The Ripper's Wife

Chapter Two

Diana clambered ungracefully back into the carriage, the raincoat she'd borrowed from Tristan as a disguise pulled tightly over her body. As was typical of an English spring, a damp, cold drizzle had started up as night fell. Thunder rumbled threateningly in the distance.

"Milady!" Tristan exclaimed, picking up the horses' reins again as his mistress entered the carriage. "I was scared you'd gotten lost in one of these back alleys." He shook his head, rainwater flying from the brim. "I'm never letting you go off like that again, no matter what you say. Not without me. If Lord Ashdown found out that I'd let you do this..." he trailed off, wincing at the thought of what fate would await him.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," Diana apologized, pulling at the carriage's cover so that it shielded both her and her driver from the frigid rain. "It's so hard to get decent information out of these people. Can't understand a bloody word they say, anyways."

"That's Chapel-speak for you," Tristan laughed, urging the horses down the dimly lit street, back to safer parts of London. Street lamps flickered weakly, casting shadows over the road. "I remember people used to say that the accent sounds like someone trying to gargle rocks while taking a -" He caught himself quickly. "Never mind."

Diana laughed half-heartedly at his blunder. "It's just so...rough, out there." she murmured after a second, twisting her hands in her lap. "It seems like, unfortunately, that violence towards women is common. Nobody seems particularly worried about the fact that an innocent person was sliced open less than a few meters from their front doors."

Most of the people she'd talked to shared that mindset. Diana had tried to pry information from the farrier at Brown's stable yard, which was especially unsympathetic to the nature of the killing. "Prob'ly just some dollymop that thought she'd blag some poor fella of his pay money, rather than deb 'im. The 'aybag got what was comin' to her in me own opinion." he'd said, not bothering to look even slightly concerned.

"This must be a horrible place to live, if such brutality is so common and accepted."

Tristan nodded. "That's why I got out of the slums as fast as I could. It's hard to do, too - kind of like climbing out of a pit. I'm glad Lord Ashdown gave me this job, or I'd probably be in as bad shape as the rest of these sorry people."

"You grew up in Whitechapel?" Diana asked in shock. Tristan's accent was nothing like what she'd just encountered.

"Spitalfield, actually." Tristan corrected. "Some say it's worse. And believe me, if you're living in the workhouses, it is."

"I had no idea you were in a workhouse."

Tristan shrugged, turning the horses to the right. "Learning how to speak pretty is simple enough when it's the difference between a job and food in your belly or catching rats on the street for supper. But you can't fault these people - it's what they have to go through that makes them like that."

"What do you mean?" Diana asked, wrinkling her nose. The characters she'd spoken to had been rude, coarse, and insensitive. It hardly seemed like anyone had forced them to behave so crudely.

"It's a different life out on those streets." Tristan explained. "You have to deal with violence, crime, hunger, filth, disease, death...it's just easier to accept it and move on rather than linger on the unpleasantness. They know the coppers can't stop prostitutes from being murdered, so they just try to lay low and stay out of trouble themselves."

"I suppose that makes sense," Diana mused, removing the raincoat's hood from her head. "And although they didn't seem too interested, I managed to get a little information."

"Like what?" The carriage lurched to the left, toward Mayfair, the wealthy side of London where Brynbella Manor was located.

"The victim's name was Mary Ann Nichols." Diana began. "She went by 'Polly' on the streets. Apparently she was an alcoholic and separated from her husband. He hasn't seen her in ten years, after the court decided he didn't have to pay her an allowance because of the way she, ah, earned her money."