to do. There was nowhere, and no one, to run to. I couldn’t go dashing off to Paris at the first sign of matrimonial discord and throw myself weeping into Mama’s arms. I couldn’t let all those people who had disapproved of our marrying nod and say, I told you so! My pride couldn’t bear it. And maybe it really was the first and last time it would ever happen. Lots of people make a mistake and never repeat it; they learn from it and turn out the better for it. Time would tell, I assured myself, and if it ever happened again I could always swallow my pride, pack my bags, and go back to Mama. But that wouldn’t happen; everything would be all right! Tomorrow really would be better; I just had to get through tonight!
And somehow I did. Jim left me alone. A maid brought me my supper on a tray, but I didn’t eat a bite. For the first time since we had been married we slept apart, only I couldn’t sleep. I wondered if Jim was suffering as much as I was. We were meant to be happy together, not remorseful and regretting apart. Countless times I quietly rose and crept to his door, I cupped the bronze knob in my hand, I caressed it longingly, the way Jim always did my breast, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn it. As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t turn that knob. Each time, with tears in my eyes, I returned to my lonely bed.
The next morning I rose early and morosely endured the maid May’s ministrations, performed with all the diligence and precision of a military exercise. She didn’t utter a single friendly word as she yanked my corset strings so hard it made my waist feel like a chicken having its neck wrung. It didn’t really matter, I told myself. I was in no mood for conversation anyway. So I stood in gloomy, self-conscious silence and let her lace me into a flowing morning gown of lilac chiffon with lavender satin ribbon trim that flowed beautifully over my bustle and crown my coiled and braided hair with a pretty frilled white breakfast cap with a spray of silk violets and dangling loops of ribbon. Neither of us mentioned my bruised and swollen face, not even when she stood directly in front of me pinning a corsage of silk violets to my breast.
With a stalwart air, I descended the stairs, bravely determined to ignore the stares and whispers of the servants, and took my place at the breakfast table in the conservatory, surrounded by leafy palms and gilt pagoda birdcages filled with canaries and finches. I had no choice but to show my naked face. I had never had cause to paint my face before. I still had the lustrous glow of youth about me, so I hadn’t yet acquired the accoutrements, much less learned what creams, rouges, and powders to buy to best hide the bruises, or how to apply them, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to send May out to buy them, then devote a hasty half hour to attempting to master the art. I could just imagine myself descending the stairs, head held high, face painted like an inept circus clown’s, and the servants tittering that only harlots, actresses, and fast American girls painted their faces; my stomach turned somersaults at the very idea. Having Bessie stare so that she almost overflowed my teacup was better than suffering through that.
Jim came in whistling one of Michael’s nautical ditties and lightly kissed my cheek. Feigning blindness to the livid purple-red plum of a bruise blooming there, ignoring how even the featherlight touch of his lips made me wince, he told me how beautiful I looked. I smiled bravely at him across the breakfast table and watched as he took the familiar silver box from his breast pocket and liberally sprinkled the white powder I now knew was arsenic onto his porridge and into his tea.
Jim smiled and reached for my hand. “I daresay you would be horrified, my darling Bunny, if you knew that right now I am taking enough arsenic to kill you.”
He was right. I couldn’t hide it; I was horrified. I wanted to leap up and overturn the breakfast table. Death was floating in his teacup, dangling from his spoon; how could he make a jest of it?
He took a sip of his tea and smiled at me. “Yes, I can see by your face you are.” He took a heaping spoonful of his porridge. “But you mustn’t worry; I know what I am doing, better, I daresay, than most doctors. My medicine makes me stronger, and I am a better man for it.”
I nodded wanly and forced a fragile smile and, like a dutiful wife, offered my husband some marmalade for his toast, while expecting that at any moment he would gasp, clutch his chest, and fall over dead before I could even scream for help. But I was afraid to speak up. I couldn’t shake the memory of the blow he had struck me. Privately I didn’t think anything used to poison rats could be good for a human being to ingest, but I bit my tongue and strained my trembling lips into what I hoped was a convincing smile. The truth was I wanted the fairy tale back, to don a smiling mask and dance through the days as if in a giddy masquerade. I didn’t want the ugly truth to write his name on my dance card. I had already begun running. I disliked confrontations. I didn’t know how to be brave. I was never what you would call an assertive person; my spine was more like a licorice whip than a steel rod.
After Jim had gone I sat down at my lovely little Louis XV writing desk, with its drawers inlaid with sky-blue-stained mother-of-pearl, and wrote a long letter to Mama. When I was finished, I rang for the maid and gave it to her to mail.