New York; London: 1893–1899
At first, the crowds of people in New York City intimidated Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and he longed to return either to the less metropolitan world of Detroit or to the peace and quiet of Ann Arbor. He had been engaged by DeWitt Lansing Medical Suppliers as their sales representative in Manhattan and spent his mornings trawling from doctor’s surgery to doctor’s surgery, keeping appointments with men often younger than himself, trying to interest them in purchasing the latest tools or medicines for their practices. It was depressing work for him as he had never wanted to be the salesman, but to be the doctor instead. Their attitudes made him feel small; his clients glanced at their watches impatiently and cut him off in mid-sentence. Despite himself, he kept his anger inside and scraped a living. His afternoons were spent at DeWitt Lansing’s warehouse near the South Street Seaport, where he filled whatever orders he had managed to obtain during the day and dispatched them. He received a small basic salary and earned a fifteen per cent commission on all sales. It was enough to cover the rent on a tiny one-room apartment in the East 50s; it was damp and depressing and the children from upstairs cried constantly. He could, in fact, have afforded something a little better but, rather than spend the money, he decided to save it for a real release from this life and had managed to amass almost six hundred dollars in a short period of time, and he hid it under one of the floorboards in his room.
The afternoon of 18 June 1893 found him standing outside the doors of Dr Richard Morton, a general practitioner located on the corner of Bleeker Street and the Avenue of the Americas. Dr Morton was a regular client; Hawley’s predecessor at DeWitt Lansing, one James Allvoy, had booked his thrice-yearly appointments in the diary before leaving the firm for a career in the circus, where he was to be a lion-tamer. This was Hawley’s first visit to the surgery, but he was aware that there was a good commission to be earned here if he played his cards right.
A middle-aged woman opened the door, and he offered her his most obsequious smile. ‘Hawley Crippen,’ he said, doffing his hat. ‘From DeWitt Lansing Medical Suppliers. Here to see Dr Morton.’
‘Have you an appointment?’ she asked, blocking the entrance with her bulk. He nodded and explained that he was the new representative for the firm, and with a sigh, as if it was inconveniencing her tremendously, she allowed him in and showed him into a small waiting room, where three patients were already sitting. ‘I’ll tell the doctor you’re here,’ she said, ‘but he has to see all this lot yet, so there might be a wait.’
‘Perfectly fine,’ said Hawley, waiting until she had left before pulling a face and glancing at his watch anxiously. It was one o’clock already and he had one final appointment at two thirty before he needed to go to the warehouse. He couldn’t afford to be late for either and he glanced at the three patients gathered in the waiting room, wondering whether he could figure out their symptoms by simply looking at them. An old man stared at the ground with a miserable expression on his face; his wheezing breath could be heard from across the room. Asthmatic, Hawley reasoned. New prescription, five minutes at most. A young woman kept herself bundled together in the shade beside the curtains, trying not to be noticed by anyone. Single, pregnant woman. Ten minutes. A teenage boy with his arm in a sling, looking bored and shooting looks across at the young woman when he thought she wasn’t looking. Probably just needed the cast removed. Fifteen minutes. All going well, that should take him to about one thirty. It would take about forty-five minutes to go through the new Autumn range, which would leave him just enough time to make it to his final appointment of the day if he hurried. He gave a sigh of relief and watched the door anxiously.
In the end, it was almost 2 p.m. before Dr Morton summoned him into his office, and Hawley was already perspiring with a combination of heat and anxiety. To his disappointment, the surgery appeared to be surprisingly well stocked already, the shelves and cabinets filled with supplies, some of which he did not immediately recognize. Dr Morton looked at him suspiciously and offered no apologies for his tardiness. After seeing the three patients from the waiting room he had taken a break for some lunch, and Hawley could smell the roast beef and pickle on his breath as he sat down beside him, a little too close to him for comfort. I must remember to show him our latest remedies for halitosis, he thought to himself.
‘I haven’t seen you before, have I?’ Dr Morton asked. ‘What happened to that other fellow who used to come here? Short chap. Bad skin. Always scratching himself.’
‘Mr Allvoy?’ said Hawley. ‘He found a new position. I will be taking the orders for DeWitt Lansing from now on. Hawley Crippen.’ He decided not to tell the doctor exactly what exotic career path Mr Allvoy had chosen.
‘New position indeed,’ he snorted. ‘In my day a fellow took a job and stayed in it for life, working his way up. Nowadays it seems the young men only stick with things for a few years at a time. That’s the life of a hobo, not a working man.’
‘Indeed,’ said Hawley, opening his folder and bag of wares, unwilling to be drawn into a conversation about the decline and fall of contemporary youth. The first rule of a salesman’s life, he knew, was not to argue with the client. ‘Now, Dr Morton,’ he began with affected cheerfulness, ‘I have a very exciting range of products to show you today, beginning with a revolutionary new—’
‘Before you start, young man,’ the other said, raising a thick, wrinkled hand to silence him, ‘it’s probably worth my saying that Jenson’s been here and I’ve been doing a lot of business with him recently, so orders will be down. No point arguing about it. Let’s have that out in the open from the get-go.’
‘Jenson?’ Hawley asked, on hearing the name of DeWitt Lansing’s most serious competitor among the medical suppliers of New York. ‘But you’ve been one of our clients for so many years.’
‘And I still am, my boy, I still am,’ he insisted. ‘It’s just that he’s been able to undercut you on some products and I’ve bought them from him. Others I know you do cheaper, so I’m happy to take a look at them, but the chances are I’ll be splitting my business between you both from now on.’
Hawley swallowed and tried to keep calm. He spied a surgical knife on a side table and considered making a grab for it and losing it between Morton’s eyes. There was nothing he could do if the doctor wanted to use two different suppliers, but he knew that it would reduce his commission. He worked through his order book, demonstrating some of the new products which he had brought with him, describing others, and the doctor took some and informed him that Jenson was supplying him with some of the others at a third off. By the time he had finished, Hawley could barely contain his anger. The order was less than half what he had expected and it was already half past two, by which time he should have been visiting Dr Albert Cuttle on the corner of Sixteenth Street and Fifth Avenue.
‘Your face is bright red,’ Dr Morton observed as Hawley gathered his things together silently. ‘Are you sick? Want me to give you the once-over?’
‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘I’m a little disappointed, however, that you didn’t afford us an opportunity to improve our terms with you before using a different supplier, that’s all. After all, we have a long-standing relationship.’
‘I’ve only just met you,’ said Dr Morton with a smile, unwilling to be chastised in his own surgery.
‘You have a long-standing relationship with my firm,’ Hawley insisted. ‘At my last surgery in Detroit, we honoured such arrangements.’
‘Your last surgery?’ he asked, surprised. ‘But you’re a representative, surely. Not a doctor.’
‘Actually I am a doctor,’ Hawley replied irritably. ‘I simply haven’t yet found a position in New York suitable to my talents. The good people at DeWitt Lansing recognized an opportunity in the meantime.’
‘Well, what sort of a doctor are you?’ asked Morton, not believing a word of it and irritated that this young upstart should speak to him like this; after all, it was his decision how he spent his money. ‘What medical school did you attend?’
Hawley licked his lips, regretting having said anything. ‘I hold a diploma from the Medical College of Philadelphia,’ he said. ‘And another as an eye and ear specialist from the Ophthalmic Hospital of New York.’
Dr Morton thought about it. ‘Correspondence courses?’ he asked. Hawley nodded slightly. ‘Then, sir, you are not a doctor,’ said Dr Morton with a satisfied smile. ‘It takes many years of study, full time, at a recognized medical institution to earn the title. One cannot simply fill in a few forms and send off for a certificate. That may be how people join the priesthood today, but not the medical profession.’
‘I am Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen,’ came the angry reply.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, man, you’re nothing of the sort.’ He pointed a bony finger at Hawley and wagged it in his face. ‘Make no mistake, if I was to hear of a fellow such as yourself practising medicine in this city without a degree, I would have no choice but to inform the authorities. There are laws about such things, you know.’
Twenty minutes later, a minuscule order in his folder, Hawley found himself out on the street, clutching his bags angrily. He knew that what Dr Morton had said was, strictly speaking, quite true, and he hated him for it. Although he always introduced himself to people as a doctor, he was aware that he was stretching the legal description somewhat. In fact, his diplomas served only to allow him to practise as a physician’s assistant, as he had done with the older Dr Lake in Detroit. To pretend otherwise was to deceive.
He pulled his watch from his pocket and looked at it. Almost three o’clock. He was too late for Dr Cuttle who, he knew from experience, would refuse to see him now. He considered going there anyway and pleading for a later appointment, but he knew he would be turned down, for that man was a strict observer of punctuality. He also had the ability to anger Hawley, for he was only twenty-four years old and was already a fully qualified doctor with his own surgery, which Hawley envied enormously. He had heard that the man was a distant Roosevelt cousin, and they had funded it for him.
‘Enough!’ he thought finally, adrift in the Manhattan grid. ‘Enough of this day!’
He spent the afternoon back in his room, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. He felt a sensation of great loneliness. He had no friends in the city, no family. His thoughts drifted to Charlotte from time to time, but he knew that he did not miss her tremendously, and that in itself bothered him. He wondered whether he was really as cold as that implied. As for Otto, he hadn’t laid eyes on him since dispatching him to his grandparents’ home after Charlotte’s death. He had communicated with his in-laws by post for a little while but lately had grown out of the habit for he had nothing to say to them and could not pretend to have any paternal feelings. In his heart, he knew that he would never see his son again.
Unusually for him, he decided to go out for the evening and drown his sorrows at a local music hall. He had seen the show advertised on billboards many times, for he passed by the theatre every day as he left his apartment, but he had never gone inside. The girl at the ticket booth was chewing gum and barely glanced at him as he paid the ten cents entry fee, but still he felt a little self-conscious as he sat at a table on his own, drinking beer while comedy performers and dance troupes came out on stage and went through their routines with as much enthusiasm as they could muster for the few cents they earned. The audience paid as much attention to their own conversations as they did to the stage; the rows of seats were only about half filled, while a good many patrons remained standing or sitting around the tables by the bar. An hour or more passed and several beers were consumed before Hawley began to grow tired and consider returning home. However, before he could leave, his attention was taken by the dapper, middle-aged man in the paisley waistcoat and the elaborate moustache who strode on to the stage, clapping his hands to call the audience to attention.
‘Ladies and geeeent-lemen,’ he announced loudly, stretching out the words like elastic, ignoring the mocking sounds coming from various sections of the theatre, the catcalls, the whistles. ‘I now have the very great pleasure, yes the very great pleasure in deeeed, of introducing to you one of the true stars of the New York musical stage. She’s been a favourite here at the Playbill Show-house for six months now. Six months, ladies and gentlemen, of refinement! Of artistry! Of elegance! Please sit back and prepare to enjoy the musical stylings of the delightful, the delicious, the deliriously delectable Bella Elmore!’
Hawley glanced up from his drink only for a moment as a buxom girl of about seventeen marched out to muted applause—sounds which were in deliberate contrast to her enthusiastic introduction—before doing a double take and looking at her more closely. She was not unattractive of face, but she had quite broad shoulders and was a little heavy set for one so young. Her dark hair was piled up on top of her head, a few strands escaping down her neck, while her cheeks were heavily rouged. She sang three popular songs in quick succession—one of which was a little bawdy for his liking—and performed them merely adequately, taking barely any notice that most of the audience were talking their way through her routine. Hawley, however, was transfixed. He watched her, hoping that she would notice him, and as she finished her last song he caught her eye, offering her a gentle smile. She stared back at him for a moment carefully, as if unsure of his intentions, but finally she smiled back and gave him a polite nod of the head. She disappeared off the stage eventually to make way for a juggler with a waxed moustache, and Hawley looked around to see whether she might reappear in the audience but there was no sign of her. After ten minutes, sighing and disappointed, he stood up, preparing to return home alone once again.
‘And there was me thinking you might buy me a drink.’ A voice came from behind him and he spun around to see the young singer standing there, hands on hips, smiling at him suggestively.
‘I’d be honoured to,’ said Hawley, a little flustered, clicking his fingers to attract the attention of one of the waitresses.
‘Bottle of champagne, Cissie,’ she said, ordering for them both as she sat down. ‘And two glasses.’ Hawley smiled, mentally scanning the contents of his wallet, hoping that he had enough money on him to pay for such excess. He was not to know that, whenever this girl caught the eye of a patron, she made sure to order the most expensive drinks from the bar. The more bottles of champagne she could convince customers to buy, the more dollars she found in her pay packet at the end of the week.
‘Hawley Crippen,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘And you’re Miss Bella Elmore, is that right?’
‘Cora Turner,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Bella’s just my stage name. It has an elegant air, don’t you think? Thought of it myself, don’t you know.’ She affected an elaborate accent, as if she had been brought up in Buckingham Palace, and not as the daughter of Russian-Polish immigrants in a tenement block in the borough of Queens. Cora Turner itself was also a pseudonym; she had been born Kunigunde Mackamotski but had quickly discarded that mouthful of a name.
‘Very elegant indeed,’ he replied, anxious to please. ‘I enjoyed your singing very much, Miss Turner. You have a beautiful voice.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m the best singer here.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
She accepted the compliment without a word and lit a cigarette, holding his stare all the time. Usually the men made all the moves, but she could tell that he was a quiet one and needed some help. ‘And what do you do then, Hawley Crippen?’ she asked after a few moments’ silence.
‘I’m a doctor.’
‘A doctor, eh? Very posh.’
‘Not really,’ he said, laughing a little. ‘I specialize in ophthalmology. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds.’
‘Ophthalmology?’ she asked, wrinkling up her nose and experiencing a little difficulty pronouncing the word. ‘What’s that then when it’s at home?’
‘The study of the eyes,’ he replied.
‘And you make a living off of that, do you?’ she asked, gulping down a mouthful of champagne now as Hawley sipped his carefully.
‘Oh yes.’
‘I’ve always been told that I have beautiful eyes,’ she said, fishing for a compliment.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, disappointing her. ‘Might I ask how long you have been in the music-hall business?’
‘Three years,’ she said. ‘Ever since I turned fourteen. I intend to be one of the world’s finest opera singers. I just need to get the right voice coach, that’s all. Only, they cost money. The natural gifts are there though, they just need training.’
‘I have no doubt of it,’ said Hawley. ‘And you are from New York originally?’
She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, closing them into a quiet conspiracy of two. ‘Do you know why I came over here?’ she asked him, and he shook his head. ‘I came over here because when I was on stage I could feel your eyes burning through me.’ She reached her hand under the table and placed it softly on his knee. He felt his body grow rigid with desire and fear. ‘And when I looked over towards you, I thought to myself: there’s a respectable gentleman and one I wouldn’t mind having a drink with. Much kinder looking than most of the men we get in here.’ She sat back—she’d used this line many times before—lit another cigarette and waited for him to respond.
‘I apologize for staring,’ he said.
‘Don’t. I’m on stage, you’re supposed to be looking at me. It’s better than half the fools here who just carry on talking to each other while I’m trying to perform. What are you doing here on your own anyway?’
‘I had a long day and felt I needed a little refreshment. I don’t normally drink alone, but tonight—’
‘Tonight you just felt like one, am I right?’
He smiled. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘That’s about it.’
‘And where’s your wife then? She doesn’t mind you going to music-hall shows on your own?’
Hawley bowed his head slightly. ‘My wife died three years ago,’ he said. ‘A traffic accident.’
Cora nodded but didn’t express any sympathy; all she was doing was collecting information, filing it all away in her head for future use or exploitation. They sat staring at each other, unsure where to go from here, while she made up her mind about something in her head. ‘Are you hungry, Dr Crippen?’ she asked, deciding.
‘Hungry?’
‘Yes. I haven’t eaten yet and I thought about going out for a little dinner. Would you like to join me?’
Again, Hawley could only think about the contents of his wallet, but there was something wonderfully attractive about this girl and it had been so long since he had enjoyed a pleasant conversation with a woman—with anyone, for that matter—that he could not help but agree. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘I’d be delighted to.’
‘Wonderful,’ she said, standing up. He rose as well, but she placed a hand on his shoulder to push him back down in his seat. ‘Let me go change,’ she said. ‘I’ll just run back to my dressing room. Won’t be five minutes. You’ll still be here when I come back?’
‘I’ll still be here,’ he promised.
Pulling off her stage outfit quickly in the dressing room she shared with three other girls, Cora stared at herself in the mirror and wondered whether she needed to apply any more lipstick.
‘What’s got the wind into you?’ asked Lizzie Macklin, one of the dancers, unaccustomed to seeing Cora move so quickly.
‘I’ve got a date.’
‘So what’s new? You go home with a different man every night of the week.’
Cora threw her an angry look but continued to change. ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a pause. ‘I think this one might be different. He looks like he might have some money.’
‘You thought that about that bloke last Saturday night. Had his way with you and all, didn’t he?’
‘He was wearing a silk waistcoat and had a gold watch. How was I to know he’d stolen them?’
‘Well, you could start by getting to know the men a bit first. Or save up for your own voice lessons, seeing as that’s all you’re after. What makes you think this one’s any different?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cora. ‘Call it intuition. But I think this might be it. I know that sounds silly, but I really do. If he’s got a few dollars in his pocket and no wife, why, he might be the one to help me become a famous singer.’
‘Famous singer!’ said Lizzie. ‘Always wanting something more than what you’ve got. Why does anyone need to be famous anyway?’ she asked. ‘Can’t you just be happy here? You think you’re so much better than the rest of us, Cora Turner.’
‘You just watch,’ said Cora, ready now and spinning round with a smile on her face as she made for the door. ‘One of these days you’re going to be reading all about me in the papers and you’ll turn to your husband and say, “Why that’s Cora Crippen! Cora Turner as was. We used to be in the music hall together. And look what happened to her. Whoever would have thought it?” ’
Soon afterwards, Dr Hawley Harvey and Mrs Cora Crippen packed their belongings and moved from New York City to London, England, where Cora believed her star would finally rise. In her mind had always been the idea that a man would come along, a man with money, a man with ambition, a man who would take her away from being bottom of the bill at the music halls of New York to top of the bill in the opera houses of Europe. The great actresses and singers belonged in London and Paris, she believed, not in Manhattan. And certainly not entertaining drunks every night, wandering home for ten minutes’ pleasure with every prospective husband who walked through the door. She had waited for the right man to come along. But she got Hawley Crippen.
Unlike his new, younger wife, however, he was entirely happy to stay in America. Although he did not like his job, his savings were growing and he had considered a long-term, part-time course in a training hospital in New York which might eventually lead to his being able to use the word ‘doctor’ for real. He did not want to leave, but a showdown between the two had ensured that she would have her way.
‘You don’t want me to use my talents, do you?’ she screamed at him in their small room in the East Fifties of Manhattan. ‘You want to keep me caged up like an animal in here. You’re jealous of me.’
‘My dear, that’s simply not true,’ said Hawley quietly, hoping that his own hushed tones would encourage her to speak more quietly too. Only two evenings before, a rather large man from downstairs had banged on their door and told him that if he could not shut up the screeching of his crazy wife, then he would do it for him, an offer that Hawley was increasingly considering.
‘It is true,’ she screeched. ‘Look at you, you jumped-up little nothing, prancing around pretending to be a doctor when all you are is a salesman. I can be a great singer, Hawley. I could be a sensation on the London stage. New York’s too full of singers. Over there I’ll be exotic. People will pay to see me.’
‘But London . . .’ he whimpered. ‘It’s so far away.’
‘Oh good heavens, it’s almost the twentieth century! We could be there in two or three weeks’ time. Six months from that, we could be dining with Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.’
The arguments continued. Sometimes she chose a different tack, pointing out that they could start afresh in London and he might be able to afford to go to medical school there. ‘I’ll be earning so much money anyway,’ she said. ‘I could be one of the great stage singers and I’ll pay for your medical education. Then you can set up a practice on Harley Street and we’ll entertain every night. Think of the parties, Hawley! Think of the life we can lead.’
When she spoke like that, tender and encouraging, he was more inclined towards the idea, but her mood could change on the turn of a coin. Sometimes he wondered how he had got into this situation in the first place. Shortly after meeting Cora he had fallen for her. She was company for him. She was kind and thoughtful and demure. He pretended to be something he wasn’t, exaggerating his wealth and position; she did the same, pretending she was nice. Soon they became lovers and he could not stand to be parted from her. Unlike his first wife, who was shy and innocent until her death, Cora knew what she wanted from a man and sought it out. Although only seventeen years of age, fourteeen years his junior, she had experience and talents between the sheets that shocked and entranced him. He was her way out of the gutter, and she was someone who listened to him and said she believed in him. They married and were both disappointed with the results.
Although he visited the vaudeville most nights and enjoyed her performances, he could not help but feel at the back of his mind that it would take more than a decent voice coach to make his new wife into a singing star. She could hold a tune, there was no doubt about that—but then so could he when he tried; it didn’t make him Caruso. Her voice travelled only about halfway across the theatre and sounded more like a bird twittering on a windowsill than a morning chorus preparing to greet the sun. She practised her scales in their room until the unpleasant man from downstairs threatened to break both their necks, but the higher notes remained discordant. Still she maintained that she had enormous talent which the whole world would soon recognize.
In London, they found a house in South Crescent, off the Tottenham Court Road, and took the top floor at a reasonable rent. Hawley enjoyed the fact that he could walk around Bedford Square, along Montague Street and into the British Museum, where peace and quiet reigned at all times, where no one stood at the window practising broken arpeggios, and where he could sit and read books about medicine without being disturbed. He became more and more interested in the new world of pathology and forensic medicine, and read as many articles as he could about autopsies and the dissection of the human body. The pictures, crude line-drawings scattered throughout these pages, fascinated him and he wondered how a visitor might arrange to see an actual autopsy in progress. The books described the various instruments used, the tools required to remove the organs, the thin blades of the scalpels that cut through skin like hot knives through butter, the saws that opened the chest cavity, the forceps that separated the ribcage. Reading about them, thinking about them, sent a ripple of excitement through his whole body. His eyes would grow wide, his mouth dry; he became aroused. The museum had a good stack of medical journals, and whenever he sat with a pile of Scientific Americans or copies of the British Medical Journal he was brought immediately back to his childhood and youth in Ann Arbor, remembering Jezebel Crippen’s determination to turn him away from the sinful world of medicine and back on the road for Jesus. He had cut off all communication with his parents long ago and had no idea whether either of them was still alive; he almost never thought about them, and when he did it was with no emotion or human feeling whatsoever.
Before long, their savings began to dwindle and Hawley was forced to look for work. Strolling along Shaftesbury Avenue late one afternoon in early spring, he saw a sign in a window of Munyon’s Homoeopathic Medicines looking for a ‘man for a good position with this firm’ and stepped inside, presenting himself as Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen, late of Detroit and New York City, now happily residing in the West End of London, and available for suitable employment.
James Munyon, the ageing owner of the company, listened to the unfamiliar accent and peered at him over his glasses, taking in his rather shabby clothes and shoes at a glance. Munyon was in his seventies and had worked in the medical trade all his life; his hands were stained with the colours of the various potions he had mixed up in pharmacies over the previous fifty years. His voice was raspy from a lifetime of breathing in their fumes. In all respects he resembled something out of a gothic horror story, a man half skin and bone and half chemicals. Hawley swallowed but held his nerve as he addressed him; he had determined that he would not be treated with the same level of disrespect in London that he had been shown in New York. After all, he was an educated man, a man of medicine, and not one to be looked down upon.
‘It’s not a medical position,’ said Munyon, presuming that when Hawley declared himself a doctor he was telling the truth. ‘I’m looking for an office manager. Munyon’s is an agency for homoeopathic medicines, not a surgery of any kind. You do understand that, don’t you?’
‘Certainly,’ said Hawley, aware that any income right now was better than none. Although he still had about half his savings left, some of which was deliberately hidden from both the eyes and the mind of his charming wife, he did not want to dip into them any further. And now that she was deter-minedly searching for a voice coach, he knew that a quick injection of cash was imperative; it was only a matter of time before she came demanding a handout. ‘And homoeopathic medicine,’ he began, struggling with the word and trying to recall the references to it he had read in the medical magazines at the British Museum. ‘That’s . . . ?’
‘We deal with complementary medicines, Dr Crippen. Our clients prefer to treat diseases with minute doses of natural substances which, taken by a healthy person, would produce symptoms of disease. However, correctly applied to the ill, they can provide a remarkable cure. You are familiar with the advances in homoeopathic medicine in recent years, of course?’
‘Naturally,’ he lied. ‘But in America, the market is currently small and medical attention to it has been slight.’
‘It’s still taking time to win over the disbelievers,’ Munyon admitted. ‘Many doctors won’t have anything to do with it. They still prefer to treat everything with potions and lotions, knives and bleeding. Leeches, even. Archaic methods, if you ask me.’
Hawley was slightly surprised by the modern notions of Mr Munyon, for his frailty and age had made him believe that the old man would be a traditionalist. The offices had a close, unusual smell, the cabinets filled with rainbow-coloured cartons and packets of strangely named substances. ‘The clients come here?’ he asked, intrigued by the Aladdin’s cave he had walked into. ‘They seek medical advice here?’
‘Sometimes, but mostly they collect prescriptions,’ said Munyon. ‘There are several homoeopathic clinics around London and we keep in close contact with them, of course. They prescribe certain treatments and we fill them. In that manner, we work a little like a pharmacy. However, we also advertise the non-prescriptive treatments for regular consumer use. The early days were difficult, but times have improved considerably. Which is why I’m looking to hire an office manager.’
‘Well,’ said Hawley, fascinated by all he saw, despite his natural inclination to be suspicious of anything that was not entirely scientific. ‘If you will give me a chance, I’m sure that I won’t let you down.’
Cora arrived home with a bag full of groceries under each arm and struggled to get her key into the lock of the front door without dropping any of them. After what she deemed a successful afternoon, she had decided to treat herself and Hawley to a more elaborate dinner than they were accustomed to. (Typically, she provided the ingredients and he prepared the meal.) It was a cold day and had started to drizzle while she was walking home from the grocer’s shop. Her dress, which was slightly too long for her, had dragged on the pavement behind her, soaking up the rain from the puddles as she walked. Her hands were occupied, so she could not lift it, and she sighed in frustration, looking forward to getting back to their rooms where she could strip off and make herself a cup of tea. She had worn the dress, her best one, only because of where she had been going earlier in the day; but she regretted it now, for it would need washing. Upon entering the house in South Crescent, one came first to a small lobby area which led to the stairway; on the ground floor lived the Crippens’ neighbours, the Jennings family, and although they were ostensibly polite to each other at all times it was clear that Mrs Jennings and Mrs Crippen could barely tolerate each other, desperately trying to outdo the other whenever they met. The Jenningses, Irish Catholics, had six children, aged from eight months to eight years, and they struck Cora as an unruly crew, forever smeared with the remains of their breakfasts or dinners, constantly staring at her as she passed by, like a bunch of suspicious cats. There was not an ounce of maternal instinct in Cora and, looking at the Jennings brood, she could not help but feel that these were children only a mother could love. Unlocking the door now and stepping inside, she was confronted by the smallest child, only ever referred to as Baby, crawling around the ground-floor area. Baby—Cora didn’t even know whether the Jennings had ever bothered to give the child a name—stopped his/her movements and watched her as she closed the door.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Cora a little nervously, for something about the infant always unsettled her. When forced to converse, she spoke in adult tones and words, refusing to kowtow to convention by gurgling and cooing at the infant like a demented person. She made for the stairway, but before she could set foot on it Mrs Jennings emerged from her living room, her hands and cheeks dusted with flour from the bread she was baking, in search of her smallest child.
‘Oh, good afternoon, Mrs Crippen,’ she said, affecting the upper-class tones she used when addressing her, in stark contrast to the East End accent she employed when screaming at Mr Jennings, who was frequently inebriated. ‘Look at you. Soaked to the skin.’
‘I got caught in the rain,’ Cora explained, irritated that she should be seen like this, her dress wet and dirty, her hair falling down in soaking strings from beneath her hat.
‘You poor thing. Don’t you look like a wet dishcloth!’
‘Oh, but you’re covered in flour, Mrs Jennings,’ Cora said sweetly. ‘Hawley and I always buy our bread from the store. It must taste so much better when circumstances force you to make your own. A sense of achievement brings a smile to even the poorest faces.’
‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Jennings replied, more than capable of responding in kind. ‘And it must be so much easier, bringing your shopping home when you’re a muscular thing like you are. Why, the first time I saw you I thought you were a man with those broad shoulders of yours.’
Cora smiled. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said, gritting her teeth together but too wet and cold to continue the badinage. ‘But you know what it’s like, Mrs Jennings,’ she offered, before continuing on her way. ‘Once I start to shop I can’t seem to stop myself. I can’t bear to wear last season’s clothes. Some people manage to do so and keep them amazingly fresh, but I just don’t have that gift. That’s a lovely blouse you’re wearing, by the way. I used to have one just like it.’
Mrs Jennings smiled. For her part, her main reason for disliking Cora was the American accent which still poured through the affected upper-class tones.
‘Not that I was just out shopping, you understand,’ continued Cora, placing her bags on the ground now as their conversation continued. ‘I had a meeting earlier with Señor Berlosci, my voice coach. The air in London is so vile that I need a little help to retrain my vocal cords.’
‘Really,’ said Mrs Jennings, her smile a frozen block of ice anchored to her face. ‘I was always under the impression that singing was a natural gift. One could either do it or not do it. One didn’t need to be trained for it. A little like motherhood in that way.’
‘For the average person, yes. But I am a trained professional, Mrs Jennings. Why, in New York I was the headline act in music halls throughout the city. Someone with my abilities needs to value their voice like a musician would a Stradivarius. That’s a violin,’ she added with a smile. ‘Do you know, I spend almost a shilling a week on honey, just to lubricate my voice every morning and evening? Why, that’s probably as much as you spend on feeding Baby.’
Mrs Jennings considered grabbing Cora by the hair and pounding her head against the wall until blood poured from both her ears, but she restrained herself. An uneasy harmony resided between the two floors on South Crescent and an unspoken feeling that those who were on the ground floor lived below stairs, while those above were the gentry. For their own parts, the ladies’ husbands scarcely spoke to each other at all, being entirely different sorts. Hawley Crippen was as far removed from the drunken sloth that was Paddy Jennings as could possibly be imagined. It astonished him that the man’s face was permanently covered in a thick stubble which he never shaved off but which never seemed to develop fully into a beard. He wondered whether this was a medical marvel and considered writing a paper on it for the British Medical Journal. They had met from time to time in the corridor or on the stairs, one in his vest and trousers, smoking a cigarette and reeking of body odour and alcohol, the other in a suit and tie, his moustache finely combed, a walking stick in hand, his face tired and weary. They had little to say to each other, and Hawley always moved away with only a nod of greeting, aware that he was being watched contemptuously.
‘He’s the kind of man I want to punch on the nose,’ Mr Jennings said to his wife frequently, before doing the same thing to her. ‘I don’t know why, it would just make me feel better.’
Señor Berlosci lived not far from the Crippens in a comfortable house in Tavistock Square which he had inherited from an aunt who had died childless. Cora had seen his services advertised in The Times and had visited him earlier in the week, when he had made an appointment for her to come back to see him that day. Seeking to make a good impression, she wore her finest dress and hat and was immediately taken by the opulent, if rather gaudy, surroundings in which Berlosci lived. An Italian, he had lived in London for almost eight years and coached many aspiring singers and actresses, considering it a personal failure if they did not find success within a year of completing his programme, which included breathing exercises, vocal techniques and seduction by Berlosci himself. A single man, he had fathered seven children that he knew of, but recognized none of them. His recent birthday, his fiftieth, had seen no decrease in his libidinous appetite; if anything, he saw age as a challenge to it and continued to seduce his way around the theatres and music halls of London shamelessly. Although he was not immediately attracted to Cora—her wide shoulders were always the first thing one noticed about her, followed closely by her grizzly dark hair and thin lips—he made it a personal rule not to reject a potential lover on the grounds of attraction alone. Personal pleasure was all that was important to him, both musically and romantically, and even ugly women could provide that.
‘Mrs Crippen,’ he said, exaggerating his Italian accent somewhat as he entered the room in a wave of lilac aftershave and hair tonic. (First impressions were also important to him.) ‘Delighted to see you again. You are here to excite me with your talents, are you not?’
‘I hope so, Señor Berlosci,’ she replied, flattered and attracted at the same time. ‘Honestly, I don’t think I need too much work, just a little help, that’s all. I was quite the star in New York, you know.’
‘You sang in New York?’
‘Oh yes. All over Broadway,’ she lied. ‘As Bella Elmore. I’m very well known there. I only came to London because my husband, Dr Crippen, is setting up his own medical practice in the city. He’s gone to receive his English licence today, as it happens. But I want to sing in London.’
‘Yes,’ she said determinedly.
‘Well, London is the place for it,’ he said, smiling coyly. ‘New York is all well and good, but to the more refined person it can be quite cheap, quite tasteless. But London—and Paris and Rome of course—these are centres of excellence. The truly great singers must ply their trade there, don’t you agree?’
‘I do,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Oh, I most certainly do.’
Berlosci positioned her by the window and offered her a few instructions as to what she should do; he sat by the piano and played a middle C, to which Cora responded with an arpeggio C-E-G-high-C-G-E-C. He played a D and she moved up a tone, then an E and she moved up another. He stopped at G and turned around to stare at her. Cora gave a gentle cough, as if to suggest that she had a cold and might not be performing at her best, making excuses for herself already.
‘Very beautiful,’ said Berlosci in a quiet voice that suggested he had just listened to a soloist from the heavenly choir of angels. ‘You have a fine voice.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, feeling relieved for, despite her confidence with others, she was never entirely convinced at heart that she had what it took.
‘We have much work to do, however.’
‘We do?’
‘Certainly. The natural gifts are there, but they need refining. Your breathing is poor. You are singing from the throat and not from the diaphragm, where truly the notes are formed. But these are techniques. They simply take work to perfect them.’
‘Well, I’m willing to work, Señor Berlosci,’ said Cora. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’
‘And, of course, work is expensive. I charge two shillings an hour, and we would need to meet for four sessions a week, for an hour each time. How are these terms to you?’
Cora made a rapid calculation in her head and swallowed nervously. That was a lot of money to be found, particularly on the salary Hawley was earning from Munyon’s. ‘All right,’ she said, nodding forcefully. ‘When can we start?’
Waiting for Hawley to return now, Cora said a silent prayer that he would not refuse her the money to attend the voice lessons. He had been a lot more short-tempered with her recently and she had begun to worry that he was not as much under her control as she wished. That was something she needed to beat out of him. Their relationship could never survive, she knew, if he had too much to say for himself. She would simply inform him that she needed the money—that they needed it if they were to have a successful future together—and he would turn it over, no questions asked.
She heard him come in and walk up the stairs quickly. He hated lingering in the hallway in case Mr Jennings saw him and, drunk, challenged him to a fight. Stepping through the door, however, she saw something different in his eyes tonight, a look of utter frustration, anger and even hatred. He nodded at her and threw his hat on the bed, walking straight into the bathroom without a word, and she heard the sound of water running in the sink. When he emerged, a few minutes later, his face was pink and his collar wet, as if he had been washing away the filth of the day relentlessly.
‘What an afternoon,’ said Cora, declining to ask him whether anything was the matter, even though something clearly was. ‘I went to see Señor Berlosci for my first lesson.’
‘Who?’ Hawley asked, distracted.
‘Señor Berlosci. I told you about him. The voice coach. Over on Tavistock Square. I went to see him.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, looking away and frowning when he saw the condition of their flat. The dirty dishes were still in the sink from last night’s dinner and clothes were hanging down to dry from a rope extended from wall to wall. He saw a pair of Cora’s stage tights suspended behind her like a pair of amputated legs, and they disgusted him, made his stomach turn. One thing he could say in Charlotte’s favour was that at least she had kept a tidy home. ‘That was today, was it?’
‘Yes. And he’s a real professional, Hawley. He said that in fifteen years of teaching he had never come across a more natural singer than me. He said that with the right guidance I could be the most successful singer on the London stage.’ Naturally, he had never said any such thing.
‘That’s good news,’ he muttered, clearing away some of the debris from the armchair and falling into it heavily, covering his eyes with his hands. ‘I, however, have the opposite.’
She narrowed her eyes and stared at him. For a moment—just a moment—she felt concerned for him, as if some great calamity might have occurred and a little personal feeling was for once emerging in her. ‘Hawley,’ she said. ‘What’s happened? You look so tense.’
He gave a bitter laugh and shook his head, looking away from his wife so that she would not see the well of tears forming like puddles in his eyes. He was afraid to blink in case they tumbled down his cheeks like waterfalls. She had never seen him cry before and he did not want her to witness it now. ‘I went to the Medical Association,’ he began.
‘Of course. I forgot. I wasn’t thinking. Did you receive your licence?’
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘I did not.’
Her heart sank and she sat down on a kitchen chair, praying that this was just a temporary setback. ‘Why not?’ she asked, when it was clear that he was not going to expand on this. ‘Was it money? Do you need to pay for it?’
He turned and looked at her now and she could tell that he was genuinely upset. ‘The Medical Association say that my diplomas are not valid in England. They say that to practise as a doctor I need to attend medical school in London and pass their certified exams. Which would, of course, take several years and more money than we can afford.’
Cora gasped. ‘No!’ she said. Her husband merely nodded. ‘But Hawley, that’s ridiculous. You’re a trained doctor.’
‘They claim I am not. They claim that two diplomas earned by correspondence course from Philadelphia and New York are not enough to make one a doctor. Oh, don’t look so amazed, Cora. I’ve come across this attitude before. You know I have. That fool Anthony Lake, he knew it. And that fellow Richard Morton, he said it to my face, like I was a dog without feelings. You’ve said it yourself on more than one occasion. I’ve been battling this for years now. And all because I could not afford to attend proper medical school. That . . . woman’s fault,’ he added bitterly, hissing the words.
Cora stood up and came towards him, then assumed a kneeling position by his side. She took his hand in hers and stroked it carefully. He looked at her, surprised. Was she actually going to offer him some wifely comfort at last? Was their sterile, bullying relationship about to change in the face of his disappointment? He could hardly believe it. ‘Hawley,’ she said finally in a quiet voice. ‘Señor Berlosci will need eight shillings a week to train me. You have to find it somewhere. Will Munyon’s offer you some more work, do you think?’
He blinked, unable to believe his ears. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Munyon’s,’ she repeated. ‘At the moment, they pay you enough for us both to live reasonably comfortably, but to earn the extra eight shillings . . . well, you’re going to need to work some extra shifts. Or perhaps Mr Munyon could increase your wages? You have to speak to him about it. It’s important.’
Hawley loosened his hand from hers and stood up slowly, walking towards the window and breathing heavily, attempting to keep his temper under control. In the four years they had been married, he had never once raised his voice to his wife. He left that side of things to her. All their arguments were based around his inability to fund the lifestyle she felt she deserved. All their fights ended with her screaming at him, berating him, threatening him with frying pans and pots, while he agreed to do whatever she asked, anything so long as she stopped shouting at him. Now, however, he felt an anger grow inside him that he had never felt before. It consumed him from within, like a piece of burning coal smouldering at the base of his stomach, rising through his chest, and charring at his heart. He turned and looked at her while she stared back at him defiantly, aware of the sudden change of temperature in their relationship.
‘How heartless you are,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Everything is always about your ambition,your dreams. Never about mine. I receive yet another setback and all you can think about is where I can find an extra eight shillings to fund your singing lessons?’ He was shouting now, but he had underestimated his audience, for she was able to give back as good as she got.
‘It’s our way out of this hovel,’ she screeched. ‘Don’t you see? I can be a great star and make us thousands and thousands of pounds. We can—’
‘Oh, stop deluding yourself, woman!’ he cried. ‘You’ll never be a star. You’re only a passable singer at the best of times. Dogs in the street have a better chance of—’
She never found out what dogs in the street had a better chance of doing, because before he could finish his sentence she had stepped forward and slapped him hard across the face. Her lip curled in anger as she stared him down, but his fists curled too and he had to hold himself back from punching her face, an emotion he had never felt before.
‘Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, you worthless fool,’ she said quietly, her voice several tones deeper than normal, like a sound emerging from the depths of hell. ‘You’re just bitter because I will be a great star, whereas you will never be a real doctor. And you will find me that eight shillings a week, Hawley Crippen, or I shall want to know the reason why. Do we understand each other?’
He stared at her, and a million different answers occurred to him. He sought through every corner of his personality to find the strength to choose the words he wanted to say; but as she stood before him, ready to strike again if necessary, if not with her hands then with her tongue, he felt himself collapse within and knew there was only one answer, two words, that would suffice. On this occasion he did not have the strength to stand up to her. He nodded and looked away.
‘Yes, Cora,’ he said.