Ripper. Part 21

Another flash of lightning.

Simon's gla.s.sy eyes momentarily searched my own. I remembered how well he could discern my thoughts. I knew what he suspected, and I winced under the gaze. But if he wondered if William was a factor in this rejection, he said and asked nothing.

"I'm sorry, Abbie." He turned to leave.

"Don't be." My words sounded weak as cobwebs.

But he did not turn around again as he left the library.

That night, I felt awful. I had a terrible time falling asleep.

Still, I knew that I had made the right decision. At least for now, I could not make a promise of engagement to Simon. That much was very clear. But I mourned the loss of my friendship with him.

A tinny noise, sounding like a sc.r.a.pe of metal, jolted me away from my thoughts. I had locked my door, but I felt certain that I heard my doork.n.o.b rotate. I peeked through the curtains and saw, in horror, the k.n.o.b turning slowly one way and then the other.

It stopped.

My blood ran cold, but I told myself that it was probably nothing-a servant accidently thinking that my door was the one to the attic. But as I tried to fall asleep, I heard the faint scratching noise begin from the attic above me. I pinched myself to make certain that I was awake.

I was.

Then, unmistakably, the scratching turned to footsteps above me. They were slow, faint, deliberate. Someone was up there.

I chastised myself, thinking that I was letting superst.i.tion affect my reason. After all, Mariah had told me that many of the floors needed to be reinforced. The floor structure might be particularly creaky after the earlier thunderstorm.

I turned fretfully in my bed, sleeping very little.

The next morning when I awoke and came downstairs for breakfast, I felt tired and glum, and sitting at the far end of the long dining room table, heard very little of Violet and Grandmother's conversations. Mariah, because she kept late hours, almost never came down to breakfast.

One of the servants presented a note to me. It was only when I thanked him that I saw who it was.

"Richard!" I said, excitedly. I hadn't seen him since we had left Grandmother's. "I didn't expect you to be here."

He cleared his throat and said quietly, "I am only needed to supervise at the house during the hours when the workers are there. I decided to help out here a bit. For the company."

"Of course." The conversation at the far end of the table had stopped, and I saw Grandmother's eye upon me. Lady Violet looked at me as if I were a wolf child. Chatting with a servant-unacceptable.

I groaned. "It's good to see you, Richard."

He bowed and left.

Tearing open the envelope, my eyes watered when I read the contents.

Dear Abbie, I do apologize for any awkwardness that might

arise from my proposal last night. I misread your affections for me, and I am sorry about that. Do

not let this affect our friendship or your adherence

to my warnings. I still admire you and care for

you warmly.

-Sincerely, Simon The strokes had been written in a careful hand. I felt a wave of sadness as I carefully folded the letter and left the dining room. I felt Grandmother's eyes on me as I left.

Twenty.

O.

n Sat.u.r.day, I felt suffocated. I had to get out of the house.

I told Grandmother that I was going on a walk and left before she could question me. I took the four dresses, folded in a large bag, and started out early, just after breakfast. I felt mildly guilty, as Simon had warned me not to go to the East End, but it was broad daylight, so I walked a few blocks and caught a carriage.

Once in Whitechapel, I left the carriage and, clutching the bag close to me, walked until I found Miller's Court, right off Dorset Street in the Spitalfields district of the East End. The area seemed even more poverty-stricken than the nearby Whitechapel Road. The air on Dorset reeked of urine, vomit, and spilled alcohol, and when I entered Miller's Court, I saw enormous rats scurrying through the pa.s.sage even in the noon hours.

"No, I won't accept them," Mary said when I opened the bag and laid the dresses out for her to see.

The place where she lived was a small, single room with one bed and a fireplace. In spite of the fire, the room was freezing. One of the windows had been broken, a rag stuffed into the pane's hole. The bed in the room had only two very thin blankets. Mary was alone when I found her, and I saw embarra.s.sment on her face as she let me in. I knew her financial situation was strained, but I had no idea how much.

"I'll just leave them here. Give them to someone else if you don't want them," I said, turning to leave.

"Take them with you. I'm doing fine."

At that point I felt irritated. True, I had never lived in a room like this, but I wished she could know that I was not always so privileged-that there had been times, particularly between Mother's governess jobs, when we had no money. I wish she had seen my life in Dublin, the youth I played with in the streets, the orphans and pickpockets. I wanted to tell her about all of this, but it seemed foolish. She could only see me as I was now-Lady Westfield's Kensington brat granddaughter.

"Fine. I'm trying to help. It's a simple matter. I was going to get rid of some dresses, so I thought I would give them to you."

She still looked angry.

"Take them, Mary," someone said behind me, and I jumped. Scribby stood in the doorway with a bundle of firewood under his arm. When Mary crossed her arms, her shawl fell a bit and I saw how sharp her shoulders were.

"Thank you, Miss Abbie, for helping Mary get that hospital job," Scribby continued. "Mary knows"-here he cut her a hard glance and began feeding some wood into the fire-"how fortunate we three are to have jobs at all, being immigrants."

I saw, then, tears in Mary's eyes, and she bit her lip. I looked away quickly, knowing how proud she was.

"Thank you, Abbie," Scribby said again, very kindly. He was walking well now, but I saw that the lower part of his leg was tightly bandaged. "Mary appreciates the job and the clothes. The fact is, we will be able to afford to get better rooms at some point, but we're sending money to her family. She has a sick younger sister, so we're pretty poor right now."

Without glancing back at Mary, who was saying nothing, I nodded, said goodbye, and left.

First thing on Monday morning, I went to Scotland Yard.

Walking through the maze of offices, I found Abberline. His office door was open and he sat behind his desk. The odor of dirty teacups and pipe smoke immediately a.s.saulted my nose. The large highlighted map behind him now had four red pins, marking the site of each Ripper murder.

"I thought I had made my answer clear," I said, placing the card and newspaper clippings on his desk. "Why did you send me these? Do you think you can bully me into playing along with your investigation?"

He looked up, his face pale, his eyes bloodshot. He seemed surprised by my sudden presence. Weary and unprepared. The case was becoming a great burden to him, I could tell, but I pushed all my sympathetic thoughts aside.

"Miss Sharp. Do sit down."

"I prefer to stand. Now, why did you send me this after I told you that I wanted to play no part in spying on my friends? I work at Whitechapel Hospital, and I won't be a p.a.w.n in your investigation."

Everything I said was true, but what I didn't say was that I believed his inquiries were futile. I thought of the chalice symbol, of my vision of that odd ritual, of Max's tattoo, of all the pieces that didn't fit together yet. I remembered the police chasing Scribby, the heavy police presence in the hospital, and I suspected that Scotland Yard's search was going in the wrong direction. Their investigation and tactics would be fruitless. And given my cryptic conversation with Simon in the library, I feared that something larger was behind all of this. With all that I might have before me, that was something I had to figure out on my own. I did not need Scotland Yard's watchful eye upon me.

Abberline looked stunned, for once unable to speak.

"Will you leave me alone now?" I asked once more.

There was a small hesitation; he looked as if he wanted to say something before deciding against it. "Yes. Certainly, if that is what you wish."

"It is. Good day, Inspector Abberline."

"Good day."

That was, I felt certain, the last I should hear from him. He was used to getting his way. I just had to act a little galling, a little troublesome, and he would leave me alone.

By Tuesday evening, I felt particularly agitated. Mariah had been out so frequently, with Cecil or with Charles, that I didn't see much of her. I had hoped that she would stop by my room that evening. I hadn't seen Simon since his proposal the week before. I missed his friendship, and I felt lonely. William still loomed in my thoughts, and I would have given anything to know where he was. Eventually I resolved to go to bed early, and at some point, after several hours, I fell asleep.

A giggle woke me. It came from somewhere in the hallway. Then silence.

My first thought was that Mariah had come back from a rendezvous with Charles drunk. She also might have Charles in her room. That was more likely. Whatever she was doing, it was none of my business, so I turned over and tried to sleep again.

More silence. I began to think that I might have dreamt up the giggle.

Then there was a loud bang. The attic door had slammed opened.

I bolted upright in my bed.

I heard it-the trudging footsteps. This time they were not above me in the attic, but came from the hallway. I heard them very clearly-too clearly.

Just as I calmed myself with the certainty that I had locked my door, I peeked through my bed curtains.

My bedroom door was wide open.

I commanded myself to stay calm and took deep breaths as I put on my slippers and rose to close my door. I reached the open doorway. Just as I began to shut the door, something white flashed past me in the darkness.

I swallowed and suppressed a scream. Then, as I reached out to pull the doork.n.o.b and shut myself in my room, I saw it-the bottom trail of a white nightgown ascending the attic stairs.

Of course. It was Mariah sleepwalking. She must have been the one making the noises above me those nights. I felt so foolish, thinking of my mind's absurd and terrible fantasies.

I didn't want her to fall down the attic stairs or to get hurt on something up there, so I took a candle from my room and went to find her. I would speak to a servant in the morning about securing the attic door.

When I reached the top of the steps, I could no longer see her. The attic was larger than I had imagined, a huge, mazelike place that seemed to sprawl over the entire house. I could not locate Mariah anywhere.

The only light came from the moonlight breaking through a few high, small windows near the ceiling. Cobwebs swooped across everything like drapery. Sheets covered old furniture, creating enormous white lumps in the darkness. I saw empty portrait frames, old portraits spoiled by burns and spills. I saw wooden chests and piles of foul-smelling clothes.

The slough of a foot from several yards away caught my attention.

"Mariah." I spoke quietly, stepping toward the sound.

When I stretched my candle out in front of me, I saw that nothing had been placed in the large middle section of the attic floor. I wondered if that was one of the weakened structures of the house. Only spiders scuttled through the thick dust in that square portion of floor.

"Mariah." I hoped to find her quickly and lead her back to her bedroom.

I continued walking, seeing what looked like the back of a large dark wig poking above the back of a sheet-covered armchair.

"Mariah." I sighed in relief.

Her head did not turn.

Perhaps she had fallen asleep in the chair.

"Mariah," I said again when I reached the armchair. I laid one of my hands upon her shoulder.

The head turned toward me.

I screamed.

Twenty-one.