London November 1889
Jenny stepped off the train into the astonishing bustle and mayhem of the cavernous Liverpool Street Station in London having travelled days from her small Irish town to the teeming big city. Told to look for her cousin who would be wearing a distinctive green bowler hat she scanned the throng clutching her carpet bag to her chest. Bodies bumped her and voices cursed as she slowly stepped away from the train looking for a kind face.
In the forefront of her mind were all the tales from the last two years of the Ripper hunting in the streets of London. Was that evil, terrifying man here, watching her even now?
The green bowler was distinctive, most hats were black or brown, but the face below it was not particularly friendly. When the stern dark eyed man saw her staring at him from five feet away the angry scowl lifted briefly in bemusement as he registered her.
Jenny saw a man in his early thirties with great, brown mutton-chops side-burns and a stylishly curled moustache. The suit was light grey with worn, green velvet accents on collar and cuff. Both his suit and his shoes looked like they had once been fancy, but had been worn from long use. Thin, with muscular arms and shoulders he had a hungry leanness she knew well from back home.
Cousin Arthur in turn saw Jenny, a strawberry blonde, green-eyed lass, gaunt and worn from travel, dressed in near rags, clothes she'd been wearing for years handed down from some other woman, and maybe another before. Beneath her petticoats her boots were patched and poorly repaired, her bonnet old and limp. Yet the reason for Arthur's change of expression was the beauty that managed to still pierce the haunted, exhaustion she was wrapped within.
Jenny had no idea, but she was in fact beautiful.
Physical beauty had no place in the ugly coal town she'd been forced to abandon so no one bothered to tell her. If any of her large family back home noticed how pretty the second eldest daughter of five girls and three boys had been they had never thought to share that with her. Why would they? Life had been miserable and starvation a constant threat for two generations, pretty girls were no less likely to die than ugly.
"Jenny?"
"Hello Arthur. Many thanks for taking me in. T'is a great boon."
"I'm not so sure you'll think that for long lass. London is a hell hole, y'll see." The haunting tone he used once more evoked the horrors she imagined while reading about the Ripper.
Without offering to take her bag Arthur turned on his heel and walked toward the exit. Falling in behind Jenny tried not to give in to fear that his gloomy prediction would prove true. Back home the family needed to offload children in order to keep the rest of the family alive. Her brothers had been given to apprenticeships, her oldest sister married and since she had no worthy suitors her parents approved of they sent her to the city to live with her mother's cousin.
After a few vague, short letters back and forth Arthur had assured them he could find placement for Jenny in a factory and that she could stay with him until either of them found that unsuitable. With that little information she had been put on a cart, then a train, boat and two more trains on her very first excursion out of her county, likely never to return.
If Arthur hadn't taken hold of her hand when they emerged onto the street she would have been lost in moments, the crowded streets were packed with people, horses, dogs, barrows, carts, and carriages all moving faster than she would have thought possible with so many obstacles. The buildings towered above her the shortest taller than the anything other than churches back home.
It was loud, smelly, smoky and dark as sun set below the horizon and the tall chimneys filled the air with soot. Jenny stumbled behind her older cousin seeing wonders every few steps that nearly stopped her in her tracks. The overall impression was of filth, anger and crowding. Narrow lanes and tightly packed tenements hunched over the pair as Arthur dragged the bewildered country girl through the masses. It was easy to see how a murderer would be able to elude capture in a place like that.
When they reached Arthur's lodging, a garret atop a tenement building that he shard with two other men in a shift, he showed her the small room proudly. The other men used the space to sleep while Arthur was at work and they in turn went to work while Arthur was home in the evenings.
"I have it all to myself when they're at work. Pretty rare in London."
The garret had a round table with three seats, a wardrobe, two foot-lockers, washbasin, small wood stove and two cupboards all dimly lit by a lantern. The space was ten feet at the widest and six feet along the narrow side with a thick curtain bisected the room. The Dark fabric was pulled open to reveal a bed and the wardrobe. Back home it would have been a sad place for a newly married couple to begin life, but Arthur's pride as he showed her where she was to live revealed this was a good home for folks in London.
"Do you have the money?" Arthur asked boldly.
"I do."
Rummaging in her bag she found the small coin purse her father had given her to pass on to Arthur. Jenny had no idea how much was in there but Arthur quickly counted and she saw it was fourteen shillings, more than a weeks wage back home.
"That's your share of rent for the month. You're due that again for December."
Jenny needed the job he promised.
"What about that factory job then?"
