“Education is still important.” I’m afraid he’ll quit school now that he’s given up on Catherine.
“One night off ain’t gonna make a difference.” He stalks out, closing the door so hard that the bell jangles.
I sigh and tell myself that I should stop trying to act as a parent to Mick, who’s an adult by circumstance if not age, but I care about him, and I know he wants to rise within the ranks of Sir Gerald’s employ, and for that he needs an education. I also don’t like him roaming the city armed with a gun, spoiling for trouble.
I go upstairs, wondering if things will look different now that I’m married. But there’s the chaise longue that I rarely get to enjoy because Mick and Hugh monopolize it, the fireplace that warms us while we drink our cocoa on winter nights, and the other furnishings that we’ve acquired mostly from junk shops. No matter that I’m eager to establish a home with my husband, how can I bear to leave?
Fitzmorris comes out of the kitchen, dishcloth in hand. He and I share the chores. Mick pitches in, but Hugh is useless at domestic tasks, and soon Fitzmorris will have to shoulder the major burden alone. His family has served Hugh’s for generations. Fitzmorris’s parents died when he was a child, and after the Stauntons gave him and his siblings a home, education, and affection, he repaid them with devotion to Hugh, whom he loves as a younger brother. His devotion extends to Mick and me. He’s a bachelor with no children, and the three of us are his family. I’ll miss him, but I can count on him to look after Mick and Hugh when I’m gone.
“Where is Hugh?” I say.
Fitzmorris points upward. “Sleeping it off.”
I haven’t the heart to criticize Hugh for his overindulgence. I never liked or trusted Tristan—I thought him rigid and standoffish—but he was Hugh’s beloved, the only relationship that had been serious enough to last for more than a few encounters. And I can’t deny that Tristan had sacrificed much for love of Hugh. He’d given up the Church and attempted a new, disliked career in Sir Gerald’s business empire so that he and Hugh could be together. Eventually Tristan crumbled under the pressure from social disapproval and his own conscience. That the relationship was doomed from the start doesn’t mean its end is any less painful for Hugh.
“Barrett stopped by and left you a note.” Fitzmorris gestures at the dining room table.
I read the note: Broke the news to C. F.’s wife. Went to the morgue at St. George’s for the autopsy. Meet me at the hotel. B. I smile. It’s my husband’s first letter to me. How romantic.
I go to my small, cramped room on the top floor. Its attic ceiling slants low; it’s cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and noisy from the traffic on the street; but it’s dear to me. After my father disappeared, I lived with my coldhearted mother in a series of cheap, comfortless lodgings. Then came boarding school, her death, and living on my own. This is, since the age of ten, my first real home, where I’m loved.
When I take off my wedding dress, I find a brown acid spot on the skirt, from the photographic chemicals. I sponge the spot with water, hang up the dress, and put on a dark-blue wool frock. Instead of traveling to the hotel by myself, I decide to meet Barrett at the morgue. I go downstairs and hesitate in the parlor, torn between the need for protection and reluctance to bring my gun. St. George’s Church is less than half a mile away, but even though the Ripper no longer stalks the streets, Whitechapel is dangerous by night, especially for a woman alone. My wounded shoulder twinges. I leave the gun in the drawer.
Outside, I hail a cab that conveys me to St. George’s. The ornate Baroque church, surrounded by dark tenements, looks as inviting as a mausoleum. In the flickering light from the streetlamps, trees cast spooky shadows on its white stone walls. The fog is so thick that I can’t see the boundaries of the churchyard, and I don’t know where the morgue is. Starting down a path, I hear footsteps but can’t tell if someone is following me or they’re echoes of my own. Foliage drips water on me, cold moisture veils my face, and I shiver. Then I see a weird glow in the distance. I pass old gravestones tilted at odd angles. It’s said that the veil between the realms of the living and the dead is thinnest at Halloween, but it’s not Halloween yet, and I don’t believe there are ghosts in this cemetery or anyplace else. The glow emanates from the windows and open door of a small brick building amid high shrubs that seem intended to hide it from view.
“Barrett?” I call.
He appears in the doorway, much to my relief. “Sarah? What are you doing here?”
“I came to meet you. Is the autopsy finished?”
“No. It’s just about to start.”
I peer into the morgue and see a blanket-covered figure lying on a table while a man in a gray smock removes instruments from a cabinet and arranges them on the work top. I think of the time I visited a morgue and photographed the dissected corpse of Annie Chapman, the Ripper’s third victim.
“You came alone?” Barrett looks around for Hugh and Mick, my usual companions in nighttime expeditions. “That was dangerous.”
I feel a little hurt because he’s not pleased to see me. “I made it all right.”
“I told you to meet me at the hotel. Or didn’t you get my note?”
“Yes, but I thought that if I came here, we could go together.”
“You can go now. I’ll walk you to the train station.”
“Since I’m here, I may as well watch the autopsy.” I don’t really want to, but his peremptory manner rouses my stubborn streak.
Barrett frowns. “You can’t. It’s against procedure.”
“Remember Sir Gerald’s deal with the police.”
Sir Gerald and the top police brass agreed that his reporters would have access to investigations, and the Daily World would give the police good publicity and help them solve cases by encouraging readers with information to come forward.
“Never mind Sir Gerald’s deal.” Barrett draws me farther from the morgue and lowers his voice. “Didn’t you promise to obey me?”
I pause, confused, before I recall our wedding vows. I laugh because I think he’s making a joke. “Well, I didn’t mean it so literally.”
He’s not laughing. “Why not?”
“Surely you don’t think you can order me around, and I should do whatever you say, just because we’re married now?”
I’ve seen his father order his mother around, and many other husbands doing the same with their wives, but although Barrett has often disapproved of my actions, he’s always respected my independence. I thought he found it attractive and indeed liked having a woman who was adventurous instead of domestic, wayward instead of meek. We stare at each other, stunned by the realization that marriage has already changed things between us.
I take a step toward the morgue. He puts out his hand to stop me. We both freeze.
Barrett drops his hand. “You can watch.”
“No, I’ll go.” I feel the same simultaneous reluctance to give in and eagerness to please as I hear in his voice. We both perceive that something bigger than winning this argument is at stake.
The morgue is no place to hash it out. We walk to the door, and he stands aside so I can enter first. Confronted with the doctor, his grisly array of sharp tools, and the shrouded corpse, my heart starts to pound. The discolored white plaster walls and the stone floor exude smells of absorbed decay that the cold air from the open door and windows doesn’t alleviate. I begin to wish I had obeyed Barrett.