The Petticoat Men

by Barbara Ewing

  ‘I don’t know where Elijah is,’ said Billy, slow and calm again. ‘All I know is he’s fired too because he was trying to raise money for Lord Arthur.’ He looked down again for one more moment at The Times. ‘Do you know what I think, Ma? I think the case might just fade away now in some legally suitable way.’

  ‘Because he’s dead?’

  ‘Nobody knew who Ernest and Freddie were before this. They’re not important any more. It simply won’t be as interesting to many of the interested people – or as dangerous – now that the most noble of all its participants can no longer appear.’

  ‘And it’s certainly not bloody interesting to me!’ shouted his mother. Then she suddenly pulled herself together. ‘Billy, I don’t give a thruppeny damn about this case any more! Answer me! Do you feel all right?’

  ‘It’s hot, Ma, that’s all,’ said Billy. ‘And since you keep asking me, no, I don’t feel all right. Not because I’m ill but because I always believed I’d get my job back but I’ve just been thrown out of the Parliament. And for the very first time I don’t believe any longer that I’ll get back inside.’

  He went towards the stairs that led upwards from the basement kitchen but turned back for a moment.

  ‘Maybe of course – just maybe – whoever came from London rammed his own suicide medicine that he told us about down his throat to make bloody sure he wouldn’t cause any more trouble.’

  They heard his footsteps: up the stairs and out of the house. They heard the front door bang in the hot muggy morning.

  Hot, muggy June days indeed that year. In Mudeford, Lord Arthur Clinton’s body lay unclaimed with Mr W. H. Roberts leaving so hurriedly again for London. The Newcastle family had not sent any message to Mudeford regarding the body’s removal to the family vault, or elsewhere.

  Johnny Hewlettson and Mackie shook their heads over the ways of the mighty. On the third day after the death, while Lord Arthur’s posthumous epistle so quickly published in The Times was being pored over by interested persons in London, in Mudeford there was, nevertheless, still no money sent nor even instructions given for any sort of burial. But Lord Arthur’s facial features had changed, stiffened; in the very hot weather he had also begun to smell slightly in the tiny cottage.

  Mackie the fisherman helped the local carpenter to build a casket.

  Johnny Hewlettson, Esq. sent one more telegram to the lawyer, Mr Frederick Ouvry. One more time Mr Ouvry reached into his own pocket and on the fifth day dispatched the sum of one pound seventeen shillings and sixpence to the Christchurch Cemetery (in the name of the Duke of Newcastle), to secure a plot for the Duke’s brother, Lord Arthur Pelham Clinton.

  On the sixth day Johnny Hewlettson and Mackie accompanied the body from Mudeford because even busy smugglers and busy fishermen couldn’t think that a man should be buried alone. Marigold, the little girl, had laid her own shawl over the coffin before it left, because it looked lonely.

  When they got to Christchurch Cemetery the curate was waiting.

  Three gentlemen in top hats emerged from a parked cabriolet as the coffin arrived in a cart. One of them was the solicitor who had been to Mudeford, Mr W. H. Roberts; they all smelled strongly of brandy.

  The gentlemen stayed for about fifteen minutes as the coffin was lowered into the newly dug – and consecrated – ground and the curate said a few brief words about God. Mr W. H. Roberts had nodded briefly to Johnny Hewlettson and Mackie; the other two gentlemen, who had not spoken nor introduced themselves nor asked questions nor thanked anybody, disappeared back into the waiting cab and were driven towards the railway station.

  Before they too disappeared, towards the Old George Inn, Johnny Hewlettson and Mackie stood a moment longer beside the unmarked plot behind the small stone chapel. The curate informed them with a slightly disbelieving look on his face that the two unknown gentlemen had said they were the Duke of Newcastle and his uncle.

  ‘Grieving, loving, noble family, aren’t they?’ said Johnny Hewlettson, smuggler.

  29

  The rumours flew about London: that Lord Arthur Clinton had been seen in Paris; that he had been hounded to death and had committed suicide; that he had been got aboard a ship for the Antipodes; that he had been seen, inebriated and dressed in women’s clothing, dancing at the Alhambra Music Hall in Leicester Square, laughing.

  The Reynolds Newspaper pronounced:

  A MIS-SPENT LIFE

  Lord Arthur Clinton is said to be dead and we most sincerely hope that such is the case. This depraved and dissolute young nobleman seems to have been the presiding genius of the clique to which Boulton and Park belonged.

  ‘If there was any presiding genius,’ said Mattie slowly, ‘I think it was Ernest.’ She thought of Lord Arthur Clinton, crying in the small, hot room.

  Isabella Stacey – despite her dislike and suspicion of members of the medical profession (no doctor had been called to Wakefield-street since one had told Mattie to pull herself together after Jamey’s death) – on seeing her beloved son still sometimes pale, still sometimes feverish, finally sent Mattie, who was obviously not feverish, with a message to fetch one. When he arrived, Mattie, hovering, heard her mother mention the dreaded words scarlet fever. The doctor asked Billy if he had a sore throat.

  ‘No,’ said Billy. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Do you feel nauseous?’

  ‘No,’ said Billy. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Your mother seems to fear scarlet fever. Why would she do that? There isn’t any more around London than is usual at this time of the year. Have you been in contact with someone who has had scarlet fever?’

  ‘I don’t believe I have,’ said Billy.

  ‘Half a guinea,’ said the doctor, ‘and drink warm liquids.’

  ‘Half a guinea?’ said Mrs Stacey.

  ‘In case of scarlet fever,’ said the doctor.

  The workload of Mr William Gladstone was always heavy.

  He wrote to, and attended meetings with, many and varied people. He spoke in the House about the teaching of religion with regard to the Education Act; he spoke in the House about the removal of British troops from New Zealand and the loan that country had requested; he debated further intricacies of the Irish Land Act. He sat long hours in the House of Commons as was his custom. He made speeches in all sorts of places. He dealt with the difficult Queen as best as he was able. He continued his Rescue Work (as he called it) in the streets around the Strand. He saw regularly the once-notorious, newly religious lady who was not his mistress (perhaps regarding these emotionally-charged meetings as Rescue Work also). He had dinner with friends. He wrote to his wife who was away on one of her family visits.

  But when the letters from Mr W. H. Roberts and Lord Arthur Clinton appeared in those many newspapers including The Times, and when the swirling rumours became more and more damaging, he had lain awake long into the hot nights, fearing another bout of illness. Finally he had met with several people early one morning, in Carlton House Gardens.

  And then Mr Gladstone wrote a short note to the Editor of The Times.

  Will you do me the favour to come to my room at the House of Commons this afternoon at 4.30 and to send me word of your arrival? I make the proposal in conformity with your permission, and name the hour, because I hope it may suit your convenience with reference to the House of Lords.

  A message was duly delivered to Mr Gladstone as he sat in the House of Commons. He bowed to the Speaker as he left the chamber temporarily. His offices were just along the corridor; his visitor was waiting; the Editor of The Times and the Prime Minister of Great Britain shook hands briefly and disappeared alone into the private office.

  A further column regarding Lord Arthur Clinton appeared in The Times soon thereafter.

  Billy Stacey, no work to go to, sat in the hot kitchen, read from The Times to his mother and his sister.

  We are in a position to give a trustworthy account of Lord Arthur Clinton’s fatal illness. He was staying at the King’s Arms Hotel in Chris
tchurch when on Monday 13th inst. Mr Wade, in the unavoidable absence of Mr Fitzmorris, was called to see him. He found him suffering from sore throat and other symptoms of scarlet fever, which has been widely prevalent in the area. Lodgings in the village were found for him to which he was safely removed.

  ‘What? He was already dying of scarlet fever before he left Christchurch?’ said Mattie scornfully. ‘No he wasn’t. He wasn’t “safely removed”, he was jumping into a cab on his way to this village the next day and talking about money he was expecting. We saw him, Billy! And who is this Mr Wade? he’s the one Mr Roberts said witnessed Lord Arthur’s last letter. Billy, I bet he was one of those fellows in the dark behind the King’s Arms!’

  She looked across the kitchen at her brother. It was so strange to have Billy at home reading to them in the daytime while they worked. Clean sheets, washed yesterday in a huge bucket then wrung out by hand, had been hung to dry over the oven; now the heat of the day had finished drying them in the small backyard and Billy had carried them all back inside. In the kitchen the women stood apart, pulling and stretching the sides of the sheets; they moved towards each other, as in a stately dance, to fold them and refold them, as they listened to Billy.

  The disease, though virulent, ran a normal course—

  ‘See! Virulent! While you two were sitting there with him!’

  ‘—and appeared to be gaining ground up to the morning of Thursday 16th – when ischuria supervened.

  ‘That’s when we left, Billy! We left Mudeford on Thursday morning – and he was dead by Saturday! He was frightened, but that’s not the same as scarlet fever! And what’s that thing? That ischuria?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Billy, frowning over the newspaper.

  ‘It’s the flow stopping,’ said Mrs Stacey.

  ‘The flow of what?’

  ‘Your water!’

  ‘Oh God, it’s hot!’ muttered Billy.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not sick, Billy? You’re still not yourself!’

  ‘Ma,’ said Billy. ‘Will you please stop asking me that. I am not sick. I have seen a doctor. I have not got any of the symptoms of scarlet fever. And despite what it says in the newspaper about scarlet fever, Lord Arthur told us he was in Mudeford because the King’s Arms in Christchurch wouldn’t give him more credit. It’s very hot but I am not sick, it’s just that I’m not used to being at home without work. And where’s Elijah? He’s lost his home as well as his work and his wife can hardly walk and I’ve tried all morning but I can’t find out where he is.’

  He breathed deeply. Then he went on reading in a monotone.

  Dr R. Thompson was quickly in attendance from

  Bournemouth—

  ‘Aha! Well, we know that bit’s true,’ said Mattie, ‘that’s the name of the doctor Johnny Hewlettson said he’d call – with your money, Ma!’

  —and by evening renal function was restored. The patient, however, had sunk very low, and, in spite of the free administration of stimulants, failed to rally. Telegrams were immediately dispatched to his friends and on Friday morning Mr W. H. Roberts, his solicitor, arrived.

  ‘Ask for a friend, receive a solicitor,’ he commented mildly as he read.

  After a short interview, he declared, in the presence of Mr Wade—

  ‘There’s that Mr Wade again,’ said Mattie. ‘He keeps popping up.’

  —he declared in the presence of Mr Wade and Mr Roberts, that the letter drawn up and since published by the latter was in every respect true. He was too exhausted to add his signature, but his mind was quite clear enough to apprehend its full meaning. He was seen again in the evening by Dr Robert Thompson, and at five minutes past one on Saturday morning he died in the presence of his medical attendant, the landlady, and Mr Newlyn Jnr of the King’s Arms Hotel.

  ‘A medical attendant and a landlady and Mr Newlyn Junior of the King’s Arms, all in that hot little room in Mudeford?’ interrupted Mattie again. ‘And if he was dying where were Mr Roberts and this Mr Wade person? In a cupboard? They should’ve been with him!’

  ‘This article,’ said Billy, ‘is published in The Times, and signed by The Lancet, very official and reliable. Someone has arranged for this article to be printed – to stop all the gossip.’ He looked at his mother. ‘And Mattie and I know it’s a truer version at least, whether there was scarlet fever or not.’

  ‘Billy, stop all this, please,’ said Mrs Stacey. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘However,’ Billy continued, speaking in the same mild manner, ‘I notice this Mr Wade was called a doctor in Mr W. H. Roberts’s earlier letter – and asked for a medical opinion – but appearing in The Lancet report he seems to have lost his title. The only real doctor we can be sure existed is this Dr Robert Thompson from Bournemouth – the one you paid for, Ma! And as he was a connection of the smugglers he’s probably used to discreet consultations. But I bet they wrote the letter that’s supposed to be from Lord Arthur after he died anyway, however he died. Poor beggar.’

  ‘You read out just now that they sent a telegram to all his friends,’ said Mattie. ‘If that’s true why didn’t anybody at all come except a solicitor?’ and she pulled fiercely at a sheet. ‘And there wasn’t any landlady, or medical attendant—’

  ‘Yes, there was, Mattie,’ said Billy. ‘There was that little girl, Marigold, being both. And if the man from the King’s Arms was there he was probably looking for his bills to be paid!’

  ‘But surely someone would have come from his family to be with him when they heard? Or one friend? Just one! Not just a solicitor!’

  ‘Perhaps that Mr Wade was really a friend, Mattie,’ said her mother, ‘perhaps there was someone else there too, but they don’t want to say any names. It’s too dangerous to be a friend or relation of Lord Arthur Clinton at the moment, I’m blooming glad nobody knows you two were there!’

  The sheets were now stretched and folded. Mattie leaned against the table and said casually, ‘Do you think – do you think Freddie and Ernest know he’s dead?’ A Plan was formulating.

  ‘Course newspapers make their way into Newgate, Mattie,’ said her mother. ‘They’ll know all right.’

  Billy stood up and threw The Times in a corner. ‘I’m going out for a walk,’ he said quickly and once again they heard his footsteps going upwards and the front door bang. Since he’d been fired, he often just disappeared. They presumed he was walking the streets.

  ‘Billy must not feel we cannot manage.’

  ‘I can make more hats, Ma.’

  Isabella Stacey was talking to herself as much as to her daughter. ‘We’ll manage. We’ll find other lodgers somehow. I’ll take in sewing. We’ll manage.’

  ‘Billy’s always just – vanishing,’ said Mattie crossly. ‘I hope he comes back soon, I wanted to talk to him very important, and he’s always rushing about!’

  And then she suddenly dived into the pot cupboard; pots of all sizes immediately appeared on the kitchen floor in disarray, as if a burglar was searching the cupboard for treasure. Then she scrubbed the cupboard walls with a brush. Mrs Stacey, thumping the folded sheets with the iron which had been heating on the stove, watched her daughter carefully. Neither of them spoke further.

  The basement kitchen got hotter and stuffy even though the door to the small, dark backyard was open. There, three stray cats lay stretched out in the shade.

  After a time Billy returned. He looked calmer, cooler, not like someone with scarlet fever, and he was carrying a very battered top hat.

  ‘I’ve got work.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you, Billy? Already?’

  He handed them an advertisement.

  Clerk and hearse-follower required.

  Must have excellent handwriting

  Grave mien and good manners.

  INQUIRE WITHIN.

  ‘It’s a funeral parlour along Tottenham Court Road,’ he said. ‘I saw the advertisement in the window, and I had in my pocket my reference from the Parliament that the
Head Clerk gave to me. And I put on my gravest mien and was offered exactly half of the salary I was earning at the Parliament. Will you refine this hat for me, Mattie? Mine was lost when they threw me out. I picked up this old one from the market for you to improve upon because I start on Monday.’

  Mattie answered calmly, ‘I’ll start it tonight if you come to Newgate Prison with me now, this afternoon.’

  Her brother and her mother stared at her.

  ‘I think we should tell Freddie and Ernest we saw Lord Arthur in Mudeford before he died. They were his friends once and we’re the only people who can tell them we at least went to see him, and talked to him about them, and gave him some money and arranged for a doctor.’ The other two remained silent. ‘It’s not just to see Freddie any more. I know I was lonely, I know I made his friendship bigger than it was. But I will always remember him for his kindness. And I think we should do this.’

  Mrs Stacey stirred something on the stove, regarded her children. She knew Mattie so well, but she must be allowed to manage her heart in her own way.

  ‘Perhaps she’s right, Billy. It would be respectful of a death and there doesn’t seem to have been much respect around.’ She suddenly banged at the stove. ‘But that’s the end of it, do you hear me, both of you? No more talk of murder or suicide or “Mr Wade” or anybody else. And I’m very glad and proud of you, Billy, that you’ve found work so soon, even if it isn’t really what you want – it’ll do for just now till this blooming business fades away and I love you, do you hear me? Both of you! You are a brave, true, loyal girl, Mattie. And I’ll make a jacket with those long tails for you, Billy, like they wear at funerals. I’ll start it while you’re gone.’

  When Billy laughed he looked like Joe Stacey, stage carpenter and visionary of real stage doors. ‘For bribes of a top hat and a new jacket,’ said Billy, ‘I’ll go to Newgate Prison.’

  30

  UGH! WHEN WE got to the corner of Newgate Street – ugh, honestly, it’s this ugly horrible ghastly stinking filthy place, the prison is, grim gates and walls and a sewer near by – or probably the sewer’s actually inside – I reckon it must be, from the stink there. And all the dirt and all the damp seeping out of the wet walls and something like pain coming right out at you through the bricks and concrete, they’ve just started to do hangings inside there now instead of out in the street. Billy told me they used to hang sodomites at Tyburn and people threw stones at them and spat. They used to put them in the stocks too – and throw stones and spit at them there too – why do people spit at them? I saw those ugly spitting faces outside the Magistrates’ Court.