Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [82]
WRETCHED LOVE
TOWARD THE END OF JANUARY 1910 Ethel’s friend and landlady, Mrs. Jackson, began to notice a change in her behavior. Ordinarily Ethel left the house at ten o’clock in the morning for work, then returned around six or seven in the evening, when she would greet Mrs. Jackson warmly. In practice if not blood they were mother and daughter. But now Ethel’s demeanor changed. She was, Jackson said, “rather strange in manner, sometimes she would speak to me, sometimes not and was depressed. People noticed it.”
After several nights of this Mrs. Jackson resolved to ask Ethel why she seemed so depressed, though indeed London in deep winter—so dark, cold, and wet, the streets conduits of black water and manure—was enough to depress anyone.
As was her habit, Mrs. Jackson followed Ethel into her bedroom, where in more pleasant times they would spend the evening talking about work or the day’s news. The thing most on people’s minds was the rising power of Germany and the near-certainty of invasion, raised anew by a terrifying but popular play, An Englishman’s Home, by Guy du Maurier.
At first Ethel said nothing. She undressed and changed into bedclothes, then undid her hair and let it fall to her shoulders. Her cheeks still red from the cold, her hair dark and loose, she really was lovely, though sad. She put curlers in her hair, Jackson recalled—and probably these were examples of the latest in grooming technology, the Hinde’s Patent Brevetee, about three inches long, with a Vulcanite central core and two parallel metal bands.
She had difficulty. Her hands moved in clumsy jolts. Her fingers twitched. She did her hair, then undid it, “pulled and clawed it, looked straight into a recess in the corner of the room and shuddered violently,” Jackson said. Ethel had a “horrible staring look in her eyes.”
Jackson was too worried to leave and stayed with Ethel until nearly two o’clock in the morning. She begged Ethel to tell her what was wrong, but Ethel would only say that the cause had nothing to do with Mrs. Jackson. “Go to bed,” Ethel said, “I shall be alright in the morning.”
Ethel lay back in bed and turned her face to the wall. Mrs. Jackson sat beside her awhile longer, then left.
IN THE MORNING ETHEL was no better. Mrs. Jackson brought her a cup of tea in her room. Later, after Mrs. Jackson’s husband had left—his liking for Ethel had waned after her miscarriage—Ethel came into the kitchen for breakfast. She ate nothing. She rose and put on her coat, preparing to leave for work. Mrs. Jackson stopped her. “I can’t let you go out of the house like this,” she said.
It was clear to Mrs. Jackson that Ethel was too ill to leave. She telephoned Crippen at Albion House, then returned to Ethel. “For the love of God,” she now said, “tell me what is the matter, are you in the family way again?”
Ethel said no.
Mrs. Jackson persisted: “I told her she must have something on her mind, and that it must be something awful or she would not be in that state.” She told Ethel, “You must relieve your mind or you will go absolutely mad.”
Ethel said she would tell her the story later in the day, after dinner, but within two hours she came to Mrs. Jackson and said, “Would you be surprised if I told you it was doctor?”
Mrs. Jackson assumed that Ethel was now revealing for the first time that Crippen had been the father of her lost baby, and that for some reason the whole incident had come back to cause her renewed grief.
Mrs. Jackson said, “Why worry about that now its all past and gone?”
Ethel burst into tears. “Its Miss Elmore.”
This perplexed Mrs. Jackson. The name was new to her. Ethel had never mentioned anyone named Elmore—she was sure of it. “Who’s that?” she asked.
“She is his wife you know, and I feel it very much, when I see the Doctor go off with her after the other affair.” Ethel added, “it makes me realize my position, what she is and what I am.”
On this score Jackson had little sympathy. “What’s the use worrying about another woman’s husband?”
Ethel told her that Crippen’s