The Ripper's Wife(97)

“I’m just not that girl anymore,” I whispered to my multitude of miniature reflections staring mournfully up at me from the gray slate floor. “Good-bye, Florie!”

That girl, that Florie, was gone; nothing but memories were left of her now. She’d slipped quietly away while I was in prison. I’d been expecting to see her, waiting excitedly to greet me, for this candy-pink suit and rose-festooned confection of a hat to make her come running. But no, it was not to be. She was lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine. Now this grim-faced, skinny forty-two-year-old shadow that long gone golden girl had left behind her had no choice but to go forth bravely into the world and forge a new life for herself and find out who she was now that she couldn’t be that Florie anymore.

I reached back into the box and drew out my black mourning gown, old and stale, fifteen years out of fashion, and grown rusty with age. For a moment it looked so much like bloodstains upon the black fabric that I felt nausea rising. I shuddered and dropped it; it made my skin crawl. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, willed myself to be strong, and reached in again. I quickly removed the key from its hidden seam and let the dress fall forever. I dropped the key, badly tarnished and no longer golden, just like me, into my new pink purse. “Burn the rest!” I said imperiously to the matron on my way out.

To my surprise, a sweet little Swiss nun was waiting for me. A Sister Patia, she had come all the way from the Convent of the Epiphany in Cornwall, where she was to take me now, it being their way of gently reintroducing those who had spent so many years in solitude behind bars back into the world.

“It grows busier and nosier every year, my dear. You will find it very much changed from the way you remember,” she said.

Mama had been notified and would meet me there and take me back to Paris with her after I’d had a few weeks to readjust and recover from the shock.

“Shock? What shock? I’m ready to go now!” I cried, chomping at the bit until a horn blared loudly, nearly startling me out of my skin, and I leapt back, clinging to Sister Patia, as a motorcar drew up outside the prison gates when I’d been expecting a horse-drawn cab to take us to Paddington Station.

Sister Patia just smiled and gave a knowing little nod. “This way, my child,” she said, gently ushering me into the back of the shiny black automobile.

The way that “taxi” zipped and darted through the traffic of the London streets, where only a few horse-drawn equipages stubbornly remained, I felt certain we would be killed at any moment. I clung to my hat with one hand and Sister Patia with the other while she just sat there smiling, sometimes giving me an encouraging pat or a reassuring word. “We’re going to die!” I kept crying out, though the chipper cockney driver just smiled back at me—how could he take his eyes off the street for even an instant?—and assured me, “ ’Aven’t lost one yet, missus; just you sit back an’ relax now!” I was so afraid of imminent death, of being impaled by the crush and grind of metal, I could hardly take in the sights outside my window. Every time a horn blared—and good Lord there were a great many of them!—I jumped. I was sorely afraid I would end by losing control of my bladder and ruining my pretty pink suit.

But apparently this was the way people got about nowadays and there really was no cause for alarm. Sure enough, we arrived at Paddington Station safe and sound. Sister Patia led me to a chair in the waiting room and, when she was sure I was sufficiently calm, left me for a few minutes and returned with a stack of magazines for me.

Casually flipping through them, I saw few faces I recognized and but a few tried-and-true products still going strong in this new century, like Cadburys; suddenly I wanted a taste of chocolate so badly I was salivating like a mad dog. The names of all the songs and dances and popular books and stage plays, actors and actresses, seemed bewilderingly new and I feared I had fallen too far behind to ever catch up. It was too much to take in, and I left the magazines sitting in my lap and just sat and watched the people pass by.

I already knew the fashions had changed, but the march of progress had trod over everything. Harsh electricity had replaced the romantic kindness of gaslight. Life seemed to move at a faster pace; people seemed to walk and talk faster, though perhaps it only seemed so because of the silence and isolation I had endured in prison. Sister Patia told me pictures even moved now. “The flickers” or “movies,” “motion pictures,” she explained were a popular form of entertainment and growing more so every year. People paid to go and sit in a theater and stare at these pictures in motion projected onto a big white screen. I wasn’t at all certain I would like such a thing—I was half-afraid it would make me dizzy and faint or hurt my eyes—but Sister Patia smiled and said she thought not, they only lasted a few minutes, hardly time to do such damage, and most people liked them, though, of course, they weren’t on a par with the legitimate stage and would never replace the music halls, but they were good fun all the same. “Though perhaps I am biased.” She smiled. “I confess, they are my guilty pleasure.”

When we stepped off the train in Cornwall, Mama was right there waiting for me, just as Sister Patia had promised. I was so happy to see Mama, without iron bars between us, I ran and hurled myself into her arms like a cannonball and nearly knocked her off her feet. All the way to the convent, we clung to each other and cried.

I ended up staying at the Convent of the Epiphany for six weeks, going out into the world a little each day, visiting shops, walking about town, and sitting in parks listening to band concerts or watching children play, learning to speak up and use my voice again. It was harder than I ever realized it would be not to shy away from people, to stand my ground and look them in the eye and speak to them just like I always did before my troubles began. It was a battle royal I fought with myself now not to hang my head and hurry away whenever the salesclerks approached and not to spend half an hour walking round in circles before getting up the nerve to go into a little café and order a pastry and a cup of coffee or tea. I felt like everybody was staring and whispering about me. There were times when it seemed like I was afraid of everyone and everything, including my own shadow.