Finally, in late 1913, Mr Letts offered Ernest a small flat
near the shop, with generous terms which
ensured Ernest could afford to pay back the purchase price to his foster
Father, over time. So it was in that bare room that Ernest proposed to Effie, showing
her the space that he could now call his own.
Ernest began his proposal speech by saying that he had been in error, by
not coming to this point sooner, he had denied Effie years of fulfilment as a
Mother, since had they married sooner she would have now been blissfully
surrounded by children. He interpreted her tears as happy acceptance, and began
to talk about setting the date. Effie allowed
him to place the ring on her finger, but told him that the wedding could not
take place until she had finished her secretarial course. She was now at
college, and it was important that she was learning and had proper skills, she
said. Ernest would not want to deny her that. Ernest could not see what
relevance shorthand was going to have for Effie at home, but he was up to date
with the arguments and issues of the modern woman, and felt he had no choice
but to agree, for fear of seeming old fashioned. So they left the flat arm in
arm, and went to share the good news with their respective households.
A month before Effie and Ernest were due to be married, War was declared. Effie insisted on postponing the ceremony, saying that in these times of uncertainty they could not make any such commitment. Ernest might be called to fight at any time. Ernest told Effie firmly that it would all be over by Christmas, and went back to his work. If he sought the occasional night of company in the East End, what did she expect? He could not be asked to live like a monk, surely. And if his tastes had become – refined – in any particular direction, again, that was not something he could ask an innocent bride to share, so it was natural that he may continue to look elsewhere.
By Christmas the fighting in France was inescapable, however much Ernest shut his mind to it. The images that he caught sight of in the newspapers set up resonances with him, of dreams that he could barely remember, but which had left a scars on him, scars which now pulled and pulsated, the skin of his normal, waking life stretched too tightly over them. He was reduced to almost begging Effie to bring forward the date of the wedding, as they walked home from a Christmas carol service. Effie had been very much affected by the sight of wounded soldiers in the church and could talk of nothing else.
‘Gabriel and his Father are already in France.’ She began, looking pointedly at her fiancé. ‘So brave of them to volunteer.’
‘Colonel Kerford is about as close to the front line as I am here in Barnet.’
‘That’s not fair. Gabriel wrote that he is very afraid for his Father’s safety, because of the distance of the artil – the arterial – the guns.’
‘Artillery. Gabriel is writing to you?’
‘Yes. He writes me long letters and always begins by begging me to read them to you.’
‘Which so far, Effie, you have failed to do.’
Effie shrugged, laughing. ‘I know you want to avoid it all. I thought you wouldn’t want to hear what Gabriel is going through.’
Ernest stopped, mid-stride, and turned Effie to face him. ‘Look, my dear girl. Gabriel is an Officer. He is riding about on a fine horse, drinking French wine every evening with all his chums from school who are in the same couple of Regiments. If I go to war – and I will, when I am required to do so, not before – but if I go, when I go, I will be in the front line. I have worked to my own timetable, building my own business and earning my own money, for years. And I will be set to drills and marching by some pimple-faced public schoolboy who will look at me as yet another East End rat. Bloody cannon fodder, Effie. I know. I’ve seen enough.’
‘You don’t know that. You’re bright, you’ll get on.’
‘Oh, so I might reach Sergeant before I’m killed. Well how comforting for you. I hope the funeral is suitably romantic.’
Effie walked away from him, sobbing audibly and shaking out her handkerchief. Ernest let her continue for five whole minutes before he apologised for ‘being a crosspatch’, as Effie put it.
A month before Effie and Ernest were due to be married, War was declared. Effie insisted on postponing the ceremony, saying that in these times of uncertainty they could not make any such commitment. Ernest might be called to fight at any time. Ernest told Effie firmly that it would all be over by Christmas, and went back to his work. If he sought the occasional night of company in the East End, what did she expect? He could not be asked to live like a monk, surely. And if his tastes had become – refined – in any particular direction, again, that was not something he could ask an innocent bride to share, so it was natural that he may continue to look elsewhere.
By Christmas the fighting in France was inescapable, however much Ernest shut his mind to it. The images that he caught sight of in the newspapers set up resonances with him, of dreams that he could barely remember, but which had left a scars on him, scars which now pulled and pulsated, the skin of his normal, waking life stretched too tightly over them. He was reduced to almost begging Effie to bring forward the date of the wedding, as they walked home from a Christmas carol service. Effie had been very much affected by the sight of wounded soldiers in the church and could talk of nothing else.
‘Gabriel and his Father are already in France.’ She began, looking pointedly at her fiancé. ‘So brave of them to volunteer.’
‘Colonel Kerford is about as close to the front line as I am here in Barnet.’
‘That’s not fair. Gabriel wrote that he is very afraid for his Father’s safety, because of the distance of the artil – the arterial – the guns.’
‘Artillery. Gabriel is writing to you?’
‘Yes. He writes me long letters and always begins by begging me to read them to you.’
‘Which so far, Effie, you have failed to do.’
Effie shrugged, laughing. ‘I know you want to avoid it all. I thought you wouldn’t want to hear what Gabriel is going through.’
Ernest stopped, mid-stride, and turned Effie to face him. ‘Look, my dear girl. Gabriel is an Officer. He is riding about on a fine horse, drinking French wine every evening with all his chums from school who are in the same couple of Regiments. If I go to war – and I will, when I am required to do so, not before – but if I go, when I go, I will be in the front line. I have worked to my own timetable, building my own business and earning my own money, for years. And I will be set to drills and marching by some pimple-faced public schoolboy who will look at me as yet another East End rat. Bloody cannon fodder, Effie. I know. I’ve seen enough.’
‘You don’t know that. You’re bright, you’ll get on.’
‘Oh, so I might reach Sergeant before I’m killed. Well how comforting for you. I hope the funeral is suitably romantic.’
Effie walked away from him, sobbing audibly and shaking out her handkerchief. Ernest let her continue for five whole minutes before he apologised for ‘being a crosspatch’, as Effie put it.
By the spring of 1916 Ernest was making plans to enlist,
before he was called up. He had failed the first health inspection, and was
pronounced too short and underweight. ‘Weedy’ as the doctor put it. ‘And for once
you should be glad about it.’ Ernest got back to the shop to find a note from
Lady Kerford, requesting that he call upon her, to undertake some book
restoration work for her husband.
The Kerford residence was in a state of confusion. Lady
Kerford was going to retreat to the country, her nerves being unable to take
the reality of Zeppelin raids. And she feared for the porcelain and mirrors.
Tradesmen of all sorts came and went, and Ernest was pushed into the study by a
housekeeper he had not seen before, and left to sort through the books.
The study was quiet, its book lined walls shutting out the household noise and the rattling of the increasing traffic outside. Ernest had learned to love the smell of old books, their calm exuding through the leather and glue, promising wisdom within. He ran a finger along the shelves, trusting all his senses to pick out the rare works, the valuable editions and the most loved volumes, as once before he had picked out Gabriel’s favourite, the Blue Fairy Book. He remembered that Gabriel, with his instant generosity, had given that book to him without a murmur when Ernest had first set foot in the house. Ernest got back to work, sorting the books into piles - one for those which needed work, another for books that had some value, and the rest he boxed up carefully, with pristine white tissue between the books.
As dusk fell, Ernest found he had the book on Jack the Ripper in his hand. He opened it idly; the book was of no intrinsic value, after all. The spine was loose – this was a book that had been read or flicked through very often. He read that it was the memoir of a policeman close to the case, with extra commentary by a learned doctor or two. Ernest wondered idly why no one had ever thought to interview the women who lived and worked in the Ripper’s hunting ground, or even to any of the men who would surely have seen him – the street boys, the night workers, the publicans. Nothing went unobserved in those dark and narrow streets, because anything out of the ordinary might be an opportunity to make some money. He flicked through the pages, noting somebody, presumably the Colonel, had made copious notes in it. But in rather a disorganised, antique looking hand. Ernest shifted the weight of the book, and a few sheets of paper fell out of it. They were folded up, and Ernest put down the book to smooth them out on the desk. The first sheet had clearly been folded up for a long time, the creases were set in it, and it resisted Ernest’s fingers. As Ernest moved it under the light, it took him a moment to understand what he was looking at; it was a sketch, made in thick pencil, and with hasty strokes. It was a nude woman, but twisted, distorted. Ernest thought at first it was a modernist abstraction, until he realised that the torso of the woman was opened up, cut into sections, so that the black blobs lying over the flesh were in fact a representation of her guts. Once Ernest had realised that, he had no doubt that he was looking at a sketch of a Ripper victim. Ernest checked the back of the page, in case this was by chance an insert, printed into the book, but it was clearly an original – the mark of the pencil showing embossed through the paper.
Almost in spite of himself, Ernest prised open the second sheet. This showed the same woman, the same scene, but this time the woman had a face. She was reclining, and was clearly alive, smiling sleepily at the artist. The artist who, moments after he put down his pencil, would kill and eviscerate her. Ernest gasped as he realised the implications of this. He was holding a sketch that could only have been made by the Ripper himself. He paced the floor of the study for a few moments, while dusk rolled into night, before he could bring himself to open the other sheets. He laid them down in front of him quickly, like a fatal hand of cards. A sketch of a garden, showing some kind of quaint little building half hidden on the roses. A sketch of a young woman, seemingly unobserved, unaware of the artist. She was smelling the blossom in the spring trees, her hair loose down her back. The third, the same woman, turned this time towards the artist, but absorbed in her own sketch book. Ernest dropped the sheets of paper, allowing them to scatter on the carpet, and stuffed his fist into his mouth to stop himself from screaming. The woman in the sketches was his Mother. Rosalina, in the garden, sensing she was being watched and followed, but still lost in the reverie of flowers. Rosalina, vulnerable and alone, stalked by the Ripper himself. Rosalina, the only one left living.
Above the fireplace, the streetlight outside cast a shadow – an extenuated shadow of a man in a top hat.
Ernest ran out into the street. ‘Where are you?’ he shouted. ‘Where are you?’ As he wheeled around he caught the half echo of a laugh. He followed the sound across the square, along the prosperous streets, through quiet mews and private courtyards. Finally he saw the familiar silhouette under a streetlight. The man was softly spoken, casual. Ernest’s anger dissipated, suddenly out of place and over the top with this urbane companion.
‘Do you know where I have brought you to?’
‘You have brought me to somewhere beyond the bounds of the earth, before now.’
‘No, that was your doing. But this time I have brought you to a painting. The man opened a wrought iron gate. ‘Or rather, the setting of a painting.’
By the bright moonlight, Ernest saw the silver thread of a garden path, leading to a small summer house, covered in the foliage, but not yet the flowers, of a rambling rose. The apple trees leaned over the path, their blossoms white as moths in the night. Ernest walked down the path; the man in the top hat somehow was already at the summer house door, waiting for Ernest to push it open.
The little room inside had a couch, a screen, and somehow still contained the smell of oil paint after twenty three years.
‘Do you understand, now, what you see?’ asked the man, leaning against the window frame.
‘Colonel Kerford is…he is my Father.’
‘Do you really think that such a man, such a mild, straight-laced man, goes around ripping whores into their butchered parts.’
‘My Mother told me…’
‘And she was right. It was indeed Jack the Ripper himself who thrust into her on this couch, ruining her life and that of others. But’
‘But if not Kerford, then how has he sketches of her – of my Mother – together with others of…’
‘Of another of the innocent victims.’ The man walked across the room and stood in front of the little fireplace. ‘Ernest. Are you dreaming? Think, son. Look at me.’
Ernest looked, and in the flattened light of the dim room he saw the portrait that his mother had drawn, the portrait of the man whose eyes watched her for ever. He rushed across the room with a sudden fierce rage, images in his head of dashing this monster against the tiles. But somehow he was holding nothing but shadows, and the man was outside the summer house, looking in at him.
‘I warned you that we could never meet. The effort of manifesting myself to you in this way is intense. It is worse if you are disturbed. You need to focus on me, Ernest.’
‘I am going to war, soon. I will find Kerford and ask him.’ Said Ernest.
‘Yes. You will go to war. But you will not find him. You will find out many things.’
‘Where are you?’ said Ernest. The man’s voice had grown faint, as if he was walking away. Ernest ran back down the path, and stepped out onto the pavement, looking in both directions.
The study was quiet, its book lined walls shutting out the household noise and the rattling of the increasing traffic outside. Ernest had learned to love the smell of old books, their calm exuding through the leather and glue, promising wisdom within. He ran a finger along the shelves, trusting all his senses to pick out the rare works, the valuable editions and the most loved volumes, as once before he had picked out Gabriel’s favourite, the Blue Fairy Book. He remembered that Gabriel, with his instant generosity, had given that book to him without a murmur when Ernest had first set foot in the house. Ernest got back to work, sorting the books into piles - one for those which needed work, another for books that had some value, and the rest he boxed up carefully, with pristine white tissue between the books.
As dusk fell, Ernest found he had the book on Jack the Ripper in his hand. He opened it idly; the book was of no intrinsic value, after all. The spine was loose – this was a book that had been read or flicked through very often. He read that it was the memoir of a policeman close to the case, with extra commentary by a learned doctor or two. Ernest wondered idly why no one had ever thought to interview the women who lived and worked in the Ripper’s hunting ground, or even to any of the men who would surely have seen him – the street boys, the night workers, the publicans. Nothing went unobserved in those dark and narrow streets, because anything out of the ordinary might be an opportunity to make some money. He flicked through the pages, noting somebody, presumably the Colonel, had made copious notes in it. But in rather a disorganised, antique looking hand. Ernest shifted the weight of the book, and a few sheets of paper fell out of it. They were folded up, and Ernest put down the book to smooth them out on the desk. The first sheet had clearly been folded up for a long time, the creases were set in it, and it resisted Ernest’s fingers. As Ernest moved it under the light, it took him a moment to understand what he was looking at; it was a sketch, made in thick pencil, and with hasty strokes. It was a nude woman, but twisted, distorted. Ernest thought at first it was a modernist abstraction, until he realised that the torso of the woman was opened up, cut into sections, so that the black blobs lying over the flesh were in fact a representation of her guts. Once Ernest had realised that, he had no doubt that he was looking at a sketch of a Ripper victim. Ernest checked the back of the page, in case this was by chance an insert, printed into the book, but it was clearly an original – the mark of the pencil showing embossed through the paper.
Almost in spite of himself, Ernest prised open the second sheet. This showed the same woman, the same scene, but this time the woman had a face. She was reclining, and was clearly alive, smiling sleepily at the artist. The artist who, moments after he put down his pencil, would kill and eviscerate her. Ernest gasped as he realised the implications of this. He was holding a sketch that could only have been made by the Ripper himself. He paced the floor of the study for a few moments, while dusk rolled into night, before he could bring himself to open the other sheets. He laid them down in front of him quickly, like a fatal hand of cards. A sketch of a garden, showing some kind of quaint little building half hidden on the roses. A sketch of a young woman, seemingly unobserved, unaware of the artist. She was smelling the blossom in the spring trees, her hair loose down her back. The third, the same woman, turned this time towards the artist, but absorbed in her own sketch book. Ernest dropped the sheets of paper, allowing them to scatter on the carpet, and stuffed his fist into his mouth to stop himself from screaming. The woman in the sketches was his Mother. Rosalina, in the garden, sensing she was being watched and followed, but still lost in the reverie of flowers. Rosalina, vulnerable and alone, stalked by the Ripper himself. Rosalina, the only one left living.
Above the fireplace, the streetlight outside cast a shadow – an extenuated shadow of a man in a top hat.
Ernest ran out into the street. ‘Where are you?’ he shouted. ‘Where are you?’ As he wheeled around he caught the half echo of a laugh. He followed the sound across the square, along the prosperous streets, through quiet mews and private courtyards. Finally he saw the familiar silhouette under a streetlight. The man was softly spoken, casual. Ernest’s anger dissipated, suddenly out of place and over the top with this urbane companion.
‘Do you know where I have brought you to?’
‘You have brought me to somewhere beyond the bounds of the earth, before now.’
‘No, that was your doing. But this time I have brought you to a painting. The man opened a wrought iron gate. ‘Or rather, the setting of a painting.’
By the bright moonlight, Ernest saw the silver thread of a garden path, leading to a small summer house, covered in the foliage, but not yet the flowers, of a rambling rose. The apple trees leaned over the path, their blossoms white as moths in the night. Ernest walked down the path; the man in the top hat somehow was already at the summer house door, waiting for Ernest to push it open.
The little room inside had a couch, a screen, and somehow still contained the smell of oil paint after twenty three years.
‘Do you understand, now, what you see?’ asked the man, leaning against the window frame.
‘Colonel Kerford is…he is my Father.’
‘Do you really think that such a man, such a mild, straight-laced man, goes around ripping whores into their butchered parts.’
‘My Mother told me…’
‘And she was right. It was indeed Jack the Ripper himself who thrust into her on this couch, ruining her life and that of others. But’
‘But if not Kerford, then how has he sketches of her – of my Mother – together with others of…’
‘Of another of the innocent victims.’ The man walked across the room and stood in front of the little fireplace. ‘Ernest. Are you dreaming? Think, son. Look at me.’
Ernest looked, and in the flattened light of the dim room he saw the portrait that his mother had drawn, the portrait of the man whose eyes watched her for ever. He rushed across the room with a sudden fierce rage, images in his head of dashing this monster against the tiles. But somehow he was holding nothing but shadows, and the man was outside the summer house, looking in at him.
‘I warned you that we could never meet. The effort of manifesting myself to you in this way is intense. It is worse if you are disturbed. You need to focus on me, Ernest.’
‘I am going to war, soon. I will find Kerford and ask him.’ Said Ernest.
‘Yes. You will go to war. But you will not find him. You will find out many things.’
‘Where are you?’ said Ernest. The man’s voice had grown faint, as if he was walking away. Ernest ran back down the path, and stepped out onto the pavement, looking in both directions.
Call for me. Call for
me, Ernest, and you can find me again. Say it out loud, and then we can meet.
For we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face, and you shall know
all.
Ernest ran a little in one direction, and then back in the
other. Finally he stopped. ‘Father! ‘ he called. ‘Father!’
A cab rattled down the empty street, and Ernest got in without conscious thought. As if under hypnosis, he said ‘Newgate Prison, please.’
A cab rattled down the empty street, and Ernest got in without conscious thought. As if under hypnosis, he said ‘Newgate Prison, please.’
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