The Ripper's Wife(30)

Unbeknownst to me, when I had been trying on my wedding gown there had already been a Mrs. Maybrick, hidden away in Whitechapel, the worst slum in London, sniveling over a soupbone simmering in a dented pot in a room over a watchmaker’s shop, trying to stretch it enough to feed herself and her children, who then numbered three. They’d come so late in her and Jim’s marriage she said she’d quite given up hope, but once she started she took to it like a rabbit and was popping them out right regular like, and, she patted her belly, she suspected she was expecting a sixth even now. The fourth and fifth, I would later discover, when my senses were restored enough for me to sit down and examine the dates, had been born after Jim married me—a boy two months before Bobo and a girl six months after Gladys.

I came to with my head cradled in the lap of that gaudy, grimy gown with those stubby pink fingers stroking my hair. She was saying that she could tell just by looking at me that I was “a good lady, a nice lady,” and begging me to, out of the goodness of my heart, intercede with my brother on her behalf, as he was apt to be forgetful and neglect them all from time to time, he was such a busy man with his cotton business and all, but that didn’t stop the children from growing or their bellies from grumbling. My brother! Jim had told her he was living in Liverpool with his sister! He didn’t even have a sister! They’d been married some thirty years, since 1858, four years before I was born! Our marriage was a sham! A lie! A sin! Jim was a bigamist and our children, our precious children, a pair of bast—all these years later I still cannot bring myself to write that foul and ugly word!

I don’t know how I got through it—I think I must have said something about feeling quite poorly—but I sent Mrs. Maybrick on her way, to catch the train back to London, promising I would indeed speak to Jim about her. I was still standing there reeling amidst the debris of my shattered marriage and life as I had known it up until the moment Sarah Maybrick knocked upon my door, when Edwin found me.

He crept up behind me and kissed the back of my neck. I didn’t resist him. I didn’t encourage him. But I didn’t discourage him either. Edwin’s hands crept around to cup my b-reasts through my bottle-green bodice. The next thing I knew we were in the parlor and he was bending me over the back of a Chippendale chair. I heard my skirts rustling, layers of white ruffles and green damask shading my head like a parasol as he pushed them up and pulled my drawers down. He filled me at the moment in my life when I was feeling most empty. But I can’t even pretend to be grateful. The truth is, I didn’t feel a thing. I numbly, dumbly let something happen that never should. I stood there soulless as a dressmaker’s wooden dummy. My first act of adultery was devoid of passion. Edwin took advantage of the situation—choosing a moment of dumb, numb weakness when I felt like I had lost everything and was still too stunned to react. He was my best friend; he must have known something had to have happened to leave me in this stricken state, so utterly unlike my usual self. My eyes were vacant, I didn’t say one word, and my face must have been drained bloodless as one of Varney’s victims. But did Edwin ask me what was wrong or try to comfort me the way a real friend would? No, he did not. How could he even think that was the right method or moment to start a love affair?

Looking back now, I have to wonder: Did a little part of me—the angry heart of me—decide if I was indeed a whore then I was going to act like one, right there in my keeper’s parlor, and pay him back in kind? If so, I didn’t play the part very well. I didn’t squirm with delight or return Edwin’s kisses. I took no pleasure, feigned or actual, in our intercourse. I just stood there, silently slumped over the chair, with my skirts up over my head. I’d be the Dollar Princess I never really was today if I had a dime for every time I’ve asked myself that question, then shied away from it because I was afraid of the answer. After all, I had always liked Edwin immensely. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself, or maybe the opposite is true. You, dear reader, will have to decide, but first take a moment to consider. Put on my shoes, if you will, and imagine that you lost everything you believed in and cherished in a single afternoon. Then, while you were still standing there, dazed and reeling, an amorously inclined man you’d always liked walked in and took you by the hand. What would you do?

In the end, all I know is that if it was revenge, it was not sweet. It cost me something very dear. By succumbing that once, I forever forfeited the pleasure I had formerly found in my brother-in-law’s sweet and silly company. Edwin thought it gave him the right to possess me whenever an opportune moment arose. It ruined our friendship and I dreaded finding myself alone with him because I always knew where it was leading to.

Instead of sitting and chatting or going out like old dear friends the way we used to, after that fateful afternoon Edwin was more likely to chase me around the room, try to pin me down on the sofa, bend me over any convenient table or chair, or back me into a corner where my skirts would quickly come up and my drawers down. He’d paw and kiss me as I wept and implored, “Can’t we be the way we were before?,” though in my heart I already knew the answer.

But Edwin would merely bury his face in my perfumed neck and push my hand down where he wanted it to be and murmur that this way was much better, “the way it was meant to be, the way it would have been if only we’d met each other first . . . but . . . since we didn’t . . . we might as well make the best of things. . . .”