Almost all the places in the house were now taken except for one. She was saving it for Annette’s family hoping that she would change her mind. She knew that they had parted badly the last time but she genuinely wanted to help her and her son Dickie.
She had tried to reach out to her but she had not been home both times she had sent word around. Today was as good a day as any to try one last time.
She folded the piece of paper and placed it in her skirt pocket. She kissed her grandmother’s cheek and her father’s and left the dining room. She would travel to Whitechapel and visit Annette to convince her that she must join the housing project. It would be finished soon and she would only have to wait a little bit longer to move into her new home.
“Wilmot. Please call me a cab,” she told the footman.
“Very good Miss,” he returned.
Upstairs, Caroline pinned her hat down and pulled on her black gloves. She didn’t bother looking at the mirror. She knew she looked like a cross between a widow and a crow. The black mourning gown that she wore for her sister did not suit her pale complexion and she could care less.
Downstairs, Wilmot held the door open for her and she stepped into the cab giving him the directions to Whitechapel.
“A dangerous bit of town for you, ain’t it, Duchess?” The driver said.
Caroline nodded. “It is. And imagine all the people that live there day in and day out and never get the chance to leave.”
The driver nodded. “Right you are.”
When the streets turned darker, dirtier and the air even more congested with stench, she knew they were getting close. When he turned down one street and then another, he stopped the cab abruptly.
“I can’t go no farther. The streets are too narrow,” he explained.
She nodded and gave him his payment. “If you wait, you’ll get double that. If you don’t, you’ll get nothing.”
The driver stared at her and then grinned. “Bold as brass, ain’t you?”
Caroline shrugged. “Up to you.”
She had been to Annette’s home before and it was a dark and dirty room in the back of a larger building. She tried to stem the revulsion as she saw a rat crawling out of the trash bin and a dead cat lying in the gutter. She continued to walk to the small room where she hoped she would find Annette.
She knocked several times on the door and when it was answered it was not Annette.
“I’m looking for Annette Gardiner. My name is Caroline Derry,” she explained to the brown-haired woman.
“Ain’t no Annette here.” She said about to close the door.
“She’s lived here for some time,” Caroline explained. “Surely you must know—“
“She means that tart that used to live here,” a voice said from behind the door.
“Oh her,” the woman nodded. “Yeah. She used to live here. Not anymore.”
“Where has she gone to now?” Caroline asked.
“City morgue,” the voice behind the door said. “She’s been dead a week or so.”
“Dead?” Caroline looked shocked.
“It happens you know.” The woman said before she slammed the door in her face.
Caroline walked back to the cab who was patiently waiting for her.
“She’s dead,” she told him.
The driver shrugged. “Back to Mayfair luv?”
She nodded. “Yes.”