Walter Hartright’s narrative
We are surrounded by secrets. Our lives are honeycombed with the ugly, the terrifying, the shameful things that we keep hushed in our breasts or locked in the attic of the mind. It is a man’s burden, to keep the secrets that would blight the happiness of women, or that children are too young to bear. But is the reverse true? Occasionally the notion crosses my mind that women do not tell everything to us. And what of the younger ones? Children too have a secret existence, that we see only dimly from the eminence of adulthood. Men agree that women shall ever be a mystery. But we all were children, once.
From the Times, 7 January, 1891
We regret to report the death of Major the Honourable Bevis George Fyfield Nettaway, aged 40, of the 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment, in Cyprus. Major Nettaway was the eldest son of General Framwell Horatio Nettaway, Viscount Dewleigh (of Fyfield Castle in Essex and Hardinger House in London but currently stationed in Malta) and his wife Cornelia Adelaide (née Chedvale). The major’s demise was entirely accidental, a source of shock and grief to all his acquaintance. A regimental picnic had been organised to celebrate the new year, in a pleasant spot on the banks of Pedeios River near Nicosia. In reaching for the wine hamper the major incautiously set his right hand down upon a rock. A snake, later determined to be the blunt-nosed viper indigenous to the island, slithered out of a crevice and bit him at the base of the thumb. The major dismissed the injury as slight, and was the life and soul of the festivity, which had been organised by the wife of the Colonel. But on the way home he was unable to sit his horse and, overwhelmed by the venom, perished the next day. He is survived by his parents and brother, the Hon. Lucas Chedvale Nettaway, currently employed at the Foreign Office in London…
From the Spectator, London, 30 January 1891
DEATH NOTICE
On 28 January, the melancholy passing of Cornelia Nettaway, beloved wife of Gen.Framwell Nettaway, Viscount Dewleigh. The family had been devastated earlier this month by the sudden death of Maj. Bevis Nettaway, the eldest son and heir. Her ladyship never recovered from the bereavement and swiftly joined her son in that bourne from which no traveller returns this past Sunday. The funeral shall be private, and mother interred with son at Kensall Green Cemetery.
From the Illustrated London News, 15 February 1891
Her Throat Slashed From Ear to Ear! Jack the Ripper Returns!
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