The Ripper's Wife(23)

It was even worse after Bobo was born. While I was confined to bed recovering Mrs. Briggs took full charge, and after I was up she was ill inclined to step aside. I dearly wanted to bar all the doors to that woman, but I didn’t have the power. Indeed, it seemed like everyone but Edwin was mystified as to why I disliked her. Even Jim deferred to her. She was always saying, “Jim, I suggest . . . ,” “Jim, I really think . . . ,” “Jim, you should . . . ,” or “Don’t you agree, Jim?” Of course, he always did. It was as though I, his wife and the mother of his son, counted for nothing in that house!

Whenever I tried to talk to him about it, Jim would laugh it off and suggest that perhaps I might be being “just a tad ungrateful” to someone who was only trying to help me. Or he would laugh and ask “But, darling, don’t you prefer being a lady of leisure?” Only Edwin truly grasped what was happening, but having him lean over my shoulder, give a witchy cackle into my ear, and whisper in a wicked, raspy voice, “Double, double, toil and trouble; fire, burn; and, cauldron bubble,” whenever he saw Mrs. Briggs working against me really didn’t help rectify the situation any.

No matter how many times I showed my husband in the dark that I was indeed a woman, by day- or gaslight he treated me like a little girl. He and Mrs. Briggs foiled my every attempt to grow up. It didn’t matter how many nights I took off every stitch and let my hair down and rode him like a thoroughbred; morning always came and I was reduced to feeling like a little girl in pigtails, short skirts, and pinafores again, playing at house and hosting pretend tea parties with her dollies. Is it any wonder that there were days when I just didn’t feel like trying anymore?

Jim’s frequent business trips only added to my woes. He often traveled to London, Manchester, and even across the ocean to New Orleans and Virginia. I hated being parted from him for so long. The days and weeks would drag by. To my surprise, I found myself missing my old roving life. Maybe I truly did have the wanderlust in my blood like Mama? I would have loved to have gone with him. But I had a baby now. I wasn’t a bride anymore; I was a wife and mother. The home and the hearth were my place now, not ocean liners, luxury hotels, and casinos. No honeymoon lasts forever. Maybe later, when Bobo was older and away at school, Jim would take me with him and it would be like another honeymoon. I hoped so; I hated to think that the grand adventure of life was over and all I really had to look forward to was sitting by the fire with my knitting and the vicarious thrill of romance novels.

Of course, I had Bobo to console me. Dressing him was my favorite pastime. I didn’t let his little phallus stop me; I simply covered it up with layers of lace, ruffles, embroidery, and ribbons. I was determined to enjoy myself while I had time; he’d be a big boy wanting short hair and trousers soon enough. As his hair grew, I put him down to sleep in curl rags every night and soon he had a fine head of satiny brown-black corkscrews. I played with him every day as though he were a living doll, changing his little outfits half a dozen times or more, leaving them all scattered on the floor for May to pick up. I bathed him in rosewater and made such terrible messes feeding him that Jim began to wonder if I didn’t need glasses to help me find the baby’s mouth. Was there something about holding a spoonful of porridge that rendered me blind? Jim wondered.

But, in those early days, I discovered that babies sleep a great deal and there were only so many hours in which I could indulge in such play. It’s hard to dress a grumpy, shrieking, squirming baby the way one would a doll.

I don’t mean to imply that life was entirely without diversion, only that it had lost some of its vibrancy and luster. To put it bluntly, I was bored. Genteel games of whist with other members of the Currant Jelly Set, the usual dinner parties, society balls, the opera and theater, obligatory afternoon calls, ladies’ luncheons and tea parties—there was a sedateness about it all that bored me to tears. It had all become so stale and predictable.

There were so many nights when I’d find myself standing in a crowded room, smiling and chattering away as though I hadn’t a care in the world, and I’d still feel all alone. I’d be all too aware of the forced smiles and the coldness hiding behind them. I was in this world but not truly of it, and believe me, there is a difference. Sometimes I’d forget myself and launch into an anecdote from my carefree Southern youth, recollecting all-night riverboat parties on the Mississippi, floating balls, with the scent of honeysuckle, jasmine, and roses borne upon the river breeze, delightful times when I’d drunk rum punch and danced till dawn with handsome young bucks and flirty-eyed belles just like me, then slept the day away, rising in time to have supper for breakfast, only to suddenly become aware of silence so profound you could have heard a pin drop. I’d stop and look around and see them all struck dumb and scandalized as though I’d just admitted to opening the door to the postman stark naked. The rest of the evening they would be darting glances at me and whispering behind their fans or in little huddles that dispersed as soon as I drew near and I’d overhear snatches of conversation like “not just fast—swift, my dear, swift!” I just knew they were talking about me.

I was crestfallen. I knew I had been careless, but I couldn’t help it; I was just being me, and, sometimes, I forgot that wasn’t acceptable anymore. But, to my mind, I wasn’t an actress, and I didn’t think it was fair that I should have to spend my life playing a part for a hard-to-please audience hell-bent on disliking me. If I had to pretend to be someone else in order for them to like me, then they didn’t really like me. I just didn’t see the sense of it.