The Ripper's Wife(99)
“And God has given it to you.” She smiled. “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, and that is what you must do now. Godspeed, and good luck to you, Mrs. Maybrick!”
With renewed confidence, I went out boldly into the world in my candy-pink suit, rose-heaped hat, and pearls, determined to have that new beginning. Mama said some people pray all their lives for a second chance and it is never given to them and I was one of the lucky ones. I was alive, and with life there is always hope! I was on my way to Paris, but first I was going to London to see my children.
It took every ounce of courage I could dredge up to knock upon the Fullers’ front door. Not even all the pearls or finest French fashions and hairpieces in the world could give me confidence enough, but I had to do this. When the maid opened the door, I turned pale as her little white ruffled cap and swayed so that she had to reach out and steady me.
“Merciful God, missus!” she exclaimed. “You’re not goin’ to faint here on the doorstep, are you?”
“I’m all right, thank you.” I gulped my fear down and took a deep cleansing breath. “I’ve come to see Mrs. Fuller; is she in?”
The Irish skivvy gave me a queer look. “In, mum? The Fullers haven’t lived here in years! This is Dr. Pearson’s house now. They up and moved to America, to New York, years and years ago!”
“And the children?” I asked anxiously. “Did the children go with them?”
“Mr. James and Miss Gladys?” There was that queer look again. “Why, yes’um! Them being such a close family, I could hardly imagine any of ’em willingly putting an ocean between ’em!”
“America!” I gasped, tottering on my French heels. “Thank you!” I nodded and, pressing a coin into her hand, hurried briskly back down the steps onto the street again.
I kept walking. I didn’t dare turn around lest I see the maid still standing there staring after me. I wanted to stop and catch my breath, but I kept walking. I don’t know how many blocks I went before I just had to stop. When I looked around I found myself in an unfamiliar part of town, a crestfallen, dreary part where all the buildings seemed in want of painting and the people in need of new clothes. A pretty blind girl with a tattered green shawl draped over her red hair was leaning against a wall, a tin cup in her hand, singing a song that Fate seemed to have intended just for my ears:
“Oh, no! We never mention her, her name is never
heard;
My lips are now forbid to speak that once familiar word.
From sport to sport they hurry me, to banish my regret.
And when they win a smile from me, they think that I
forget.
“They bid me seek in change of scene the charms that
others see,
But were I in a foreign land, they’d find no change in me.
’Tis true that I behold no more the valley where we met,
I do not see the hawthorn tree, but how could I forget?
“For oh! there are so many things recall the past to me,
The breeze upon the sunny hills, the billows of the sea,
The rosy tint that decks the sky before the sun is set;
Ay, every leaf I look upon forbids me to forget.
“They tell me she is happy now, the gayest of the gay;
They hint that she forgets me too—but I heed not what they say.
Perhaps like me she struggles with each feeling of regret:
But if she loves as I have loved, she never can forget.”
Tears in my eyes, I emptied the coins from my purse into her cup and quickly hailed a cab. I had to get back to the hotel and tell Mama I was not going with her to Paris, I was going to America to find my children and, God willing, to make amends and a place for myself in their hearts again.
34
I returned to America on the same ship that brought me to England, Jim, and my destiny, twenty-four years ago, the SS Baltic, only it was a brand, spanking new Baltic; they’d retired the old one years ago but kept the name. It seemed somehow strangely fitting that I’d been with both Baltics when they were maidens, only I wasn’t a young girl anymore, a hopeful bride-to-be of eighteen, though there were moments when I stood at the rail that I sensed her ghost standing beside me. My reflection reminded me every chance it got that I was a worn and weary middle-aged woman whose future remained uncertain. But I was still hoping for a new and better life; that hadn’t changed. I was alive, and life and hope are bound together like Siamese twins; you can’t have one without the other.
When our ship glided gracefully into New York Harbor and I saw the Statue of Liberty I fell on my knees, the most grateful tears I had ever shed streaming down my face. Let the others stare; I didn’t care. I more than any one of them understood what liberty truly meant. I’d lost it, I thought forever, and now it was mine again, and I would never be such a fool as to take my freedom for granted.
The moment my foot, shod in a dainty new boot of black patent leather and gray suede, to match my new striped traveling dress and silver fox stole and muff, touched the gangplank a band began to play “Home, Sweet Home.” I was so overcome that Mama had to hold me up. The press of the crowd, though they were a kindly bunch, all calling out good wishes and God bless, frightened me, as did the numerous journalists, crying out questions and aiming cameras at me, making me feel petrified with terror, like I was facing a firing squad, and I clung to Mama all the more and tried, with trembling hands, to pull my veil down.