What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

Chapter 16

Nora and Henry Sidgwick were waiting for William in the large front room of the Oxford and Cambridge University Club overlooking Pall Mall. Nora Sidgwick, the former Nora Balfour and sister of the eminent politician, was a tireless advocate on behalf of female suffrage. Learned in the fields of history and literature, she had helped found and was about to take on the principalship of Newnham College, the first women’s college at Cambridge University.

Her husband, Henry Sidgwick, was one of the foremost philosophers of his day. Early in his career, he had been a member of the Cambridge Apostles and had broken with the Church of England, but after a short hiatus when he was stripped of his professorship, according to university rules, he had been reinstated as an honorary fellow and then as a chaired professor. He had built his reputation in the field of ethical philosophy, where he had managed to reconcile the utilitarianism of Bentham with the idealism associated with more romantic and aesthetic currents in English thought. But his real interest—if “real” was the proper term for it—was as a founding member and current president of the Society for Psychical Research, the organization devoted to the scientific exploration of spiritual phenomena for which Alice James had expressed so much disdain.

As William entered the room, he noted that the Sidgwicks, whom he recognized from photographs, were seated at a central table and that groups of men at the other tables were glancing in an unfriendly fashion in their direction. There were perhaps four or five such groups, several older, venerable-looking types William vaguely recognized from academic conferences, and some younger ones he imagined to be university men. All were staring angrily at the couple at the center of the room and whispering among themselves.

Spotting William as he approached, Sidgwick stood up and waved a greeting. He was a large, bearlike man with an unruly beard; he seemed to exude goodwill and affability, making the angry stares of his peers that much more puzzling. His wife, Nora, seemed equally pleasant, if less effusive. She was a small, delicately pretty woman some years younger than her husband, with an alert, confident manner. Neither, however, seemed to notice William’s disheveled appearance or the fact that he had a large mud stain on his sleeve. It struck him that it was typical of such people, their minds fixed on the larger issues of philosophy and social justice, to miss the details of ordinary life. He had been prepared to discuss the accident that had sent him practically under the wheels of the curricle, but it seemed that he would not have to do so. He was grateful for that, for he was eager to put the incident out of his mind.

He shook Sidgwick’s hand warmly and congratulated Nora on the strides she had made in the area of female education. It was a cause that he publicly championed but privately questioned. He knew that his sister would have benefited from such opportunities, but then, she was the exception. His wife, like most women he knew, preferred her quiet, domestic role to a larger, more active one, which was just as well; how could he do his work if she had research of her own? It was a selfish thought, but he would not feel guilty for it.

As he sat down with the Sidgwicks, he noted that the other members of the club continued to glare in their direction. He could only imagine that they were registering their distaste for Sidgwick’s spiritualist interests, though the thought struck him as odd. Since when would such an interest provoke animosity? Ridicule, yes; scorn, possibly, but venom?

“Have a cognac,” said Sidgwick cheerfully. “Or better, a whiskey. That’s what I’m drinking. You need it to fortify yourself against the rancor that surrounds us.”

“But why such rancor?” asked William. “You and Nora are respected figures in your fields. I’d think they’d be eager to talk with you.”

“Normally they would be,” said Sidgwick blithely, “but not now. It’s Nora’s presence in this room that enrages them. The Oxford and Cambridge Club has been designated an all-male bastion, and she refuses to honor the gentleman’s code.” He pointed to a youth in livery cowering in the corner. “When the waiter over there politely informed her that ladies were not welcome, she told him that he would have to call a constable if he wished to remove her.”

William nodded. It was clear now. He knew, from experiences in America, that the female issue was a lightning rod among even the most enlightened men, for whom superiority to the other sex was the one thing to which they felt entitled; their very definition of masculinity seemed to turn on it. He sometimes wondered if it was a requirement of a democratic nation to maintain this one site of hierarchy as a kind of structural support, much as a house must have one weight-bearing beam. From a rational point of view, of course, it was nonsense, as oppressive and unfair as any other sort of enforced hierarchy, but as a practical fact, he had sympathy for it, if only because his gender disposed him that way. “Is it in the club bylaws to exclude women?” he asked. He was used to the reflexive tendency to invoke university regulations as though they were universal laws.

“It is,” responded Sidgwick, “and this is precisely what Nora hopes to change. The club was formed to serve the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. Newnham is Cambridge’s first female college, just as Girton is Oxford’s, but the bylaws have not been amended to reflect this, and Nora, as head of one of these female institutions, protests the fact strenuously.”

Nora, who sat by while her husband explained her position, did not appear to be protesting strenuously, but she did look very charming as she nodded in agreement. “I stumbled on the idea while reading your Henry Thoreau,” she said languidly. “He refused to pay his taxes. I’m acting on the same principle.”

“Not an exact analogy,” acknowledged Sidgwick, “but close enough.”

“Henry Thoreau went to jail,” noted William.

“Nora’s intention precisely,” said Sidgwick. “She feels it would be good publicity for the movement. Unfortunately, she can’t get anyone to arrest her.”

“Englishmen are cowards,” explained Nora. She glanced around the room, and the men who had been staring at her immediately averted their gazes.

“We British tend to hope the cold shoulder and the venomous stare will do the work of prescribed legislation, which is why reform grinds exceedingly slow in this country,” said Sidgwick.

“Since I don’t think they have the courage to arrest me, I might as well leave,” said Nora, sighing. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Professor James. I look forward one day to meeting your wife. Perhaps you will visit us in Cambridge. The Newnham girls are very good with children, so she could rid herself of the albatross of childcare and enjoy herself.”

William assured her he would relay the message, wondering whether his Alice had ever considered childcare to be an albatross.

“And send my regards to your sister,” she added. “I hear she is not well. She might find some relief in spiritualism. We would welcome her as a member of the SPR.”

William explained that his sister was too much of a skeptic to entertain ideas beyond the realm of the empirical.

“Well then,” said Nora, “perhaps we can find common ground elsewhere. I have also heard that she has a strong feeling for social justice. Perhaps she can come sit with me and weather the stares of the ossified members. It would be a nice touch to have an invalid who could barely walk thrown out of the club.”

“That is the sort of thing that would appeal to her,” agreed William, “if she could get up the strength to get out of bed.”

“The prospect of being thrown into the street might be an incentive for her to do so,” said Nora shrewdly. She had risen from the table and begun putting on her cloak.

The eyes of every man in the room registered relief as they watched her leave, and as soon as she was out the door, the young waiter came over to take the men’s drink order.

William turned to Sidgwick, pleased finally to be able to speak in person with someone he had long admired. “A great honor to meet the author of the Methods of Ethics.”

“The admiration is mutual,” Sidgwick responded. “Most illuminating, your treatise on habit. It is, as you rightly say, the foundation for moral character—on the one hand, ensuring discipline and virtue; on the other, blinding us to wonders that may exist beyond our daily routine. Which is why we must not let the skeptics close our eyes to the possibility of other worlds and the otherworldly.”

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth…’” agreed William. It was the premise on which both men rationalized their interest in psychical phenomena. “You are not deterred after that fiasco with Madame Blavatsky?” he asked gingerly. He was referring to the alleged medium Sidgwick’s group had discovered, but who was found to have fabricated a large swath of her personal history.

“That was a disappointment.” Sidgwick sighed. “But I still hold that the woman possesses extraordinary capabilities; a little charlatanism ought not to be a complete disqualification.”

William nodded. It was precisely his view. One fraud, even fifty or a thousand, did not mean that the subject was closed. All you need is one white crow to destroy the assumption that all crows are black.

“And now, what brings you to London, my dear fellow?” asked Sidgwick with a pointed look that seemed to know the answer, supporting the general assumption that he had psychic powers of his own.

“I’m here to investigate the Whitechapel murders.” William had not intended to give a reason for his visit, but the question had been so direct and so knowing that he felt he could not evade it.

Sidgwick’s eyes brightened. “I suspected as much,” he exclaimed, slapping William heartily on the shoulder. “How surprisingly intelligent of those duffers at Scotland Yard! You’re just the person we need to shed light on the case. And I must say that our meeting today is a happy accident—if there is such a thing as accident. It happens that I have access to”—he cleared his throat—“evidence…that you may find uniquely useful.”

“Don’t tell me you have someone channeling the dead women of Whitechapel!” exclaimed William.

“Not all the dead women, James, my friend. Only one: Annie Chapman, the second victim.”

“Annie Chapman was the third victim,” corrected William.

“No. The one they’re putting out as the first, Mary or Martha someone, was killed by someone else. Or so Mrs. Lancaster claims.”

William was reminded that Abberline had his doubts that Martha Tabram was a Ripper murder victim. “And your source, Mrs. Lancaster, can put us…in touch…with Annie Chapman?”

“Under the proper circumstances, it appears that she can. She is, I should note, a very respectable sort of lady; her husband does something in the foreign office. One of her neighbors, whose daughter attends Newnham, alerted Nora of the woman’s trancelike states. We brought her to Cambridge for a week for study, and the results, while hardly definitive, were, if I may say so, promising.” Sidgwick settled back in his chair as though savoring the details of what he had to impart. “Her control is a ten-year-old girl, beaten to death by her father not far from where the Nichols woman was killed. Police reports check this out. Certainly worth your looking into, given the purpose of your visit, I should think.”

William agreed. He had not expected to consult a psychic medium about the Whitechapel murders, but Sidgwick had thrown one in his way, and he was not about to miss an opportunity to pursue truth when it presented itself.

“Would the lady be available for a…meeting?” He hesitated to use the word “séance,” cognizant of the vicious ribbing he would get from Alice.

“I’ve no doubt something could be arranged, no doubt at all,” rumbled Sidgwick. “She promised to be at my disposal anytime she was needed, day or night, so to speak. A very accommodating sort of woman—not the most prepossessing, I admit, but one can’t be picky there—but accommodating, which is not something you can say for all of them.”

“Well then,” said William, considering what would be best. “Could you ask her to come to my sister’s apartments tomorrow at around seven?” He made the proposition, knowing that Alice’s flat would suit the purpose, though knowing as well that to tell his sister about the arrangement might prove more daunting than communicating with spirits from another world. Nonetheless, he scribbled the address on a sheet of paper and handed it to his friend. “I assume you and Nora can be there.”

“I’m afraid not.” Sidgwick sighed. “We’re returning to Cambridge tonight; Nora is organizing a suffrage rally at the college. She’s been working on the thing for months—sashes, placards, all the standard paraphernalia. Must be there for moral support—spouse’s job, you know.”

“Of course, of course,” said William, wondering if he gave his wife the moral support that was a spouse’s job.

“But I’m sure Mrs. Lancaster will be fine without us. A fresh set of witnesses always helpful, you know.”

William agreed, thinking how the presence of Alice would provide an additional element. She was more than a fresh witness; she was a zealous skeptic.

Sidgwick was no longer concerned with channeling spirits. He had begun nodding pleasantly toward some of the men who had been shooting daggers at him and Nora only half an hour earlier. He pointed them out for William’s benefit. “That’s Crutchlow over there in the corner, faculty at the University of London. First-rate on Aristotelian concepts of virtue. And Pumley, the pockmarked one with the withered arm, foreign service, excellent piece in the Times last week on the Scottish Enlightenment. Young Pomeroy is to his right, very promising medical man at St. Barts, working on valves of the circulatory system.”

A few of these personages had wandered over. “William James of Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Sidgwick announced to the assemblage.

One of the younger men jumped forward and pumped William’s hand with enthusiasm. “William James! What an honor to meet you, sir! I greatly admire your work!”

William was about to ask whether he was referring to his work in psychology or in philosophy, when the young man offered his own explanatory commentary:

“Wonderful story of yours about that American girl who comes to England and makes a mess of things. Well observed! Psychologically astute! I couldn’t put it down!”