‘My name is Ann Empson and I let rooms to respectable gentlemen only at 46 Davies-street and I let rooms to Lord Arthur Clinton, specifically advising him of the rules of my establishment, no women, no noise, etc, etc. He agreed with the rules. And because he was a Noble Lord I lent him money, he said he was temporarily unmonied and so I helped him out, expecting to be repaid almost immediately – he was a Lord after all, how did I know he was about to be declared a bankrupt, how was I supposed to know that, eh? Then he said he had a cousin called Mr Ernest Boulton and he would like him to stay occasionally. “Well where is he going to sleep?” I asked. “There’s only one bed!” And with Lord Arthur’s persuasion I obtained another bed. Next thing I know valises and portmanteaus are being dragged up my nicely polished staircases by various gentlemen, including that Mr Park I think, and a lady was seen late at night, but when I confronted Lord Arthur with this information and reminded him very firmly of the rules he assured me I had been mistaken, he only had gentlemen visitors.’
There was definitely something a bit – a bit peculiar about this landlady’s way of talking, well like I said I thought she was mad and at this point Mr Flowers started to intervene but by now Miss Ann Empson was in full flow, with her hair flying about.
‘And when I went to clean the room I examined the sleeping arrangements and it was clear to me – I will not go into detail of course’ – and she paused dramatically, her voice full of horror – ‘that Mr Ernest Boulton had been sleeping in the same bed as Lord Arthur Clinton!’
Having delivered this piece of information she swayed slightly. All the journalists were writing furiously and breaking their pencils, Lord Arthur had been mentioned before today of course but only in passing; this was what they had been waiting for, as Ma had foretold.
‘She’s inebriated,’ whispered Ma, and she couldn’t help laughing. One of Ernest’s and Freddie’s lawyers, called I think Mr Straight, got up.
‘Can I ask you, Ann Empson, if it is just possible that you are drunk?’
‘You mind your tongue, you cheeky beggar!’
‘Are you married, Ann Empson?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘It might have been an advantage to you.’
‘Not if I had been married to Park, or Boulton or any of that lot.’
This was the loudest laughter of all and Mr Flowers had to give a very severe speech while banging his hammer on his bench, saying the next person to cause a disturbance would ensure that every spectator in the court would be turned out. Nothing seemed to stop the housekeeper, however, who just went on talking.
‘Now you listen to this! Lord Arthur owed me money, as I say I had lent him some because I thought he was an Honourable Lord and he wasn’t at all, he was a bankrupt bugger! And to reimburse myself I took some of their things, I took photos and letters, hundreds of them, I kept some, listen, you just listen to this!’ and she actually waved one from Ernest to Lord Arthur and read it before anyone stopped her.
My dearest Arthur,
I am just off to Chelmsford with Fanny, where I shall stay till Monday. We are going to a party tomorrow. Send me some money, Wretch!
Stella Clinton
The audience erupted and she was about to embark on another one, dropping papers, and pointing at Ernest and Freddie in a vague manner but Mr Flowers intervened and told her extremely severely to give the letters to the court where they should properly have been deposited. But she was unstoppable.
‘I did deposit them,’ she said, ‘but I kept one or two as evidence!’ She pointed dramatically at Freddie. ‘That’s him!’ she cried. ‘I’d know him anywhere even if he’s not in a negligee! That’s Ernest Boulton!’
‘Excuse me,’ said Mr Flowers leaning forward politely. ‘For the clarification of this court would you identify Ernest Boulton again.’
She pointed again at Freddie. ‘That’s Ernest Boulton!’ and as it was Freddie she kept pointing to, this made her sound even more mad and everybody in the court laughed and started shouting out almost and she was almost physically removed from the witness stand, still speaking, amid great applause.
I saw that the next witness prepared herself before she spoke, a bit like as if she was in front of a mirror, she patted her hair and lifted her head and looked about and smiled at the audience as if she was about to give a performance – and then she began – and did the faces of the journalists become even more excited as they wrote down the words for their newspapers!
‘My name is Maria Duffin. I know all about this matter because I let rooms at 36 Southampton-street to Lord Arthur Clinton and I’m telling you that dirty Ernest Boulton masqueraded as Lord Arthur’s wife and what’s more, you listen to this, Ernest Boulton ordered – I know this – I seen them – he ordered visiting cards with LADY CLINTON writ on them.’
There was a huge explosion of noise in court at that but I could feel Ma ruffling, quite wild, next to me. ‘That woman is not the landlady of 36 Southampton-street,’ she said. (Ma knows everything as I’ve said so often before.) ‘She’s only a bleeding maid, leave it to me, I’ll fix her,’ and Ma just got up and left the courtroom!
Maria Duffin waited for the noise to subside and then, giving a small nod as if in pleased acceptance of all the excitement she was causing, went on. ‘Now, listen to this, everybody, that dirty Ernest Boulton drooped about all day in a negligee, and they slept in the same bed – I know, I checked the sheets! – and Lord Arthur called Ernest darling and my dear and Stella.’
The activity among the pressmen was now frantic, and rushing for the door, all this stuff I suppose being what they were waiting for. This Maria Duffin observed this further and puffed up her hair under her hat and actually almost bowed to the court as if she was taking a curtain call as she was dismissed.
‘Why is Lord Arthur Clinton not here to speak for himself?’ asked Mr Flowers rather testily, and you should’ve heard how quick the noisy court went completely quiet. A policeman spoke at once.
‘He has been asked for, sir, all about, but he is not to be found.’
‘Well I hope further efforts are being made to find him.’
By the time the court came back from the lunch adjournment Ma had done her mission and brought the real landlady of that Southampton-street address who was wearing a very respectable bonnet and her white curls shook in indignation. She insisted on being heard, took the oath, her eyes sparkling with rage.
‘My name is Mrs Louisa Peck. I am married to the Managing Clerk of the Sacred Harmonic Society.’ (And I wished Billy was here so we could roll our eyes at how Ma knew everyone, as usual.) ‘I have already given a deposition at the Treasury and you people had no right to call my maid instead of me! That woman, Maria Duffin, who purported to be the landlady at 36 Southampton-street instead of myself, is a wicked liar. How dare she make my very respectable establishment sound so unrespectable! This is not only a slur on me and my business but on the Sacred Harmonic Society. Maria Duffin was only a kitchen maid and she stayed with me no more than a month, and she mostly worked in the kitchen and she did not make the beds. If she heard Lord Arthur Clinton call Mr Boulton darling and dear and Stella then I must be deaf and if she saw Mr Boulton lounging about all day in a negligee handing out cards saying LADY CLINTON then I must be blind. And Maria Duffin did all this because she is desperate to get a husband!’
‘By speaking in court?’
‘By coming here and making herself all important with her lies, and hoping to catch the eye of some male person who may pass by out of interest!’
And then, in her respectable bonnet, she looked almost pityingly at Mr Flowers and the lawyers.
‘I believe there have also been comments about – if I may be allowed to use the word – about the gender of Mr Ernest Boulton. I think there is a possibility that there are some things that gentlemen dont understand. Which women do of course. Mr Boulton’s parents came to visit one day, and I distinctly heard his mother address him as Ernest. Now, excuse me, gentlemen!
A mother would know if anybody does – so of course he must be a man, if his mother called him Ernest!’
The audience laughed and applauded and Mr Flowers banged his bench. Ma was now standing at the back but I turned round and gave her a wave and in the general moving about between witnesses being called Ma got back in to a space beside me.
‘Good for you, Ma!’ I said and we laughed in a whispering sort of way. ‘They’ll get bail now!’ I said.
But.
It came next.
The next thing.
Well – well I’m just going to write about it as quickly as I can, I’d rather leave this bit out but I suppose I have to write all that happened, and this is when – when everything changed.
It was the police surgeon in the Metropolitan Police, called Dr Paul. He had black greasy hair and he talked as if he was talking about nothing important.
‘When the prisoners first appeared in this court the morning after they were arrested at the theatre I was asked to examine them afterwards for the purpose of ascertaining their sex. They were still dressed in their women’s clothes that they were arrested in.’
‘There was no authority from the court for you to do that,’ said Mr Flowers very severely.
‘I dont need authority, sir. I am a police surgeon. I have constantly to examine prisoners as directed by the police, Mr Superintendent Thomson gave me orders. “Take off your clothes,” I said and I took a desk stool and said, “Bend over,” and in turn they did, Mr Park first. Both had on as well as a dress and petticoats, etc, etc, tights or drawers, over white stockings. I examined them not only to assess if they were men but I had another idea – I did this on my own accord, it was my own idea – I wanted to ascertain something more, which came from a belief that men so attired might commit unnatural offences. First I looked at the anus of Mr Park. The muscles round the anus were easily opened and I could see right down into the rectum, and the appearance I saw could be accounted for by the insertion of a foreign body – that is the thrust of a foreign body many times.’
Ma looked at me then, my face felt as red as a tomato, I suppose I looked funny, I felt funny, how could such words be allowed to be said like that in front of everybody?
‘Do you want to go?’ whispered Ma, but I held my hands together very, very tightly and shook my head.
‘I looked also at the anus of Mr Boulton. Both anuses were much dilated, and the muscles readily opened. I attributed this to the fact of them having frequent unnatural connections – one insertion would not cause them. I do not in my practice ever remember to have seen such an appearance of the anus as those of the two prisoners presented.’
And he said all this loudly and calmly as if it was nothing, talking of Freddie and Ernest in that way.
And then Mr Poland called another doctor from Charing Cross Hospital, who was a Fellow of the College of Surgeons and not greasy-haired like Dr Paul. But he pointed straight at Freddie.
‘He came to Charing Cross Hospital, perhaps three months ago, and I treated him for a syphilitic sore on the anus with mercury and iodine of potash over several weeks.’
Not a single sound in the courtroom.
‘Do you have a record of his visits?’ asked Mr Flowers.
‘We do keep records but there is no mention of the name Park. He probably used a false name.’
‘Are you sure he is the man?’
‘When I went to an identity parade I had some doubt, but then I was sure, and I see him here today. Park is the man I saw at Charing Cross Hospital.’
‘Adjourned for another week,’ said Mr Flowers grimly.
That was the evening we got home and found FILTHY PIGS and SODOMITE LOVERS writ on our house in paint. Ma and Billy and I all went out with buckets and soap and scrubbed and scrubbed, even as it got darker, and when we finished there might have been marks but you couldn’t see what it was saying. That was the evening I finally understood that it wouldn’t, ever again, be like it was.
Indoors I couldn’t stop crying, not for the words on our house so much, though that was bad enough, but for thinking of the shame Freddie must feel, Ma and Billy tried to tell me that Ernest and Freddie had influential families – especially Freddie – and they would not let this happen, they could not, they would find a way to stop them going to trial.
‘They are in a trial now!’ I yelled at Billy. ‘You didn’t hear what was said about them, it’s all changed and horrible now! And they only have the blooming hearings once a week and they’re stuck in gaol in between, that’s not fair!’
‘Well I expect they have to hear other cases at that court all the time, burglars and murders, as well as this one,’ said Ma.
‘This is only the Magistrates’ Court, Mattie,’ said Billy, patient and kind like he is, ‘to see if there is enough evidence for them to appear at the Old Bailey for a proper trial.’
‘Well you can keep on saying that, William Stacey! but it already seems like a proper trial to me, all the disgusting things they are saying in public to go in the papers for the world to read! Their lives will never be the same, you know that, they’ll go to prison for years and years and years, or for ever, you know they will!’
‘I dont think that medical bit will go in the papers,’ said Ma. ‘How could they write the words?’
Billy said calmly again: ‘Freddie comes from an important legal family, Mattie. They will find a way to stop it from happening.’
‘I keep telling you, it has happened already!’ I yelled at him, ‘and I’m going to bed rather than listen to you!’ but in my room I didn’t make a proper Plan, like I often do, that I think about carefully, I was so upset I just sat at my table with Hortense and wrote a letter to Freddie.
I addressed it to him at the House of Detention, Clerkenwell, and I didn’t care if my letter was read out in any court in the land. I tried not to think of the horrible medical things that we had heard, I tried not to imagine that they would be sent to another trial to have more terrible things in the newspapers for everybody to read, instead I asked Freddie if he would like to marry me and then nobody could say these things about him and I would look after him and care for him and we could have a baby and I sent my love, signed Martha Stacey, 13 Wakefield-street.
Then when the house had gone quiet I got out the front door, my sharp stone was in my cloak pocket with the letter and I walked to the House of Detention, I knew where it was. It wasn’t all that far but not very easy streets, a bit of screaming and dark shadows on corners and a wind had got up and made that moaning noise round the houses but I didn’t care, I’d have killed anyone with my stone if they tried to stop me, I think I must have gone a bit insane, like how did I think I was going to find Freddie at one o’clock in the morning? The House of Detention was a grim old place, all locked up, a few lamps but mostly darkness and iron railings with spikes, I went round and round, big metal gate, no place to sneak in, that wind whipping at me, I started crying with frustration that I must be so near to Freddie but no way of giving my letter. I could’ve hung it on the inside of a railing spike I suppose but it would likely blow away.
‘Oh look! Look at that drunk tart stumbling everywhere! Let’s give ’er one!’
Some drunk men weaved and rolled further down the street. That must’ve brought me to my senses, I cant run like the wind maybe but I can hurry and hide and take side streets and they were too drunk and falling over to get close to me and I got away, clutching my letter and my sharp stone. And I tore up my letter into tiny pieces as I came towards Wakefield-street, course I did, Freddie was a gentleman, he had a family and they were very important people, and they would find a way and of course someone like Freddie wouldn’t be marrying someone like me in a boarding house and little bits of white paper blew about me and upwards and back to Gray’s Inn Road and far away in the horrible windy night.
And then on Sunday every single word of that medical evidence by that horrible Dr Paul, and the doctor from Charing Cross Hospital, was actually published, the
things about anuses and syphilis, not in every newspaper but right there in the Reynolds News, under the heading HORRIBLE AND REVOLTING DISCLOSURES – so that not just the people in the court at the time heard that medical evidence but everybody in the whole world!
And then we saw the advertisements. There was a pamphlet pictured, with Ernest and Freddie drawn on the front in women’s clothes. It was called ‘THE LIVES OF BOULTON AND PARK: EXTRAORDINARY REVELATIONS’.
The price was one penny.
18
Next morning Billy was ordered to the Head Clerk’s office.
He was, of course, expecting it.
The Houses of Parliament had always been the greatest hive of gossip in the country. Everyone (whether in the clerks’ office or the cabinet office) had been following the ‘Gentlemen in Female Attire’ case since it began, talking about the details; there were huddles and whispers and laughter (some of it very nervous laughter) all over the venerable building: in clerks’ offices and cabinet rooms and in the servants’ quarters. People remembered the rather silly and ineffectual Lord Arthur Clinton and his brief career as Member of Parliament for Newark, the seat he had lost at the last election. Most of the present cabinet had known and admired his father, the fifth Duke of Newcastle.
A number of clerks had gone down to the Magistrates’ Court before starting work to see Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park being brought in a police van from the House of Detention, very disappointed to perceive that they were not still wearing their gowns. When it was so quickly realised all over the building that they had kept their female attire in the house of the clerk Billy Stacey, there was further great excitement and enormous surprise. He had not seemed to be that sort of person, people murmured. His young colleagues wanted to discuss the case in great detail.
‘Did they wear stays? Did they wear stockings? Did you go with them?’
There had already been a fight that was quickly concluded by the Head Doorkeeper, Elijah Fortune, when Billy had finally punched someone.
The Petticoat Men Page 14