Page 6 of If Looks Could Kill
The light, somehow, feels changed. Dawn is faintly visible in the sky now. A man and a woman, fresh from an all-night tavern, pass by on the opposite side of the street, singing loudly and out of tune. He didn’t remember them being there before.
He looks back at the girl, now settling the lace once more over the brim of her hat.
“We’re coming for you,” she tells him. “Run if you like, but we’re coming.”
The last thing a man should do on the streets of East London, just after the police discover another of his victims, is run.
The only thing a man can think to do, when he has met his doom, is run.
The most useless thing a man can do when his own flesh itself is cursed is run.
Run, Jack, run, fast as you can.
The Bowery, Lower East Side, ManhattanTabitha—Reasons(Friday, September 7, 1888)
To Pearl’s point, to her question, whywasI here?
First, it was because I thought I felt God calling me to come.
Then it was because Aunt Lorraine loathed the idea with a quivering passion. I could stop right there.
Then it was because I had all the arguments with her and my dad about it, in which I vowed that I knew what I was doing and was dead set upon going, so to give up now and go back would be to eat crow. No, thank you.
Then it was because I’d been feeling restless, and a bit adrift, ever since my dearest friend and beloved cousin, Jane, only one year my senior, had had the cheek to leave me bereft by getting married and moving to Boston. She was nauseatingly happy. She barely had time to write, so busy was she with feathering her nest. Her Gerald was, I suppose, acceptable, as bridegrooms go, though I certainly couldn’t see what Jane saw in him. But I needed something to fill the void her abandonment and betrayal had opened. Not that I was bitter. Ahem.
Then it was because I had promised I would, and then because I hadtaken the train to the city and was here now, and so I might as well stay, there being no pressing engagement calling me elsewhere.
And then it was because I met our co-commanders, Mr. Ballington Booth and his young wife, Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth. I would follow Mrs. Booth to Mars if she were forming an expedition, and if she got wind of any poor, lost souls up there, that’s just what she would do. Both she and her husband are wonderful, and she, so bold! Such an outspoken leader. Beloved by audiences of both men and women. I don’t believe she and her husband ever sleep. They work and work for the good of the poorest people in New York. They embody what we’re all supposedly trying to be. Where they lead, I’d like to follow. Even if it means living round the clock with Pearl.
So the Commanders Booth were two of my reasons.
But then it was because I arrived in town and saw the need. So much need. That’s what hooked itself into my heart.
And God’s call? I don’t know. I just don’t know. I know it felt real then. I know I’ve felt nothing like it since. I don’t know if it was a trick of the preaching or the music.
But I know there are an awful lot of folks here needing help.
I think, perhaps, that’s all I know.
Spitalfields, East LondonSingle Room(Saturday, September 8, 1888)
In a narrow room, in a grimy lodging house, a young woman sits on the edge of her bed. Through a smudgy bit of window, glimmers of morning pierce the gloom of high roofs and city smoke. She sets aside her hat, unlaces her boots, then unpins her hair. At least the room is hers alone today, and she can undress without fear. Small luxuries.
She remembers his scent. The blotchy, pocked skin of his face. The higher tenor note of his voice. Hardly what you’d choose if you were to cast an actor for the part. If this were a play. If life were but a stage.
Run if you like, but we’re coming.
When all else fails, only words remain.
Surely her threat is real. Surely others will pick up the task she’s left undone.
She drapes her blouse over a chair, then rubs her bare arms and hugs them tight.
She’d found him, though another poor woman had to die in order for her to be sure. If only she’d passed by him sooner. The scent of evil is hard to miss, but in the spiritual stench of East London, she was lucky to have found him at all.
But why…? How…? He had looked into her eyes. She had poured into them all her wrath, her outrage for his victims, the poor lambs. She’d held him in her sway, without a doubt. And after a stupefied pause, he had blinked at her andwalked away. As if nothing had happened.
Not that she had ever tried this before. She’s not a murderer. Justice demanded this.
