The Doctor: The Story of the Man Who Killed Jack The Ripper. (Chapter One)

Prologue.

This is a faithful narrative of the trials of my existence; just the simple truth of how I came to be and how my misfortunes have led me to where I am now. Death lingers over me and my life is shadowed with darkness as I face the final curtain. Though my tale may repulse you, my actions are justified, my passions are real and I am no different to you. I am like every woman, regardless of what may be alleged. I am Christina Lay, wife of an esteemed doctor and mother of a perfect baby boy. By the time my narrative is out, you will understand. You will understand why I, a modest church girl from Shoreditch, would become the perpetrator of what the newspapers are calling ‘nightmarish assaults’. I ask you not to judge my actions, for it is known in the holy book that ‘God himself is judge’ and ‘the heavens declare his righteousness’.  God alone may be my judge and jury and your verdict has no weight here. I’d waste no time with pointless opinions. You are here to hear my story and therefore, I state this simply; there is nothing I would not do for my baby Jack.

 

 

 

 Chapter One.

I pray to God that the pain and torment will stop.

 

September 22, 1887. Whitechapel, London. 21:56, 5lb 4oz. Jack Richard Lay is born.

My baby was alive and I finally became a true woman of God. Jack had broken my body. Jack could heal my heart. Jack would save my soul.

 

Eight years earlier…

June 12, 1879. Shoreditch, London.

The vicarage was quiet on that particular day and I recall that father seemed unnerved.  He would never tell me or mother what troubled him so; as an act of protection or artlessness I do not know and still I question whether this secrecy achieved its true purpose. I had rarely seen him in such anticipation, lacking composure and discontented. Without no more than two passing words after mass, he retired to his study (which he rarely entered on a Sabbath) and appeared to be engulfed in his papers. As a child, I would often worry about my father. He was a kind and generous man; qualities which, the congregation regularly abused. I daren’t tell him that I had often seen impertinent and impish young girls chatter during his sermons without remorse. I feared such confessions would only distress him so and ache his poor heart. I often thought of confronting them myself but my cowardly nature would always forbid it.

 

Oh, I must not hesitate on the point any longer, for I am sure, by now you are anxious to know what had perplexed my father so.  Thus, I shall continue.

 

I had never been the kind to disobey my father for my mother had set the finest example of how a woman should respect her husband. Still to this day I regret how my childish curiosity led me to do so that day. With a sceptical confidence, I slunk to my father’s study where I found the door conveniently ajar and, without hesitation began to feed my desire for information. How I wish I had turned back, for what I was about to learn would alter my entire existence. In a single act I had sealed my own fate, concluded my own virtue and stripped my juvenile innocence. I would never be the quiet, blissful and chaste young vicar’s daughter from Shoreditch again. 

My father, I found in a state of sadness and through his distorted murmurs I managed to conceive but three words:

Doctor. Not long.

 

Those words. They haunt me still. Repeating in my head even now as I live out the last pitiful moments of my life. Lord I know that my tale must go on. That I must tell it truthfully if I stand any hope of redemption. Forgive me father, forgive me. All I long for is your salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and I shall be saved. I shall be saved. Save me Lord. The pain of it, I feel it now. Why are you not saving me? Just like that day when Jack came to life, I feel my body dying. The doctor will save me. The lord will save me. Jack. Save me.

 

My body is ripped and bleeding; I have no control and the pain is rigorous. Confused, I’m blinded. I feel pain. Pain from where my skin has shredded as my baby escapes the sanctuary my body provided. I have given him all of me. I have nothing left and I reach for him but he is gone; stolen from my body. I won’t cry out, I feel numb. Too exhausted to cry, too abused to open my eyes. He is now my only refuge from the agony.

‘The doctor will come. Not long now’

 

The doctor will come and the doctor will save me from this torture.

I can be with my baby Jack again.

No more! I long for this narrative to be done with. Be satisfied in the knowledge that you have tortured me again with your greed for answers.

But you must understand. Is there no other way? I may never obtain the Father’s forgiveness without justice and that is all I have ever desired. Dear reader, remain open-minded for surely even you could not cast the first stone at a grieving child.

 

 

Outside my father’s study I shuffled uncomfortably, knowing that I had just stumbled upon some information that I had rightfully been protected from. A sickness engulfed me that I’d not felt before. Could it be true? But my mother seemed so wholly well to me, no different to before. Well, she had been spending more time in her chamber, but that was just for reading, my father had told me so. A simple period of intermission to study the fables, nothing more. This doctor is clearly wrong; if anyone were to know the condition of my mother’s health it is father and I.

Content with my judgement on the matter I arose from my serpent like position and arrogantly (or should I say foolishly, for I had seemingly forgot the dastardly nature of the operation) strode in the direction of escape.

 

 ‘Christina, is that you?’ in two short strides father had reached the door.

 ‘I…I’ the words fell from my mouth.

My father raised his eyebrows.

‘I just came to bring you tea’ I spurted out.

‘Where is the tea then my child?’ he inquired, discontent with my reply.

Before I had time to respond a third voice, unknown to myself, intercepted.

‘What a disrespectful, insolent child you have Mr Mooreson.

 I would not stand for it sir, not for a moment. This is how it begins you know’

‘Richard I’d rather..’

‘I know, I know but she will turn from you sir. I’ve seen them out there on the streets. Lord knows the things I have seen. First it is disobeying her father, then a husband; would you believe it sir, I have seen many a girl turned out on to the streets for it. You would not believe what I have witnessed’

 ‘I think that is enough Mr Lay. Maybe keep this conversation for a more appropriate audience’

‘It is too crude to mention in our society I might say. I daren’t not in front of the child’.

The third character, now identified as Mr Lay, lowered his tone and with an exaggerated movement tilted his head to a position he considered safely out of my hearing.

‘Harlots sir. Every street corner I see them. Why, I would never dare to speak to one. Could you imagine?’

 

Speak to one. How laughable? To think that I thought Richard Lay an honourable man. Who knew these harlots would become his most familiar acquaintances? Of course you know not what I mean. Funny my head seems to be running wild again…

 

My father too seemed fooled by his appearance of respectability, yet, it was clear that he was at unease with his choice of conversation.

‘That is enough, Richard’

My father looked to me with concern.

‘Oh of course. My apologies’.

Mr Lay, suddenly aware of his surroundings, glanced at me once with a cunning smile that I now know only too well and took a seat in the corner of the study before gracing my father with a stern nod of encouragement.

 

‘Christina. Come here at once’.

I had never heard such hesitant anger in my father’s voice before and an unanticipated fear swathed over me.

‘It is for the best’ he proclaimed with an undertone of guilt and remorse which, at the time, I had struggled to understand, for I had felt that my father had been wholly justified in his annoyance at my actions.

 

What followed I now struggle to recollect; whether this is due to my own desire to forget or the unforeseen nature of the action that left me in a state of disillusion. As a child I had not seen what I had been charged of as so terribly punishable. The doctor clearly did. His influence had led to my father to commit a dreadful sin I shall forever be haunted by. For the bible states that we should ‘be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you’. I fear I am still yet to be forgiven.  I am still yet to forgive.