The Ripper's Wife (2 page)

I
t began with a shipboard romance, the sort of thing you might find in any romantic novel, play, or film. From time immemorial it always seems to have been the rule that when presenting romance to the masses, the hero and heroine must meet in a memorable manner, something amusing, adorable, or antagonistic, that will spawn an entertaining anecdote they can regale their friends and relations with for years to come. But happily ever after really depends upon where you end your story.

Did you ever sit and wonder what happens to the lovers locked in a passionate embrace after the gilt-fringed curtain goes down or the words
The End
appear upon the silver screen? Does Prince Charming
really
love and adore his Cinderella forevermore, forsaking all others as long as they both shall live, till death they do part? Or does he, sooner or later, exert his royal and manly prerogative and take a mistress, an ambitious lady-in-waiting, a buxom, bawdy laundress, or a pretty little actress perhaps? Are we really expected to believe that the noble bluebloods of the court accept a former servant girl as their queen? The young and naïve never think or worry about such things; when you’re only eighteen it’s easy to believe in love lasting “forever” and “happily ever after.”

The setting was picture-postcard perfect—a spick-and-span new steamship, part of the prestigious White Star Line, all fresh paint, varnish, and high-gloss polish, a veritable floating palace, with a buff-colored funnel belching steam high above our heads, regally bearing us across the ocean from New York to Liverpool. The SS
Baltic
might have steamed right off one of those popular souvenir postcards almost everyone in those days collected. It was all
that
perfect—
gilt-edged perfect!
It was the perfect place to fall in love!

Looking back now, in hindsight after six decades, if I were to cast the movie of my life, I might have been pert, blond, and vivacious Carole Lombard, champagne bubbly in a bustle and ringlets with an Alabama belle’s molasses accent, dense and sweet, and he might have been dignified and debonair, sedately suave William Powell, a little staid and stodgy perhaps—some might even have gone so far as to call him “pompous”—but with a ready smile, a wry sense of humor, and a twinkle in his eye. He made my heart flutter and skip like a schoolgirl! With a tall silk hat and a diamond horseshoe sparkling in his silk cravat, dapper in a dark suit straight from Savile Row, patent-leather boots, and immaculate dove-gray gloves and matching spats, he was every inch a gentleman.

I suppose I must sound awfully silly, but every time he looked at me it was like receiving a valentine. Pictures of hearts, Cupids, cooing doves, clasping hands, and bouquets of flowers and boxes of chocolates tied up with red and pink satin bows filled my head like a bewildering array of pretty cards on display in a stationer’s shop, and I just didn’t know which one to choose, and in truth I didn’t want to. I wanted them
all
. I wanted
him!
He was
everything
I had ever dreamed of. Or perhaps the sadder and wiser and much older me of today should correct the gauche green girl of yesteryear and say that he
represented
everything I had ever wanted. In those days, it was
all
about appearances. In society, style trumped substance every time.

It was March 11, 1880. Like the date inside a wedding ring, it is engraved upon my memory and heart. How could I
ever
forget? It was the day my life changed forever.

I was eighteen, bubbling over with high castle in the clouds, hopes and champagne dreams—intoxicating, sensuous, thrilling, and sweet. A living doll—I think at almost eighty I’m old enough to say that now without seeming vain—who always saw the world through rose-colored glasses. I was a dainty little thing, with a curvaceous corseted hourglass figure, tiny waist bracketed by generous bosom and hips, dressed in the latest Parisian fashions, with gleaming golden ringlets, violet-blue eyes that provoked my many beaus to say that they would make forget-me-nots droop and weep with envy, sugar-pink rosebud lips just
longing
to be kissed, the white magnolia blossom skin we women of the South prized so, and ankles and wrists so tiny and trim. I was a delicious little dish!

It seemed as though I had spent my entire life hiding under shady hats and veils to keep the sun from singeing me with its hot, crisp, baking kiss, and being scrubbed down vigorously with buttermilk and lemon juice in a never-ending crusade against freckles. And for the blemishes that seemed to erupt whenever I was overly excited or anxious Dr. Greggs prescribed a face wash of elderflower water, tincture of benzoin, and
just a little
arsenic. Not enough to hurt, he assured me in his kind, grandfatherly way when I shrank back and fearfully demurred when he handed me the prescription, remembering a play I had seen about an evil, scheming woman who had put arsenic in her boring old fuddy-duddy husband’s soup so she would be free to abscond with her lover, a worthless but
excruciatingly
handsome lounge lizard with hair like black patent leather who danced like a dream and never threw away the love letters foolish women sent him lest he have to do something so menial and mundane as work for a living. I
relished
every thrilling, wicked moment of it and had sat through it
five
times, in wide-eyed wonderment, leaning forward in my seat, even though it made my stays pinch, anxiously nibbling my nails and a bag of toffee.

Despite being a seasoned traveler, a habitué of sophisticated Parisian salons and worldly European circles, and a rather sporadic attendance at a deluxe Swiss school for affluent young ladies in Vevey where I did little more than sit in the garden, eat chocolates, dabble in watercolors, devour romance novels, and gaze at the breathtaking vista of blue lakes and snowcapped mountains and dream until I graduated at sixteen, I was never blasé or jaded. In those days, I exuded a bewitching, bewildering blend of innocence and confidence, shyness and sophistication. I wore them like a halo that protected me like Saint Michael’s shield. I glided through life endowed with the sweet certainty that nothing bad could possibly ever happen to me. I believed in the innate goodness of people; I trusted in the kindness of strangers and was eager to like everyone and wanted them to like me. I gladly proffered my trust until I was given reason to withdraw it. But even then I never stopped believing that most people truly are good at heart, though they might sometimes behave badly because they were hurting inside or driven by some dark or desperate compulsion or circumstances I was not privy to. I wished them well and accepted their failings and flaws as endearing little foibles and went on believing that good would eventually triumph over whatever darkness assailed their poor souls. I didn’t believe in evil then; to me the Devil was just another storybook villain; I never thought I’d end up dancing, or sleeping, with him.

I was traveling with Mama, the bountiful-hearted and -bosomed, white-blond, violet-blue-eyed Baroness Caroline von Roques, a worldly-wise Alabama-born beauty whose numerous admirers always poetically declared that her hair was like a field of our Southern cotton silvered under a full moon, and my brother, the handsome gilt-haired “Alabama Adonis,” Dr. Holbrook St. John Chandler.

We had just left New York, where we had been spending time with dear old friends and making new ones, adding to our collection of admirers, the candy boxes, bouquets, and books of sonnets they sent us with declarations of undying devotion piling up high in our hotel sitting room, and just having a grand giddy ol’ time. It had been a whirlwind visit filled with lavish luncheons, society teas, and dinner parties, fancy dress balls, the theater and opera, daily shopping excursions, tailors and dressmakers appointments, brisk canters in the park on proud, high-stepping steeds that would have delighted my cavalry officer stepfather if he had been with us, and
thrilling
race meets where we all wagered recklessly on the ponies and gave our handkerchiefs and little charms for good luck to the handsomest of the jockeys. All Mama had to do was smile and mention our cousins the Vanderbilts and all doors instantly opened for us and credit was graciously and generously extended at all the best stores.

We planned to do much the same thing in London before we returned to Paris, which we worldly wanderers were pleased to call our home, though more for stylistic reasons than any fixed address, and where “Handsome Holbrook” had his medical practice, his waiting room packed with excited and excitable females all suffering from some form of womanly or nervous complaint.

Just like one might expect in a play or a film, James Maybrick literally swept me off my dainty little feet. It was our first night out to sea. I was
so
excited. I
loved
ocean travel. It
never
made me ill. I had already lost count of the number of times I had crossed. Though I had a fine collection of postcards, souvenirs of all the ships I had sailed upon, I had never bothered to count them. I was eager to purchase one of the SS
Baltic
to paste into my album and explore every splendid inch of this magnificent 420-foot ship; Captain Parsnell had already promised me a personal tour. He commended my daring and adventurous spirit. I wasn’t even afraid to venture down into the belly of the beast to see the boiler room manned by sweaty bare-chested stokers black faced with coal dust and rippling with hard muscles.

In a new gown of Wedgwood-blue satin with a wide white embroidered chinoiserie border edging the full, draped skirt, and a waterfall of white silk roses, blue ribbon streamers, and cascades of snowy lace falling from my bustle, I was hurrying from my stateroom. I had dallied too long over dressing, fussing and fidgeting, dancing around the room, humming love songs, and making sure I was perfect in every way.

The leather soles of my blue satin slippers pattered and my taffeta petticoats rustled like a flock of bellicose doves as I raced to the dining saloon.

On the companionway there was a moment of sheer panic when all of a sudden I seemed to go from stairs to air. I felt myself falling, and then, just as suddenly, I was safe, my quivering body cradled in a pair of strong masculine arms.

When I dared open my eyes, a diamond horseshoe was winking at me from a gentleman’s black silk tie.
He’s caught me in his arms like he has his luck in that glittering U,
I thought. Slowly, I raised my eyes to see a pink mouth smiling at me from beneath a dapper mustache, so deep a brown it was deceptively black, carefully formed and waxed beneath a fine patrician nose, and then I was staring into a pair of intense dark eyes,
sharp and sure as a surgeon’s knife,
I vividly recall thinking. My unknown savior held me like a bride about to be carried over the threshold of her new home. My bosom heaved, but I couldn’t breathe. I felt all aflame, as though I’d just emerged from a visit to the boiler room. I felt the perspiration pool between my breasts and a flaming blush dye my cheeks a pepper-hot red. I couldn’t speak. My tongue felt like a clumsy knot of wet pink ribbons.
I must be scarlet as a lobster and seem about as dumb as one!
I thought. Where, oh where was that coy, flirtatious, smiling miss I had always been with my beaus?
I needed her!

Before the gentleman and I could exchange a single word—surely I would have said something soon!—General Hazard and his wife were upon us, reaching out to me with the most tender concern. Exclaiming that they had seen the whole thing and watched in heart-stopping horror as I began to plummet but hadn’t been able to reach me in time.

The Hazards were like an uncle and aunt to me; they kept homes in New Orleans and Liverpool on account of the General’s dealings in the cotton trade, and we had often visited and traveled with them. The General and Mrs. Hazard both suffered from rheumatism and other age-related infirmities and loved to go anywhere they might enjoy the baths, luxuriating in the hot, sulfurous waters and sipping mineral-rich tonics, being pampered by nice doctors, who brought sweet dreams instead of nightmares to one’s bedside and never prescribed nasty medicines, pretty, smiling nurses in starched white caps and uniforms that rustled like angels’ wings, and sure-fingered muscular masseurs with faces fit for magazine covers but bodies that looked poised to enter the boxing ring. Mama and I had accompanied the Hazards to several fashionable spas and sampled such delights for ourselves, though neither one of us was ailing and we were both in the bright bloom of health. But it was always fun to be petted and pampered, especially by such nice, attractive people.

“Florie! Oh my dear, I’m trembling still! When I saw you start to fall my heart stopped!” Mrs. Hazard exclaimed, patting her heart through her black bombazine bodice.

“Thank heaven you were here, Jim, to save our Florie,” General Hazard was saying to my gallant savior, mopping his worried brow and frowning beneath the upside-down horseshoe of his droopy pewter mustache. “If it hadn’t been for my gout, my heels would have spouted wings and I would’ve caught you myself, my dear!”

I felt my slippers touch solid ground again. I was on my feet, and
still
flustered and speechless.
What was wrong with me?
Mrs. Hazard’s arm was around my waist, and I was leaning weakly against her, ever so grateful for her support, as I didn’t quite trust my feet, and introductions were being made.

His name was James Maybrick; he was a wealthy cotton broker with offices in Norfolk, Virginia, and England’s prosperous port city of Liverpool, where he was born and still made his home. The Hazards had known him for years. The General had often done business with him and enjoyed his hospitality at the Liverpool Cricket Club, and Mrs. Hazard had lost count of all the times he’d shared their table. They were clearly very impressed with him. “Solid as a rock, my dear! You need have no fears about James Maybrick!” Mrs. Hazard assured Mama when she took her aside and asked for his particulars.