Trials of Passion

by Lisa Appignanesi

  Beard’s attempt to cool relations with Christiana showed little sign of working. She felt his coldness all too ‘keenly’. Over spring and summer, as reports of chocolate poisonings around Brighton gathered pace, so too, it seemed, did Beard’s anxiety. In a letter postmarked 3 July, Christiana wrote to him of her appearance at young Barker’s inquest. The letter is eager to stress that poisoning in Brighton is rampant, that she herself is a victim amongst many others, and that Emily Beard’s poisoned chocolate cream all those months back had nothing at all to do with her – he of all people must understand that. Her long letter to this effect would eventually be read out in court.

  It is a lover’s letter, full of endearments, some, a little mysteriously, in Italian: Christiana may be making common cause with Charles’s romantic interest in that country, as well as showing off her sophistication. She makes rather jaunty use of Italian, too, when talking of his wife and her mother, abstracting them into generic roles, ‘La Sposa’, ‘La Madre’, as if in private they shared this jocular foreign designation. The tone of the letter is thoroughly flirtatious and intensely familiar. It begins with a suggestion that a lovers’ tiff has taken place, that Christiana’s own last letter insisting on rupture was an overreaction, and now she is simply too weak to bear what she herself has set in train:

  Caro Mio, – I have been so miserable since my last letter to you. I can’t go on without ever speaking to you. What made me write so? I thought perhaps it would be better for both of us, but I have not the strength of mind to bear it.

  She goes on to say that she and her mother bumped into Emily, back from travel, in the street. She didn’t like to talk about the poisoning case in a public place, so she called on Emily to tell her that she was obliged to appear at the Barker inquest. Christiana wanted her to tell Charles, but his wife had said she didn’t want to unsettle him.

  However, dear, I mean you to know about this dreadful poisoning case, especially since I had to give evidence; and I know how interested you would be in it as you told me you would give anything to know what La Sposa swallowed. I sent you the analysis and have no means of knowing whether it was sent you ...

  For Christiana, it is crucial that Charles recognize that the town is in the grip of a wave of poisonings of which she is wholly innocent and is herself a victim. The expert chemical report she has called for testifies to that. Only thus can she hope that their relations will be resumed.

  After the inquest and what seems to have been for the Beard family a holiday period, Charles saw Christiana at his home for tea on 12 July: he and his wife had agreed that to see her in person would be the kindest way to proceed. He told Christiana that Emily had known about her letters since September last. He stressed again that they really had to stop. ‘It wasn’t good for either of them.’ Christiana expressed great surprise that he should have shown his wife her intimate letters, and so long ago. Writing is a crucial, utterly private expression of her link with ‘Caro Mio’.

  The second attempt on Mrs Beard’s life – by means of one of the several parcels of poisoned sweetmeats – follows in August, not long after Christiana learns that Emily has been made privy to her letters. Betrayal and resistance on the part of the beloved trigger violence in the lover. The violence seems to be carried out in a state of denial, by a part of Christiana that is separated off from her everyday self. Meanwhile, Christiana herself identifies with Emily, the wife she might want to be, the victim of her poisoning act, and can say quite honestly to the police, fully believing what she says, that she, too, has again been a victim of poisoning.

  Having given the sweetmeats to her servants, Mrs Beard has had a lucky escape, but only just. One servant has been violently ill, and a second affected as well. All this has at last compelled Charles Beard to take his doubly incriminating, though somewhat expurgated, hoard of letters to the police and air his suspicions about Christiana.

  Inspector Gibbs now knows that the parcels received on 10 August have all resulted in poisonings: people have been affected at the Beards’, the Boyses’, the chemist Mr Garrett’s, and the home of the editor of the Brighton Gazette. The letters Dr Beard has shown to Gibbs also confirm that Christiana Edmunds’s handwriting matches that of the person who had written anonymously complaining to Sidney Barker’s father after the inquest into his son’s death by chocolate. On Thursday 17 August, Inspector Gibbs apprehends Christiana and remands her in custody. Her response to the charge of the attempted murder of Mrs Beard and attempting to administer poisons with intent to do grievous bodily harm to the other addressees is this: ‘Me poison Mrs Beard? Who can say that? I have been nearly poisoned myself.’

  Christiana’s earlier challenge to Gibbs – whether teasing, taunting or simply sincere – that he would ‘never find it out’ had underestimated the detective. Then again, after her long and formidably complicated odyssey to win over and win back Dr Beard, she may well unwittingly have wanted to be caught. Her poisoning ploys certainly involved her in sailing very close to the police. It would be for the magistrates and then the criminal court – with a little help from the mind doctors – to determine whether Christiana was an innocent wrongly accused; or a promiscuous, evil and jilted femme fatale inspired by the heroines of the sensational novels of her day such as Lady Audley or Lydia Gwilt – women willing to go to any lengths to get their man; or a poor benighted spinster whose mind was irretrievably addled, and had been so from birth. None imagined – or not openly and publicly, at least – that she might be all three: a woman in love whose passion had edged her into madness – an erotomania that insisted her love was returned – and attempted to create, however deviously and arrogantly, the conditions that would enable fantasy to become real.

  2. The Hearing

  Although it was only a middle-sized town, Brighton at that time had a cosmopolitan flavour. By choosing it as his ‘health-giving’ seaside retreat in the mid-1780s and buying a farm there, gradually to be transformed into the mammoth Royal Pavilion, the Prince of Wales and his entourage had helped to turn a small fishing village into a resplendent resort – one graced with well-designed squares built by leading architects. Artisans of all descriptions flocked there through the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth. So too did the new professionals, a chic bohemia and high society. During the various wars they were joined by continental aristocrats and other refugees. The Chain Pier, painted by both Constable and Turner, then the West Pier and high-wheeled, canvas-covered bathing machines lined the long beach. These latter, complete with steps and shielding umbrellas, permitted ladies to be discreetly dunked into the waters.

  When the railway came in 1841, closing the distance between Brighton and the capital, it grew into a favoured pleasure resort for the new tourists. Queen Victoria may have found the town, and particularly the Pavilion, a little extravagant and over-indulgent for her tastes – and sold the latter back to the city in 1851 – but Brighton continued to grow. In 1871 the Brighton Gazette, a sophisticated paper interested in foreign news, the condition of women and John Stuart Mill as well as the comings and goings of lords, ladies and notables, remarked that the Franco-Prussian war and the terrors of the Commune had brought more visitors than ever to the ‘hospitable refuge of Old England’: ‘many of the wealthier have made the watering places, Brighton in particular, their abode, engaging first class residences until Christmas’.

  But neither events abroad, for all their tragic dimensions, nor John Stuart Mill’s thoughts on the subjection of women could command as many column inches or special editions of the Gazette as the proceedings against the alleged Borgia of Brighton. She herself certainly read the paper. Whatever her thoughts on Mill or on the sexual politics of her own situation, Christiana seemed to disapprove of some of the paper’s coverage: she had, after all, targeted its publisher with one of her poison parcels.

  Poisoning, particularly when the poisoner was a woman, was a crime beloved of the Victorian press. As one judge commented in mid-century, it was a crime of ‘st
range and horrible frequency’. He was referring in particular to its use by wives against husbands. Since poison could easily be cloaked in food and drink, and since its impact could be slow and steady, it was a means of murder amenable to use by women. Indeed, in the course of the century, poisoning acquired a particularly feminine stamp, certainly in the press. Fifty-five per cent of women who went to trial for killing their husbands, as opposed to five per cent of men who killed their wives, employed poison. Although the absolute numbers were far smaller than murders by men, the fear was about that many silent, secretive killings had in fact been carried out by vengeful wives, with no one any the wiser. A sinister threat to the marital and sexual order, poisoning was deemed a particularly unnatural form of murder: the dangerous, witch-like women who turned to it for their desperate crimes were considered singularly monstrous.

  On 18 August 1871, Christiana Edmunds faced a hearing presided over by several magistrates, led by Deputy Stipendiary Magistrate F. Merrifield, as well as Brighton’s mayor. Her defence attorney was Mr Charles Lamb. The prosecution was conducted by a Mr Stuckey. Depositions were made by Emily Beard, who recounted the two attempts on her life; Dr Charles Beard, who spoke of his and his wife’s relations with Christiana and read out the letter she had sent him about the inquest; their servants, who corroborated the effects on them of the poison cake; and the surgeon who had examined the servants. He stated that he fully believed arsenic would produce the violent stomach pains and retching that had been suffered. There were other witnesses as well, all of whom built up an evidential trail that led only to Christiana.

  The chemist Isaac Garrett of Queen’s Road made a crucial deposition. He had been one of the recipients of a parcel from London – in his case one that contained two toxic peaches, and half a sovereign wrapped in a note stating: The last of my debt and the first of the peaches from my garden’. The brief letters Garrett read out in court helped to explain this unsigned message. These letters had been delivered to him by three different lads, the first on 8 June, four days before the child Sidney Barker’s death by chocolate creams; the second around 14 July, and the final one on the 19th – a few days after Charles Beard and Christiana Edmunds had met and the occasion on which he had attempted to sever all relations with her for the second time.

  Two of the letters purported to be from a neighbouring North Street chemists, Messrs Glaisyer and Kemp. The first asked for half an ounce, or less if that quantity wasn’t available, of ‘strychnia’, sealed up in a bottle. Garrett sent the messenger back with a note saying he could only supply a ‘drahm’. A letter containing half-a-crown duly came back saying that that would do for the time being until their own supply arrived – ‘their signature always being sufficient before in their business transactions. Should Mr Garrett feel the least hesitation in supplying them, they must apply elsewhere.’ Evidently the signatory, even if not Messrs Glaisyer and Kemp of North Street, knew that an act of 1865 had made obtaining poison a transaction that demanded an authenticated signature. Garrett supplied the strychnia.

  Around the 14th another messenger brought a note purportedly from the borough coroner, one D. Black, saying he would be obliged if Garrett could lend him the book in which he registered the poison drugs he sold. It wasn’t that he suspected any irregularity, but only to help him in his investigation. Garrett complied and within half an hour the book was returned, though as he noticed only later, several of its pages relating to a period six months earlier were missing. The final missive to Garrett came once more purportedly from Glaisyer and Kemp, this time containing a shilling and asking for two or three ounces of arsenic. He was now suspicious and didn’t send it. Instead he contacted the chemists directly, who told him they knew nothing of this or the prior transaction. It was then that Garrett informed the police that something was awry.

  The deposition of the second chemist, Mr Glaisyer, confirmed Garrett’s account.

  Called once more by the prosecutor, Inspector Gibbs said that after hearing from Garrett he had on 26 July, and on a hunch, written to the woman known to him from the inquest as Christiana Edmunds. She had responded saying that she had bought her last chocolate creams from Maynard’s on 10 March and she had immediately sent them to be analysed. It was this letter that provided a sample of Christiana’s writing under her own name for the police. The writing matched the anonymous notes sent to Albert Barker, Sidney’s father, urging him to pursue Maynard and have him held responsible for his son’s death.

  Christiana’s advocate, Mr Lamb, protested. A handwriting expert needed to be called. The magistrate agreed. The long first day in court drew to a close and despite Lamb’s best efforts, bail was denied. Christiana Edmunds was remanded in custody until Thursday 24 August. In the meantime, vomit was sent for analysis to the presiding expert, Dr Letherby. A second police notice was posted offering a reward of £6 to each of the three messenger boys who had carried notes to Garrett’s.

  On Thursday, 24 August a large and unusually feminine and affluent public crammed into Brighton’s new courthouse well before proceedings started. Completed in 1869, this ample red-brick structure trimmed with stone and wearing a royal coat of arms over its west entrance on the corner of Church Street, conveniently close to Grand Parade, proved too small for the excitement the case had generated. Many were turned away and had to settle for the numerous press accounts that appeared in papers across the nation.

  The hearing began shortly after eleven. According to the Daily News’s account, The accused sat in a corner of the ordinary prisoner’s dock, being attired in a black silk dress, black lace shawl and black bonnet with veil.’ Christiana’s demeanour was throughout ‘quiet and self-possessed; but she occasionally glanced round the court with evident interest in the scene’. Other papers describe her with a pencil in her hand, methodically making notes; or looking about her like a diva and acknowledging acquaintances. The Times has her fair, well dressed and self-possessed and ‘smiling as descriptions were given of the pains taken to trace the band administering the poisons’.

  Like some observer of her own fate, Christiana seems to be enjoying the excitement she has generated around her. At least on the surface, she seems indifferent to the hearing’s possible outcome. Her dramatic black may be a signal of modesty or of mourning: she was a woman who cared about clothes and the significances of appearance. It is tempting to see in her choice of dress an echo of Wilkie Collins’s fatally seductive heroine in Armadale, the poisoning and poisonous Lydia Gwilt, who hides her powers behind the ladylike garb of ‘a thick black veil, a black bonnet, and a black silk dress’. Christiana’s assiduous note-taking is also much reported: she is evidently an educated woman and one for whom writing counts. The fact that Charles Beard held on to her letters for so long before destroying some and handing others over to the police may also suggest that these letters carried some kind of resonance for him – as they patently did for her. It is interesting to note that unstoppable writing seems to play a crucial part in many of these excessive and dangerous love stories – from Christiana’s to our own contemporary ‘stalkers’.

  The proceedings begin with Mr Stuckey for the prosecution stating that he has a great mass of evidence to lay before the court and he will then ask for a further remand.

  Mr Lamb objects, saying the court must confine itself strictly to the charge: the alleged attempt to poison Mrs Beard by means of arsenic. The chief magistrate agrees, but adds that attempts to obtain strychnine may also be relevant to the charge.

  Witnesses appear: the Beards’ cook testifies that the cake that came in a parcel from London had made her very sick; Mrs Cole, a greengrocer’s wife, states she saw Christiana with Adam May, the eleven-year-old who then identifies Christiana as the woman who asked him to take a message to Garrett’s the chemist. Having read it, Mr Garrett gaive him a book which he took to Christiana. She paid him fourpence-halfpenny. Mrs Cole is called again, despite Defence Attorney Lamb’s objection that the prosecutor is on a fishing expedition. The
magistrate reminds him that this is a preliminary hearing and that any evidence obtained might have an important bearing on the ultimate case. So Mrs Cole returns to the stand and states that about a week before the inquest on Sidney Barker, the prisoner came into her shop, bought a few things, and at the same time left behind a paper bag from Maynard’s which contained chocolate creams large and small and three lemon bullseyes. The sweets were fine, but when her daughter bit into the chocolate cream, it tasted foul and she spat it out. When Mrs Cole came across Christiana at the inquest, she denied doing any such thing.

  A ten-year-old testifies that he had taken chocolate creams, given to him by Mrs Cole and left by Christiana, to his mother, who ate a small piece and felt as if her eyes were coming out of her head. She was shaken by convulsions, felt a great heaviness in her limbs, couldn’t move and was ill for some four days. Another eleven-year-old states that the lady in the dock had sent him to Mr Garrett’s on Queen’s Road with a note, telling him that if he was asked where he had come from, he was to say Messrs Glaisyer and Co. He was given a packet, like a letter, and met the lady again on North Street. She gave him sixpence.

  The evidence against Christiana was piling up and it seemed to implicate her in a far more ambitious poisoning spree than that directed at the wife of the man she was infatuated with. As the day unfolds, Isaac Garrett the chemist testifies that he knew the prisoner. She had made occasional visits to his shop over some four years, always paying in ready money, always mentioning a train she had to catch. At the start of the current year, she had begun to come more frequently; then on 28 March, after buying some toilet articles, she had asked if he could supply her with a small quantity of strychnine in order to kill some cats. She and her husband had been much annoyed by them of late and wanted to get rid of them.