The Ripper's Wife(33)
8
It was the Friday afternoon the striped foulard was ruined. That day is forever fixed in my memory as the one when I not only rushed headlong into the arms of Disaster but also stayed there, kissed him, and surrendered to him body and soul.
I was sitting in the parlor crying, as I so often did those days. The romance novels I was accustomed to wiling away the afternoons with now seemed trite and unbelievable, full of silly unrealizable dreams, and the bonbons had lost all their flavor. Not even the sweet velvet smoothness of chocolate could soothe me now, and a caramel or strawberry cream center no longer brought a smile to my lips. I was sitting there just staring at the syrupy red stain spreading over my purple-and-white-striped skirt and the pink speckled ruin of the pretty lace.
My head was aching like an ax had split it in twain, my ribs practically screaming beneath my stays every time I drew a breath, making me wonder whether I would have to invent a story we would both only pretend to believe and send for Dr. Hopper. I sincerely hoped not. I didn’t want anyone to see me. My left eye looked like it was blooming out of a violet, the tears having washed away most of the powder I’d carefully applied that morning after spending half the night lying flat on my back with a slab of raw steak on it.
Jim and I had been fighting again. He’d banged and battered me all about the bedroom, kicked me when I was down, and pulled my hair until I cried. Then had come the familiar kisses and unbelievable promises that he would never hurt me again, followed by the long, tearful hours alone with cold raw meat over my eye, arguing with my proud, stubborn self, tallying up all the reasons why I couldn’t just walk out. I just could not bring myself to accept that the dream of a happy home and hearth was well and truly dead and that it might be, at least partly, my fault. And the resulting scandal that would surely cling like tar and feathers to my children; divorce was such an ugly, bitter thing and the woman was usually blamed. Men will be men; she should have just turned a blind eye, the reasoning generally went.
Right on cue, at half past noon, a messenger boy from Woollright’s Department Store had brought a sable cape lined with periwinkle-blue satin to the front door with a box of imported French bonbons and a perfumed pink card signed: “With loving regards from your most repentant husband.” But at that moment the cape still lay snug in its nest of pink tissue paper, tossed carelessly onto my bed, and I’d sent the fancy French chocolates to the kitchen for the maids to gossip over; I just didn’t have the stomach for them.
I was sorely worried about my little girl, Gladys. She was the reason Jim and I had gotten into that awful fight. I lost my temper and flat out accused him of trying to turn our daughter into a drug fiend just like him. She was five years old and still distressingly susceptible to every cough and sniffle, and starting to enjoy the attention sickness brought her, like extra ice cream to ease a sore throat. I’d caught her batting her little lashes and trying to flirt with Dr. Hopper while he was taking her pulse. Once I’d even overheard her telling Mrs. Hammersmith that she wanted to be an invalid like Elizabeth Barrett Browning when she grew up and wear pretty dresses and lie around on a couch all day and have the maid bring her medicines on a silver tray. Not a famous lady-poet, mind you, or the female half of one of the world’s great love stories, but an invalid! I didn’t like it the least little bit, this romanticizing of sickness, and I’d told Jim so several times, but he always chuckled and said it was a phase she would grow out of soon enough. But when my daughter started tearing advertisements for medicines out of magazines and asking if she could have them, I had to put my foot down. “She’s becoming just like you!” I screamed at Jim. But Jim just laughed at me until he got mad enough to hit me.
That afternoon weeping in the parlor I was at my wit’s end. Gladys had been crying all day for her Cherry Pectoral. It was a popular cough syrup for children. Jim said it was the most pleasant-tasting one on the market—and he should know. It frightened me the way she cried for it. She used to be just like Bobo, who stoically endured every vile spoonful, and not without tears and complaint, for the sake of the toffee or licorice drop that always followed to chase the nasty taste away, but not since the advent of the Cherry Pectoral. That blasted bottle had changed everything! Now Gladys couldn’t wait for her dose. She watched the clock and would be tugging at my skirt or Nanny Yapp’s if we weren’t there with the spoon and the bottle right on the dot.
Gladys had even asked if she couldn’t have it on top of her ice cream instead of chocolate sauce last night, then started to cry and kick her chair and pound her fists when I said no, indeed she most certainly could not, and snapped at Jim to sit back down when he said he didn’t see why not and started up to get it. That was what had precipitated our quarrel, which continued later in the privacy of my bedroom.
Gladys and I had gotten into a terrible tug-of-war over the bottle while Bobo galloped around us in circles astride his dappled-gray hobbyhorse shouting, “Tallyho!” and pretending to be hot on the heels of a fox. I’d sorely underestimated the strength of an angry and determined five-year-old, and we’d ended by spilling the better half of the bottle all over my dress, and with Gladys flinging herself down on the floor to pound it with her fists and scream at the top of her lungs and bring all the servants running. Bessie, downstairs dusting in the parlor, had even dropped a vase, thinking someone must surely be being murdered upstairs. But Nanny Yapp had strode right in and snatched Gladys up and slapped her, stunning the poor little thing into sudden silence. Then I lost what fragile hold I still had on my own temper and almost slapped Nanny Yapp. The housekeeper and the cook had to actually get between us and escort me, with hands like steel clamps upon my arms, back downstairs to the parlor to calm myself, as though I were the one who was at fault when that awful woman had actually struck my child!