TEA TIME

A wealthy, lonely woman sits in her Victorian home waiting for her wealthy husband. Everything seems normal until a dark secret is revealed that has to do with Jack the Ripper.

TEA TIME

A short story by Charles E.J. Moulton

Deirrdre Carruthers sat by the window in her mansion’s living room like every Thursday afternoon and waited for her husband to arrive. Sitting in a big house all by herself could be frustrating. Even more frustrating was that it was her house and that her husband only had his position because of her.

Ruby had just served her favourite blend of tea in that small Shelley porcellain set that Baron Nathan Rothchild had given the family last week. It seemed fitting to use these cups and plates this Thursday tea time. After all, the Baron had announced that he would again be joining them this week.

As was one of Paul’s new guesting associates at the mill, it was even rumoured that the Baron would be Paul’s new financial advisor. Dierrdre sat there watching the Baron’s new Chinese porcellain that Ruby had just dished up, cups and plates galore and dreamed of yet another addition to her husband’s career and wealth. On the big silver tablet lay delicious Garibaldi Biscuits and the latest cry on the cookie market: the cream cracker.

The old clock in the corner bonged five times. Dierrdre stood up, adjusting her white laced hoop skirt. Walking to her guilded Regency style mirror, she powdered her nose.

She looked at herself thoroughly, like she had never looked at herself before. There was a pimple on her cheek. Where did that come from, she asked herself? It hadn’t been there last week. The Baron had surely not mentioned anything about that last Thursday.

Sighing, she went back to her place by the window and looked out. With Ruby in the kitchen preparing the evening’s festivities and Paul on his way home, there was actually nothing more for her to do. She had already had her dinner party with the girl’s from the theatre club. She had already practiced piano, spending most of her time on the MacMillan Publishers edition of “Auld Lang Syne” and on Beethoven’s “Für Elise”.

For a woman of her stature, used to having people around her, these afternoons were tedious.

She gazed around the room.

She had just finished reading Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” this morning and swooned when she read the last lines that spoke of a certain unification.

Fact of the matter was that Dierrdre was bored.

As fate so strangely has it, it answers the question posed. Nevertheless not exactly in the desired way.

Two voices could be heard chattering in the doorway downstairs. It was Baron Rothchild and Paul. Dierrdre’s spirit jerked up a notch. She smiled, finally thinking that Ruby’s Sri Lankan Black Tea Blend from the Twining’s company would not be cooling off too much for Paul’s taste. This exotic tea was rather conventional in taste, too conventional for some, and English tea prices had plummeted because of it. Dierrdre liked the taste and it benefitted from being drunk hot. Cool tea with cream crackers? Almost a horrid thought.

On this 30^th of August 1888 Dierrdre Carruthers had prepared the livingroom to the last detail. Actually having the Baron come home and visit them yet again was an honour.

The door swung open and revealed two bright eyed young men with dimpled cheeks and bright smiles, both with large waxed moustaches, high hats, canes and long tail coats.

Paul grinned and exclaimed:

“There she is, my exquisite pearl. Come into my arms!”

Dierrdre stood up, adjusted the fan that hung from her lace-gloved hand, and strode up to Paul, who embraced her and gave her cheek a peck.

She immediately noticed the scent. It was very different from other smells that she usually detected stamped on her husband’s persona. Paul sometimes smelled of steam, cigars, brandy, wax, oil and coal. At times, he even smelled of sweat.

This was the smell of cheap perfume. It wasn’t even a Ratcliff Highway whiff. It was a cheap smell mixed with the smell of dirt inside alleyways. Smelling that smell was a shock to Dierrdre.

Didn’t the work day end early on Thursdays? This was no special Thursday, mind you. Paul had announced that the Baron would be arriving for tea and biscuits just like last Thursday and that they would attend a conference. Still, Dierrdre had been suspicious.

Dierrdre smiled again, looking confused.

Paul twitched his large moustache a while and indicated toward the elegant, rich gentleman to his left.

“You have missed Baron Rothchild a great deal since last week, I am sure! He has spoken nothing except of you.”

Paul Carruthers nodded toward Dierrdre, obviously noticing the detection of scents in his lady fair’s eyes.

She stretched forward her gloved hand and the Baron kissed it.

As Dierrdre indicated toward the window table, she saw a look exchanged between the two powerful men. She knew that, no matter how low her status might be in this house, she would have to inquire what they had done and where.

Dierrdre sat down, then the Baron sat down and accordingly Paul sat down as last member of the gathering.

Paul reached for the servant bell with a calm vitality. It startled Dierrdre to see how arrogantly he called for Ruby.

The golden bell immediately awoke Ruby to action and within five seconds footsteps could be heard dashing up the stairs.

Her slight Cockney accent came through when she spoke, even though her efforts to speak high English were exemplary, to say the least.

“Your graces, Ladyship Carruthers. Good afternoon, I made some tea and biscuits of fashionable sweetness. I ‘ope that you had a fine day. There you go.”

Ruby poured out the tea, but it was obvious that she also detected the penetrating smell. Dierrdre saw it in her eyes.

“If you ‘ave a wish, I shall dash up to your graces in a jiffy.”

After having poured out three cups and handing out six biscuits, she was gone again.

There was a stunned silence in the room, as both powerful men really knew that, somehow, Dierrdre had noticed what they had done.

She had yet not uttered a word.

Usually, she was a chatterbox.

Paul tried to lighten up the atmosphere.

“So, how was your day, dear? Finish that Austen novel?”

Dierrdre nodded, faking a smile.

“Good,” Paul answered. “Did it end well?”

Dierrdre nodded again.

Paul looked at Baron Rothchild and swung his elegant head around toward the ceiling in a fake gesture of glee.

“You did hear Dierrdre play Beethoven last week, didn’t you? She is absolutely marvelous. Such a quick study. The Guildhall School of Music has presented something called Mrs. Curwen’s School of the Pianoforte. Mrs. Anne Curwen comes here herself, you know! Who knows,” Paul said and patted his wife on her leg, “my wife might become a new Clara Schumann!”

Dierrdre somehow knew that they had been copulating again with some alleyway hooker. Was she just supposed to accept that?

“It was the most fabulous sound I ever heard, Paul,” Baron Rothchild exclaimed, joining in on the fake escapade. “Dierrdre dear! How long have you been practicing?”

Dierrdre said nothing.

She gave the two men a cynical smile and finally said:

“I have practiced piano for two years and learned that aiming to please men with exquisite tones is the most important addition to English society. We make music, write novels, bake cakes, sow clothes and go to the museum while you meet with other powerful men in grey areas inspecting ill scented fabrication.”

Paul cocked his head.

“Ill scented fabrication?”

“Dear,” Dierrdre interrupted, “I noticed a very strong sting in your clothing. It is not the musk you usually spray on your skin. Maybe you can share with your wife from where this scent has sprung. My dull life here in this house is tedious enough. I spend my hours strolling or dawdling around art enough hours of the day, so, pray, do tell me what that strange smell is? It fills the room with the atmosphere of a dubious gender.”

Paul looked at Nathan Rothchild for a bit. The two men shook their heads. “Uh, nothing. It must have rubbed off from a fabric that we worked on. You know the modern society. Always out to industrialize sweet scents.”

The two men laughed and handed each other cigars.

The cigars were puffed and brandy was poured out. All the while, Dierrdre sat there like a sweet pearl and said nothing. She listened to the men talk about work and labour and business.

Dierrdre stood up and left the room.

As the men really didn’t stop talking, she dashed down the stairs with its’ red carpets and expensive chandaliers.

Outside the house, inside the courtyard, coachman Randolph was tending to the horses and adjusting his tailcoat. He sat there patiently waiting for the Baron to come back, not really knowing if he would be gone one hour or six.

When he saw Dierrdre and immediately stepped off his position on the coach. Bowing and grabbing his hat, he looked decidedly afraid of losing his position.

“At ease, Randolph,” Dierrdre said. “I came down just to inquire where you have been taking my husband and the Baron today?”

Randolph looked right and left and his old face turned awry. It was really the gaze of someone scared of the truth.

“I was told by the Baron and your husband not to say, your grace,” Randolph whispered.

Dierrdre smiled. “You can tell me. You have to tell me. I have the right to know. I am his wife.”

Randolph sighed and stuttered. “Wh-white-ch-chapel, Lady Curruthers!”

Dierrdre couldn’t believe her ears. The most sordid part of London? “What were they doing there?”

Randolph shrugged. “Well, at first nothing, Lady Curruthers. I picked them up at the factory at one o’clock and they went dining. Then the told me to just give them a tour of the city. I did and I kept going further and further. We ended up in Whitechapel around three o’clock. It was the Baron’s idea at first. He stepped off the coach and ...”

Dierrdre waited. “Yes?”

“Well, I was told not to say.”

“Please tell me. My marriage depends on it.”

Randolph shook his head. “Then protect me from their rage.”

Dierrdre nodded. “The law will do that.”

“What?”

“Just go on.”

“Well, the gentlemen were gone over ten minutes. I just know that both of them were laughing when they came back. They kept mumbling about someone named Polly Nichols and how great she had been. They were laughing all the way here.”

“Where was this?”

“Durward Street.”

Dierrdre patted Randolph on his left arm and said: “Thank you!”

She ran up the stairs again. As she entered the living room again, the men were still talking and greeted her only with a wave.

“Where were you this afternoon?”

The two men stopped talking.

“Uhm, we were out dining in town.”

“That fabric you spoke of, did you work on that fabric in the resturant?”

The Baron nodded and Paul shook his head.

“Well, at first yes, then no,” Paul added.

“You came directly home after that?”

They nodded.

“Where is this place?”

“Oh, near the Houses of Parliament. Jigby Pollows, I believe.”

“Was Polly Nichols there?”

The room was now not only full of cigar smoke and brandy smells. It was now also full of confused deceit.

“Who is Polly Nichols?”

“Paul, the girl you just saw, of course,” Dierrdre spat.

The Baron stood up, dropping his cigar to the floor.

Dierrdre rushed to the carpet, picked up the cigar and threw it into the ashtray. She gave him a cold look and turned back toward Paul.

“I might be a woman, I might have no right to vote, I might be the victim of a male society, but I still am a person and this house was given to me by my father. So, technically, I gave you your position in the firm. I am here from morning until evening and all you can do is roam in the carriage about town, leaving for Whitechapel,” Dierrdre said. “Why not Ratcliff Highway? There are enough ladies to satisfy the needs you miss here in the elite whoredom. Whitechapel, Paul? Why there? Do you know what kind of venereal diseases those girls carry? What do you want to give me for our wedding day? Syphilis?”

The Baron shook his head, picked up his extinguished cigar and broke it in two. Feeling the smooth surface of the brandy glass and letting the liquid dance inside it, he smiled and cocked his head.

The brandy was quickly inserted into his stomach.

All the while, Paul and Dierrdre gazed down toward the floor.

The Baron saw this, stood up and stretched forth his hand. He took Lady Carruthers hand, kissed it and folded his hands.

Now, he wasn’t a wealthy baron anymore.

He was school boy, ashamed of being caught with his hands inside his trousers.

“I don’t know who told you about our escapades today, noble lady, although I can imagine who.” The Baron smiled, still looking down. “I won’t reprimand him. I will just say this: don’t reprimand your husband. I am at fault. We were drunk and I gave him the idea. I still hope that you can mention my name with cringing.”

The Baron waited a second for a reply.

As none came, he nodded toward Dierrdre and then gestured toward Paul Carruthers. He was standing in the middle of the room, trembling.

“Paul,” the Baron said, “I do hope that this event does not constitute the end of our professional relationship. I shall drop by the factory tomorrow. You have until then to tell me what your lady fair says about this unfortunate situation here. Fair the well, colleague.”

The Baron left the room, walked down the stairs, exited the door and closed it. As he walked down the steps to the carriage, not a word was spoken. Randolph opened the carriage door, let in the Baron, who entered. Randolph jumped up upon the coachman’s seat, whisked his whip at the stallions. The sound of horses hooves disappeared into the distance.

All the while, the married couple remained where they had been standing for over five minutes now. They were standing like statues in a living room full of expensive furniture and art, but devoid of spirit.

Paul raised his hand, began speaking.

Nothing came out.

He lowered his hand and sighed.

“Has this happened before?”

Dierrdre gave her husband an inquisitive look.

Paul shook his head.

“How can I be sure? How can I ever trust you again? I want to have your children, Paul? What if your contracted syphilis?”

Paul started trembling again.

“I am drunk.”

“Is that an excuse? Would you say that to the victim of a crime? I am sorry if I killed you, but I was drunk?”

“I killed no one, Dierrdre.”

“I am dead inside.” Dierrdre gave Paul an angry look. “I am asking Ruby to cancel the party, I am packing my bags and leaving to go to my parents’ mansion in Oxford. When I back here in a week, I want you out of here.”

Dierrdre walked out of the living room, leaving her husband behind. Within one hour, Dierrdre was gone. Paul spent the evening crying and getting drunk on brandy.

While Paul lay in his bed with his clothes on, drunk and crying, Dierrdre was on her way home to her parents. The Baron sat in the High Society Men’s Club by himself, reading the day’s paper. That evening no one did anything but cry. The Baron fell asleep in his hotel bed around three o’clock in the morning. At the same time, a mysterious man sneeked up toward what would later become Buck’s Row. This mysterious man was carrying sharp knives and the girl that the two walthy men had copulated with in the alleyway was brutally murdered. The police found Polly Nichols butchered.

Jack the Ripper was born.

The morning this news spread across London, it gave the Baron quite a start. He didn’t register it first, but as the name did seem familiar to him he searched his mind and found a mental duplicate.

As he still was in London, he jumped into a carriage that took him to Paul Carruthers’ mill. The associates there claimed that the chief had not been seen since Thursday and that he had most probably taken sick leave.

The carriage lingered on toward the mansion, where he did find Ruby all up in arms. She claimed that Mr. Carruthers had let everything go, refusing to eat and drink. His wife had left him and he wanted to leave this Earth.

That was all that he could say.