A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper Read Online Free Page A

pushes his workers to move fast to meet quotas,” she told Bernice, “and the steam-powered machinery snatches a limb or a life at least once a month.”
    Bernice took a job at the white-lead works for a short time. One day she returned home with a haunted look about her. “I quit. I found out the girl I replaced wasted away and went mad. Then I learned that happens to most of the girls as works there—five already this year.”
    The rate of accidents, poisoning, and disease, and the stress upon the body of the different types of work available had all become discouraging factors. Polly imagined industry as a hungry giant that preferred to feed on the young and tender, chewing or biting off a limb, crushing a head or chest, setting a poisoned trap to catch the inexperienced off guard, leaving many unfortunates ill, maimed, or dead.
    They stuck with the devil they knew: fur pulling. The task involved pulling the loose undercoat from rabbit pelts so that the furs would not shed the down once they were used to line garments. The action created a myriad of tiny broken hair fibers that floated freely in the air. The girls could not avoid breathing the particles into their lungs. The undercoat that didn’t float away, they saved in bags to sell for a small sum per pound.
    Polly’s father and Bernice’s mother each paid the deputy of the lodging house, Mrs. Fortuna, a little extra to allow their daughters to perform their labors at home. The girls worked together so they could talk, sing songs, and keep each other company through the hours of toil. They alternated the use of their families’ respective rooms with the idea that an open window on the off days would allow some airing out. The strategy seemed to do little good. The casements faced west, and a golden beam of sunlight slanting in through the open sashes in late afternoon always revealed thick motes of the tiny fibers still floating freely within the chambers.
    By 1861, most of the inhabitants of the lodging house, those who’d been living there for any length of time, had wheezing, labored breath. When Old Mrs. Fletcher died in a coughing fit, Mrs. Fortuna had had enough. She forbade the girls to do their work within the lodging house.
    Polly and Bernice looked for another windless spot to do their work, but couldn’t find a good situation.
    One evening, as she sat with her father and brother to eat, Polly complained. “Because nobody wants fur pulling where they live or work, the nethers, even for the smallest room, are greater than what you’re willing to pay.”
    Papa swallowed the food in his mouth, set down his fork, and took a deep breath as he turned his dark brown eyes on her. He didn’t like to be disturbed while eating. “You’re expected to work it out,” he said. Papa wiped sweat from his broad brow and pushed dark locks out of his eyes. “I have my work and you have yours. Get it done.”
    “My work shall never be done,” she grumbled.
    Papa slapped her. “We work too hard to listen to your whingeing. If you cannot pull fur, you’ll have to hawk wares on the street. If you don’t, we’ll go hungry to pay the nethers on the lodging house, and you’ll see whose helping goes first.”
    He reached with his large hand to snatch some of the buttered bread from her plate. He tore the bread into two portions, gave one to Eddie and the other he placed on his own plate.
    Polly glared at him until he raised his hand in threat. She lowered her gaze. The altercation seemed to have little effect on Eddie. He continued to eat in silence, scooping up Polly’s bread and making short work of it. Eddie looked and acted much like her father. He wasn’t quite as tall, and had their mother’s plump nose instead of their father’s long, thin one. That didn’t give Eddie a much friendlier face.
    “Can you get me brush work, Papa?” she asked.
    “Mr. Carr has passed away, and his son took the business to South Bermondsey.”
    Polly wanted to suggest he