by Karen Joyce
“I made no reflections upon the committee,” interjected O’Connor, rising with incredulity.
“Mr O’Connor,” said the Speaker, “You will remain seated until Mr Cripps has finished addressing the House at which time you will be granted the opportunity to speak in your defence.”
“If the honourable gentleman did not mean to reflect upon the character of the Committee he meant nothing at all,” continued Mr Cripps. “The Committee has taken every pains with this petition that there should be no mistake.” The members then learnt Mr Cripps had consulted the Population Abstract and had come to the conclusion that the petition could not have been signed by half that number. Further, the petition had been signed by women.
“I rise, Sir, to order,” said O’Connor, “The honourable Gentleman’s observations require explanation.”
“Mr O’Connor, again I must warn you not to interrupt another honourable Member when he is addressing the House,” said the Speaker, reasserting his authority over the proceedings. The Chairman of the Committee continued to elaborate upon their findings of the petition outlining their reasons for the rejection of the petition. Upon hearing their decision, Mr O’Connor rose to address the chamber for the final time.
“There are three points on which I must give some explanation. I hope I shall do without the excitement which the honourable Gentleman, the Member for Circenster has displayed. The first point has relation to the house; the second to the Committee; and the third to myself personally, I stated at the outset that I attributed not the slightest blame, not even a sinister intention to the Committee; but I said it was impossible for the number of clerks employed to have got through the work in double the time they were employed. With regard to the petition itself, I could not be supposed to be accountable for anything written in it. Was it possible for me, in the nature of things, to examine different sheets? I never saw one of them till I saw them rolled up here. I am now told I had no business to present any petition the character of which I did not know. If such were the rule, that petition would never have been presented at all. As to my having forfeited my title to credence, in having presented a petition for which I am not responsible, with all respects to the House and the Committee, I shall have explained that elsewhere, and,” O’Connor paused, taking a deep breath, “in respect to the forgeries,” he began again, his voice rising with the fury of a thousand Spartans going into battle. “I will state on this shameful day, the only fraud committed within this House, is the monarch and the men beneath her rule who falsely stand before God as the legitimate leaders of this nation.” As cries of outrage erupted again from within the room, Mr O’Connor dropped his arms to his side in defeat and immediately left the Hall much to the astonishment of the members of the House.
The petition had been rejected. The hopes of the people laid to ruins. What words could lend themselves to the emotions that seared within Lincoln, as if the meeting were a flagellation with each punishing word bearing down upon him like the lashings of a whip tearing at his flesh. Lincoln calmly excused himself from his seat and departed the chamber, the capricious change occurring within imperceptible to the naked eye. Moving through a narrow corridor he found himself in a vestibule that led him into Westminster Hall, the oldest surviving building within the palace dating back to the 11th century; but it was the carved angels upon the beams of the arched ribs of the magnificent medieval timber roof that lent itself to grandeur.
“The angels of East Anglia,” said a voice by Lincoln’s side, as he turned and came face to face with Davenport whom was looking up at the roof. “They were built during the reign of Richard II. He was a man who understood the dangers in giving the people too much freedom.” There was a short silence before he continued. “I must admit, I have always been more than a little curious to know what goes through the mind of the condemned as the noose is tightened upon one’s neck. What dreadful thoughts must torment them as they linger suspended between life and death.”
“You have your wish, Davenport,” said Lincoln. “Now please, leave me be.”
“You dare to carry on with this pretence. Do you take me for a fool, Lincoln? I know you didn’t have a hand in what came to pass today.” He spoke the truth, for though Lincoln had wanted to carry out Davenport’s wishes he could not betray her again, even if he could not bear the sacrifice. He could not refuse her final wish for he understood at what cost it would come. Of how many innocents would have to pay the price for her salvation. If he had been privy to what would come to pass, that he was not the only one to whom Davenport had chosen as his co-conspirator to secure his aims; perhaps, he would have made a different choice but one cannot know what awaits them in those days they have not yet met. And so it was. All too soon she had come and gone. For a light to burn so bright could only last but a short while and time would soon smother the ephemeral fire within them and the wind that waited in the wings of their days would scatter the ashes of their hearts far from one another, setting them upon two very different paths: never to cross again. There was nothing left without her; nothing but the pages of regret never to be rewritten. Their story had come to an end. How he harked to hear the words she had spoken to him that fateful day. The last day that held her before closing its door on him forever. How he wished he could have kept those words from his memory, lest the spell of seeing her again would be broken but, he had to remember everything of her and so they fell into memory and he knew only too well that memories belonged to the past, as now did she. He felt as if he were lying within a dark coffin and the lid was closing fast upon him and he would never again awake from this living nightmare. There would never be an escape while he lived within this world bereft of her.
XXV
And so it came. What comes when we lose that other who is cut from the same cloth as our very own; that other to whom we were a part from the very beginning of our inception, at the very dawn of time itself; that other to whom the beating of their heart pumps the blood through our veins and delivers us forth into life, we want to die. And so, Lincoln had come to this impasse in his life where purpose fell silent and no longer called to him but to another whom understood its design; and meaning fastened itself like a lock around the chain of another’s heart, leaving him behind where he would ride like a ghostly spectre through the streets of London: the crumbling city echoing his own ruined self. He would never again love another the way he had loved her, loved her still. Never again would he move to the rhythm of another’s heart, the way she had moved him. Never again would his eyes behold the beauty of God’s ethereal creation the way it had beheld it when his eyes had fallen upon her. Never again would his soul yearn for another the way it had yearned for her. Only hatred would bear his name and all that is most foul within this world would know the broken path to his heart, for he was forsaken. Never to be resurrected by another’s touch; by another’s love; by another. Death was now his sole confidant and he craved the mercy of his touch. For there was another hope that began to manifest within him: that there was another way, another path that would lead him to her…The strength of your love will carry me through time into another where I will be waiting for you…Lincoln, we found each other once and we will find each other again… Those were her words and his faith was trusted to the promise that lay within them. Wherever her soul would voyage once she was released from her mortal coil. Wherever the destination…she would be waiting. Now all that he desired was to leave this fiendish and sinister place and go to her wherever she may be. He would find her again just as they had found each other once before. Even if upon his judgement day it was his fate for St Peter to refuse him entrance through the pearly gates to the Kingdom of Heaven and be condemned to Hell, he would find a way to her. And that he must endure the temptation of her still living within this world caused him endless torment. How he wanted to denounce to the world the injustice that had been committed against her, to reproach them for passing this sentence upon her, but he knew it would be futile. For there was no proof,
no testimony, only hearsay. There would be no salvation for them. Whatever life existed before now had passed and he would now move like a shadow through life; through the motions, because there was only the emptiness of what comes after in the absence of life, hope and love. Music would no longer touch him with its sweet, tender melody. Beauty would become crude and memories would serve only to haunt him. He had become the personification of death and he only wished to hasten to that place beyond the grave to go the way of all flesh; for death was the door that would lead him back to her. Lincoln lifted his head to look again upon the angels of East Anglia eternally bound to the roof. We are all chained with shackles to this world, he thought to himself. All of us chained like prisoners bound to the will of these men. Our lives as free as the roots of a tree fastened to the bedrock beneath the earth. He heard then as Davenport’s footsteps faded away, his heavy prophetic words still lingering in the air.
“When the executioner releases the trapdoors and her jerking body finally surrenders to the dominion of death, remember who dug her grave.”
XXVI
On the eve of the execution, the condemned prisoners laid cradled within the hollow void of Newgate Prison’s cursed darkness, cowering within the shadows, as the echoes of sharp, foreboding footsteps sounded down the corridor and paused before their cells. The faint, flickering glow of candlelight cast a soft hue upon their pale, terrified faces, as the evocation of the haunting church bells foretold of the dreaded words spoken for their audience alone that would seal their fate.
“All that you in the condemned hole do lie, prepare you, for tomorrow you shall die. Watch all and pray: the hour is drawing near that you before the Almighty must appear. Examine well yourselves in time repent, that you may not to eternal flames be sent. And when St. Sepulchre’s Bell in the morning tolls, the Lord above have mercy upon your soul.” For some, in life, though the wind has scattered the seed of their youth upon the ground, the end comes prematurely, before they have fastened themselves upon the fertile earth. For others, it comes much too late when they have called to its mercy so many times before, but like an unanswered prayer it turns its back on them. And, sometimes, just sometimes, it eases its way into their life; slowly but surely; little by little; till they are holding on by a whisper of a thread. For the condemned it comes announced; with only their fears to complete the picture that is waiting to be drawn: the unbearable terror of the unknown. The wait is over and what agony, as the hands of time brings them closer and closer to their inevitable end. Death is coming, riding like the ghost of the headless horseman with his severed head resting on the pommel of his saddle, pursuing them across that bridge to the other side that awaits; and it chills them to the very core for they now know the summation of their lives is drawing to a close. Their days have now hastened to their last. The dance of death has not beckoned silently with graceful steps, calling to take their hand, nor whispering for them to hold it close, to never let them go. All too quickly the deed will be done, their lives ensnared within its trap, to never again awake from its cruel spell as purgatory carries them all too swiftly into the arms of hell. Some weep and rue the actions that have led them to their fate. Some are stoic and brave in the face of what will come to pass. Others are in denial, for surely it cannot be. This cannot be the end. For some there is the descent into madness as their journey will culminate in the broken necks and fractured spines of suspended death, as they are removed from this earth and taken like a shameful secret to the grave of humanity with only the scars of their memories to remain upon the wound of its rotting flesh. And thus, their days are numbered; no longer to be lived as if they are drawn from an infinite well of immortality. How some lament those days spent frivolously and pray for another chance to relive them with renewed purpose and determination. While others fear the Karma of their sins as they reap what they have sown. For there will be no more days; no more moments. It is now all too late to atone for their sins, or for salvation to rescue those unfortunate few whom are innocent of the crime they have been charged and sentenced to pay with their life. Whatever time their lives may have shed are now doomed forever to lay in the past within the imagination as a mere concept that has failed to take root within the physical world. Nothing real to ever take the place of its promise. And if any peace can be found in those final intolerable hours without the bittersweet weariness of a full life, that only one who has lived their whole life through can know; never again to know the touch of their loved ones; to hear their hearts call to them; to feel what it is to be showered in the light of their love, all that is left is the fear that will follow in the wake of the footsteps of death; in the stillness of their breast; in the silence of their final breath. The tearing of the fabric of their lives as their time is abruptly cut short. No longer would there be enough time to become a slave to the regrets that now tainted everything in their small lives and had become more real than they themselves. The moon above that had once stood witness to their fate would no longer guide them toward romance and lull them to sleep with the illumination of its sweet lullaby. No longer guide them toward the destiny that had been written in their stars. It was no longer a firm but kind father watching over them but now harboured the darkness that festers in the absence of life, armed with the malevolence of evil. The vessel of their lives to become an empty vase with all the flowers of their days wilted. Their decaying petals falling from the grasp of those that nourished them; letting go; letting go, letting go.
The forgiving streams of heaven’s warmth softly trickled through the cracks in the walls, as dust particles gracefully danced with careful abandonment, settling weightlessly upon the cold, concrete floor. Alas, the morning had come to rouse the condemned, huddled in the corners of their cells, to carry them off to the blood thirsty crowds like sacrificial lambs to appease the vengeful gods. In one of the tiny cells a frail, sickly looking young woman is standing by a small barred window looking out at the sky above her. Afraid to look away for it is but that same heavenly blue sky that had borne witness to the blossoming youth of her heart’s awakening; the longing of what may come never to be materialised. Believing that if she prayed with all her might, she may return to that other time when life had been endless in possibilities. When all that she had loved were flesh and bones instead of a fragmented melody of a song she couldn’t quite remember the words to anymore. That place where regrets were beyond reach and she had not been moved by the rhythm of time but instead, by the silence within and all the secrets it had offered of the unknown if only she would answer its call. She hears the wind faintly rustling through the trees of an old, sturdy oak standing like a guard to the fortress of the prison walls, releasing its dried, withered marcescent leaves from its tired and weary boughs. She watches as they gently move through the air and descend upon the barren soil. Unto the earth that she would soon no longer be a part; unto those others to whom she would soon become the living ghost of memory. How she longs to hold on to those she loves; to never forget the sweetness of their love, but death is pulling at the loose thread of her seams and she knows she must let go. For soon she will unravel. Their threads no longer intertwined.
“Let them fall”, she whispers with the slow and measured words of a child speaking for the first time, as she looks at the leaves upon the branches of the trees. “Let their colours fade to the crimson shades of loves first kiss. The weather is turning and soon there will be no leaves left at all.”
At seven thirty that morning, the guards whom had kept watch throughout the night to prevent the condemned from committing suicide, unlocked the heavy doors of their cells in the north and south wings and led the three prisoners to the far end of the prison for a period of exercise. As they walked the yard, for a single moment they saw the beauty of the world as they had never seen it before; that only those who are on the verge of that frightening frontier can know. They could have been standing anywhere because this beauty was not only without, it was within and it enveloped the reality in which they live
d. It transformed the most seemingly insignificant weed into a labyrinth of tiny veins in which the very force of nature coursed its way through with the brilliance of life’s essence. After dispensing of this final reprieve, they were then taken to the Press Yard where the blacksmith proceeded to remove their leg irons. The executioner’s assistant then tied a cord around their wrists and around their bodies and arms at the elbows. Once the preparations had been made, they were attended by the Sheriff and the Prison Chaplain, whom together with the guards led them like the cursed children of God being cast from the Garden of Eden across the yard to the Lodge and out through the Debtor’s Door, where they ascended thirteen stairs and stood upon the scaffold of the portable new drop gallows that had been brought out the night before by a team of horses and placed in front of the prison.
The crowds were gathered around the gallows like tiny bacterium spores floating through the air, securing themselves to the damp ground before the prison walls, their numbers growing like mildew, as they fed off the decaying organic material of reason and compassion. These thousands of men and women who had come to bear witness to the unspeakable acts that was grotesquely viewed by so many as entertainment, as if they had come to partake in the pleasurable sights of one of the many attractions at Vauxhall Gardens; with some travelling from far and wide on the new railway lines that had laid out special excursion trains for the sole purpose of granting tourists the opportunity to travel to towns where public executions were taking place. The smell of freshly baked pie crust permeated throughout the stifling air, as men sold broadsheets among the crowds, detailing the crimes of the condemned and their last confessions. Those spectators of the higher classes had paid the considerable sum of ten pounds for the privilege of viewing the hanging from window seats overlooking the gallows.