The Ripper's Wife(28)
I wanted to kick that awful, cold and unfeeling woman right down the stairs, but Nanny Yapp went running to Mrs. Briggs, just like she always did. Then they both went and had a talk with Jim. My husband called me into his study like he was the headmaster and I some troublemaking student and said mother love must be blinding me because Nanny Yapp was “quite right,” and had once again proven herself “an exemplary nanny any household would be blessed to employ” and that I should consider myself lucky to have her. “We would not be so fortunate to find her like again.” My first instinct was to shout, Well, hallelujah, I sincerely hope God did break the mold after He made her!, but I knew better.
“We do things differently here in England than you do in America, Bunny dear,” Jim said, kissing my check. “You’ll see. Nanny Yapp knows her business, and everything will turn out right in the end; isn’t that right, Matilda?”
“Quite right, Jim.” She nodded and moved to stand beside him, as if she were his wife and I was the enemy they were closing ranks against. “I took great pains to find you the perfect nanny, Florie. I’ve never seen such splendid references in my life, and I went over them most carefully; I was determined that you should have the best. So why you, a woman with no experience with children beyond the act of giving birth, feel the need to question and cast doubt upon her judgment at every turn . . . I cannot fathom. But, I do know this. If you are not careful, she’ll leave you and go to another family that will appreciate her. I suggest you apologize soon. . . .”
To my horror, Jim concurred. “The sooner the better, my dear.”
For the first time, I wanted to kick my husband down the stairs too. But I just nodded and forced a smile. What else could I do? I knew I couldn’t win, and, to my everlasting shame, I didn’t have the gumption to even try. I was just too tired.
7
The years passed, each marked by a new dress, a champagne toast, and a kiss shared with Jim at midnight. It was 1884, then 1885, 1886, 1887, and that curious year of the three eights that will never come again—thank heaven!
I was twenty-six. Outwardly, I possessed everything a well-bred young woman could want or wish for. I had a wonderful, loving, and attentive husband, handsome and well preserved for his forty-nine years; maybe there’s something to be said after all for arsenic as an embalming agent? I was a mother twice over, to a boy so beautiful the angels up in heaven must weep for missing him, and a little girl who was fast coming into her own fragile beauty. We were all dressed perfectly as Paris fashion plates, like we’d stepped straight out of the pages of La Mode Illustrèe, hand in hand, a smiling, happy family. We lived in one of the most beautiful houses in Liverpool. We were members of the Currant Jelly Set, leading a charmed life that revolved around society balls, dinners, race meets, card parties, and nights out at the theater. I had one brother-in-law who was world famous and cordially detested me, and another who was a charming wastrel, a loafer, who was my best friend and loved me more than he should have.
But it was all just a fa?ade, like the sets for a stage play, just pretty, flat painted pictures, with no real substance behind, just a few sticks of lumber shoring it all up. The big bad wolf could have blown it all down in a single breath without even really exerting himself. At the slightest gust it would have all come down easier than the little pig’s house of straw.
There had been a drastic dip in the cotton market that forced Jim to close his offices in America and cease his travels across the sea. I didn’t rightly understand it; after all, didn’t the world need cotton just as much as ever? People weren’t wearing less clothes or using fewer handkerchiefs, or tablecloths and napkins. But I didn’t try too hard to; I was happy to have my husband home with me instead of gadding about Norfolk and New Orleans without me. I even told Jim I wouldn’t mind if we had to move into a smaller house with fewer servants; we could start implementing some measure of domestic economy right away by dismissing Nanny Yapp. Jim reacted to that as though I had poured a flagon of syrup over his head right in front of the Prince of Wales. He was horrified that I would even suggest it!
“Have you gone mad?” he demanded. “We would be ruined outright! All our creditors would see that we were in trouble and close in on us like sharks, each wanting the first bite, and that would be the end of us as far as the Currant Jelly Set is concerned. The most important thing we can do now is continue to keep up appearances. If we must retrench, we must make cuts only where it will not show.”
Jim started by drastically cutting my household budget. Oddly, that was the very thing to make Mrs. Briggs decide it was high time for me to take a more active role in managing my own household. She’d been neglecting her own far too long on my account. I discovered then that apparently my husband expected me to be some kind of miracle worker, able to wave a magic wand and conjure up money or stretch a pound note like taffy and make it go further than anyone else could.
I tried to keep a budget, but it was simply impossible. Jim said I mustn’t even think of cutting the servants’ wages or reducing the size of the staff; servants being such a gossipy sort, word would be sure to get out and we would be ruined in no time. But out of the new allowance he allotted me there just wasn’t enough left over to buy the usual provisions after their wages had been paid. And, as any housewife knows, little emergencies crop up all the time and they have a habit of doing so at the least convenient moments. The stove needed repairing, I cracked a tooth on a horehound drop, there was a leak in the roof, Bobo broke a finger, Bessie saw a spider and dropped a whole stack of our best china plates, one of the carriage horses tore a tendon, a pipe burst, and little Gladys was sick so often. Jim and I had to keep up with the Currant Jelly Set and be seen at all the most fashionable places, like balls at the Wellington Rooms, and keep boxes at the opera, theater, and races, and, of course, we had to keep up with the fashions. It all cost money, money we didn’t have. For all the good it was doing me, I might as well have been using my household ledger to press flowers. I soon exhausted my supply of red ink and had to buy more from the stationer’s shop—on credit.