A Taste for Monsters by Matthew J. Kirby
“We heard about your violin,” the pipe-smoking bludger said. “I’d like to make you an offer.”
“Your judys already made me a generous one,” Charles said. “If I turned them down, it’s not likely I’ll accept an offer from you.”
The man chuckled and stepped right up to Charles, close enough for me to see the red in the whites of his eyes. “Think me a mandrake, do you?”
“Not at all,” Charles said. “I was—”
The leader struck him in the face with his fist. The blow sent Charles sprawling, and his violin case tumbled away. I dove to his side as he attempted to raise himself, bleeding profusely from his nose, but before I could get him up, the other two bludgers rushed around and grabbed him from behind.
“Leave him be!” I shouted as they hauled him roughly to his feet.
Their leader strode up, shoved me out of the way, and struck Charles again, and again, in the face and in his gut. I raced to the edge of the street, grabbed a broken chunk of brick, and flew at Charles’s assailant from behind. I landed a blow against the back of his skull, which caused him to stagger, but didn’t drop him as I’d hoped. Instead, he recovered his footing and palmed his head, and when his hand came away red, he snarled at me. I went deathly cold at that, and attempted my earlier ploy by reaching into my skirt pocket.
“What you got there?” he asked.
“Come one step closer and you’ll find out,” I said.
“All right, then,” he said, and barreled toward me.
My bluff had not worked, and the monster met my eyes with the level of rage I imagined drove Leather Apron’s mania. Charles hung limp and broken between the other two bludgers, and I was about to be raped, killed, or both, but all I could think was that I had failed Mr. Merrick.
Just then, a copper sauntered into view on Commercial Street, his peak-hatted silhouette crossing the entrance to Flower and Dean. He was close enough to hear me, but I had to get his attention in a way he couldn’t ignore. An idea occurred to me then.
“LEATHER APRON!” I screamed. “IT’S LEATHER APRON!” I pointed at the mobsman charging at me, which halted him instantly in his steps.
The copper took one glance at us and blew his whistle, and within moments, three of his comrades had rushed to his side. Then the four of them advanced into the slum toward us, appearing cautious but determined.
“Bitch,” the mobsman said as he backed away. He nodded to his associates, and they dropped Charles to the ground, and then the three of them turned and fled down the street. To my dismay, one of them snatched up Charles’s violin along the way.
“Stop right there!” yelled one of the coppers, but halfheartedly. They gave no chase, and though I was grateful to them for coming to our aid, I scoffed at their seeming ineptitude and cowardice. “Are you all right, miss?” the same copper asked me, while the others went to Charles.
“I’m well enough,” I said. “But what of my friend?”
“He’s coming to,” announced one of the coppers, bearing him up. “But we best get him to the London.”
“What makes you think that man was Leather Apron?” the first copper asked me, sounding almost irritated.
“He was about to kill me,” I said. “You need more than that to go arrest him?”
The man looked deeper into Flower and Dean but said nothing, his silence an indictment against the whole bloody city. I realized then that he would have ignored my plea had it not been for the spectre of Leather Apron I’d summoned, and I would’ve ended up like so many other nameless victims of the East End, my life of little account, my fate but what I deserved according to those with privilege and wealth. That was the existence I’d but briefly escaped. That was the life that waited for me after I helped Mr. Merrick recover.
The coppers helped us to Commercial Street, where one of the policemen ordered us into a hansom cab. The horse and driver carried us more swiftly than the omnibuses, until we hit a blockade of traffic that slowed our pace. Along the way, Charles continued to rally and was soon sitting upright. I used my apron to wipe away the blood from his face and examined his injuries. The mobsman had blackened both his eyes, broken his nose, and collapsed a cheekbone, and that was just the damage done to his face. Still, it could have been much worse if they’d had a knife.
“How ugly do I look?” he asked.
“Still not as ugly as me,” I said.
“Stop with that. Did you—” He winced. “You get my violin?”
I paused before telling him. “No, I’m sorry. They grabbed it.”
He let out a moan as though that loss caused him more pain than any of his physical wounds, and said nothing else to me on our journey to the hospital. When we arrived, the hansom driver discounted the fare, due to the emergency, and I paid him. Then I helped Charles to the front gate and waited until a porter took him inside and I knew he would be cared for. I didn’t go into the receiving room with him, for fear that would invite too many questions about where I’d been, and instead hastened down and around to the gate on East Mount Street.
From there, I crossed Bedstead Square and went to Mr. Merrick’s room, where I found his condition no worse than it had been earlier that morning, which brought its own kind of relief. After that, I could but sit and wait, trembling as I recalled all that had just happened, and contemplated what had nearly happened.
It seemed a great deal of time passed before Dr. Treves came with Miss Doyle, and I greeted them eagerly. I had no expectation that anything might have changed for Mr. Merrick, but I wanted to know about how Charles was getting on. After Dr. Treves had conducted his examination and gone, Miss Doyle sat me down at Mr. Merrick’s table, the model church nearby close to completion. I made a silent vow in that moment that Mr. Merrick would finish it before I left.
“You were absent the earlier part of the day,” she said. “I made sure it went unnoticed.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I did not do it for you. Were you … successful?”
“I don’t know yet.” I didn’t know if I’d gleaned anything useful from the day’s inquiry. “But time will prove it.”
She nodded and pushed away from the table to leave.
“Miss Doyle?” I said.
She paused. “Yes?”
“I believe Charles Weaver was admitted to the hospital earlier today. He’s the violinist who comes to play for Mr. Merrick.”
“Yes, I know of him,” she said. “But I didn’t know he was admitted. Is he ill?”
“He was attacked in the street and took a thrashing.”
“How awful,” she said. “Male physical trauma and injury are typically placed in Gloucester Ward. Would you like me to inquire about him?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “I can go to the ward myself.”
“I hope his injuries weren’t serious,” she said. “I know Mr. Merrick considers him a friend.”
I found to my surprise that I had come to consider him a friend, too. “I hope so as well,” I said, and a short while later I put on my shawl, left Mr. Merrick’s room, and entered the inner lobby of the East Wing. On my first day at the hospital, Matron Luckes had pointed Gloucester Ward out to me, and I entered there with some trepidation.
The ward was a long room, both of its sides lined with iron bed frames like those I’d seen being scrubbed out in the square. A row of tall windows on the right let sunlight in, which reflected dully against the polished wood of the parquet floor, while potted plants and nurses’ desks sprouted up and down the middle of the room.
The male patients sat up or lay in their beds, some of them reading newspapers, some of them playing chess or cards with one another, others simply staring with blank expressions. I scanned the nearest of them but didn’t see Charles.
One of the nurses approached me in her white apron and dress of sky blue. “Yes, what is it?”
“Is Charles Weaver here?” I asked.
“He is,” she said. “Were you sent on an errand?”
“These are not visiting hours,” she said. “But … since you are staff, I suppose I’ll allow it. He is in bed nineteen, on the left.”
“Thank you, miss,” I said, and walked down the row of bandaged patients, nodding at them with my face covered by my shawl, until I saw Charles. His appearance clenched my chest. One of his eyes was completely swollen shut, the other nearly so, with his cheek painted crudely with a bruise.
“Charles,” I said. “Oh, Charles.”
He grinned as I sat down on his bed near him, and I noticed a chip in one of his teeth. “Not to worry,” he said. “This will all heal. Only got one broken rib, and my cheek. They’s keeping me over one night, to make sure there’s no sepsis.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It were my fault. Shoulda left the violin in Joseph’s room.” He shook his head. “That’s what hurts the most. My father saved and bought me that instrument, which is no small thing for a bricklayer. Don’t know what I’ll tell him.”
“I wish I’d tried to grab it.”
“Not your fault,” he said. “You were right bricky.” He grinned, and I smiled at his double meaning, though I hadn’t felt very brave when I’d grabbed that brick, merely desperate. “Don’t remember what happened after that,” he said. “Thought they was going to send me home.”
“I called a passing copper,” I said.
“And he came? Into the rookery?”
“He couldn’t ignore me. I accused the bludger of being Leather Apron.”
Charles snickered at that. “Proper bit of frock, you are,” he said, and I felt a bit of blush heat my cheeks. “So tell me true,” he said. “How do I look?”
“Now you’re as ugly as me,” I said, and I laughed, but alone.
“Why don’t you fancy me?” he asked.
The boldness of his question flustered me, and also angered me. “Why would I? Do you truly fancy me?” I immediately regretted the question, for I suddenly found I didn’t want the answer.
“Why you asking me that?” He looked at me for a moment out of his swollen eyes, his gaze cold. “I reckon it’s not actually because you don’t trust I fancy you. It’s because you don’t trust yourself to be fancied. And that’s a bloody shame.”
I didn’t know how to reply to that. I didn’t think he was right, but I also couldn’t say he was wrong. It was true that I still did not fully trust him, but I had to admit I didn’t trust anyone, save Mr. Merrick. It was also true I didn’t think myself a woman anyone could desire. I had long since settled that matter for myself, and even though it pained me, I accepted it, but then Charles had come stirring up trouble.
“Evelyn,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m listening to myself,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I meant for Joseph. What’re you doing next? About the ghosts?”
“Oh,” I said. “I don’t know.” But I felt relieved for a change in the subject of our conversation. “There’s an inquest on Thursday for the other victim. I plan to be there, and perhaps I’ll learn what I need to help her ghost.”
“And Long Liz, with her Princess Alice story?”
“She’s still a fifteen puzzle,” I said. “I don’t know what to think of her. I agree with that Maid Marian, though. I think Liz made that whole story up, about her husband and children drowning. Why else wouldn’t she collect the money from it, if money’s what she wants so badly?”
“I had the same thought.” He tipped his head back against the bedstead. “My eyes will still be in slings on Thursday, but I’ll go to the inquest with you.”
“Thank you, Charles.”
“When this is over,” he said, “and Joseph is on the mend, you might consider a career as a ghost hunter. I think you’ve a knack for it.”
I laughed. “When this is over, I want no more truck at all with the unquiet dead.”
He nodded. “Then may it be so.”
“You need rest, and I should be getting back to Mr. Merrick.”
“Go on, then. Give him a punch in the arm for me. And thanks for checking on me.”
“You’re welcome.” I rose from his bed, but he reached out and seized my hand, not roughly, but firmly. “Think on what I said, eh? A man’s pride can’t abide being denied.”
“That’s a pretty turn of phrase,” I said. “You should put that in a song for the stage.”
“You think?”
“Indeed. Because you’ll get no sympathy from the audience before you now.”
He let me go with a wry smile, and I left the ward and returned to Mr. Merrick’s room. There I busied myself with all my usual chores, dusting and cleaning. When Miss Doyle and Miss Flemming came, we all worked together to change his bedding. The sour smell about him worsened during those days when he lay unconscious and unwashed, but it helped to clean what we could. When evening came, I put on my shawl to join the other servants at dinner, and this time let Beatrice hold court as both Queen of Gossip and Prime Minister of Scandal, wielding all the authority of her Evening News, though for several minutes she only related things already known.
“They’re still saying he’s a medical man,” she said. “A doctor perhaps, who has epileptic fits, and he has it out for streetwalkers.”
“I still say his weapon is dull,” Martha said.
“Will you stop with that?” Becky said. “Honestly, Martha, you spend altogether too much time thinking on the maniac’s manhood.”
“Look who he’s murdering!” Martha said. “What else could it be about?”
Beatrice leaned forward with a sudden gasp. “Cheese and Crust, there’s been another woman murdered!”
I nearly dropped my fork in alarm, for if a fourth ghost came it would surely be too much for Mr. Merrick in his state, not to mention my own nerves, which could handle no more. But I quickly realized the body must’ve already been found, for the news to have made the paper, which meant the ghost would’ve already come, were she going to.
“A torso found wrapped up in a parcel in Westminster,” Beatrice said. “Head, arms, and legs cut off.”
“It’s too much,” Becky said, sounding as fragile as a porcelain shoe. “It’s like the whole world’s gone mad.”
“Is it Leather Apron?” Martha asked.
“They don’t know,” Beatrice said. “But I’d wager a month’s wages it is.”
“It isn’t,” I said, and everyone turned toward me.
“And how would you know that?” Beatrice asked.
I couldn’t tell them the truth, so I said, “None of the others were … cut up in that way.”
“They was disemboweled, weren’t they?” Beatrice said. “Butchery is butchery.”
I pressed harder against her argument. “But Leather Apron doesn’t wrap up his victims in parcels. He leaves them in the open. Like he wants them found.”
“Oh, you a detective now, are you?” Beatrice ladled ice into her words. “Scotland Yard must be so grateful for your talents.”
I ignored her. “It’s like he’s … taunting the police.”
“That makes sense to me,” Becky said.
“ ’Course it does.” Beatrice turned the anger toward Becky. “But you Africans know all about savages, don’t you?”
“Beatrice!” I shouted, and stabbed my finger at her. “Shut your sauce-box.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Becky said to me, rising from the table. “And Beatrice, I’ll remind you there ain’t one single witness saying this Leather Apron is a black man. You ask me, you white folk got your own kind of savage to worry about.” She left the table then, and Martha hurried after her.
A moment after they’d gone, Beatrice laughed in an embarrassed way that flapped her lips and sounded false. “I don’t mean she’s a savage. Becky’s a nice little Hottentot.”
I stood then, and my voice became a hiss. “She’s a far better woman than you’ll ever be, you miserable old haybag.”
If I’d been closer to her, Beatrice might have slapped me, such was the fury that crossed her face, but I merely turned my back on her and left her steaming. In our room, I found Martha sitting next to Becky on her bed, and Becky looked up when I came in.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Pay her no mind,” I said, ripping off my shawl. “She’s nothing but a vile church-bell.”
“Oh, she don’t bother me,” Becky said. “I’ve heard worse.”
“I’d still like to batty-fang her,” Martha said.
“You’d lose your position and so would I,” Becky said.
“Maybe I’ll thrash her,” I said. “I’m as good as sacked, anyway.”
Becky chuckled. “Go on, then. Have at her.”
“Just as soon as Mr. Merrick is recovered,” I said, returning her laugh. “Speaking of which, I must get back to him. Will you be all right?”
“Oh, yes,” Becky said. “That old blowsabella don’t matter a whit to me.”
I bade them both good night and left, disturbed for some time by what had happened. My distress and anger on Becky’s behalf did not arise only from the attitudes my father had taught me, though, but from my own experiences. The matron wouldn’t hire a black woman as a nurse any sooner than she’d hire me, and that was far from the only time my appearance had been so judged. I meant not to compare burdens, but felt that when Beatrice insulted Becky, she may as well have been insulting me or any of us that were overlooked and disregarded.
I reached Mr. Merrick’s room, and having already cleaned it thoroughly that day, there wasn’t much I could do to pass the time or distract myself out of the dark mood Beatrice had caused. The anger I’d felt at the coppers earlier in the day became an overwhelming rage at the city for all its daily injustices, not just to Becky but to me and Charles and Polly and Annie and Long Liz and countless others who got worse than they deserved. Even well-meaning souls like Matron Luckes were complicit, and had my fury taken physical form that night it would have burned the whole of bloody London to the ground.