The Petticoat Men

by Barbara Ewing

  I said: ‘It feels – peculiar – it all coming up again after so long, it’s almost a blooming year since last time! D’you go round all the witnesses?’

  ‘I’m just a solicitor’s clerk but I have to find out somehow who might be – sympathetic to Mr Boulton and Mr Park – and who is not.’

  Dodo and me were both thinking of their visit, I know, and Ma’s outburst.

  ‘Mr Dent,’ said Dodo. ‘Much damage has been done in this’ – and I saw her stop, decide not to make it personal – ‘in many people’s lives who have been – without understanding almost – caught up in this case.’

  Tom Dent said: ‘If you are a lawyer—’

  ‘Are you a lawyer?’

  ‘No, I’m just a clerk, like I said. But before too long I’ll have my solicitor’s credentials. No one in my family has had such an exalted position in the world! Lewis and Lewis work for the nobility and even the monarchy, and usually use only very noble clerks but I’m considered a bit clever so they took me,’ and he laughed, sort of like Billy would have laughed if he’d been talking like that, and it made me and Dodo laugh too. ‘But if you work in a lawyers’ practice, Mrs Fortune, then you often see that people get caught up in things and have their lives changed and it’s nothing they did at all, just circumstances.’ He bit into the last mouthful of cake. ‘And if you work in a lawyers’ practice you find out that the world is full of hypocrites. Especially in this case.’

  ‘You’re like my brother,’ I said.

  He swallowed cake rather nervously and then coughed. ‘I’m sorry, I think – um – I think I have just now been a little indiscreet,’ he said ruefully. ‘It was the cake. And the company.’

  ‘You dont have to butter us up,’ I said, but I was only teasing because he had been nice. ‘I’ll say like I said last time, they were very pleasant tenants and we liked having them here and we knew they did some acting and they used our house to put on their women’s clothes and we saw them, course we did, it wasn’t in the least secret – even old Mr Flamp saw them and he clapped!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Flamp. He’s our permanent tenant and very old.’

  ‘And he was never shocked?’

  ‘Course not!’

  ‘May I make a note of that?’

  ‘Yes! And you can cross-examine me all you like and try and turn me into knots but I’ll say the same.’

  ‘Good Lord, it wont be me! Mr Boulton and Mr Park and the others are going to be represented by some of the greatest barristers in England!’

  ‘What, Mr Lewis and Lewis?’

  ‘No, no! We’re just the organisers at the back, arranging, escorting, taking notes. Really famous barristers. On both sides – the prosecution is using the Attorney-General, the highest lawyer in the land! It’s a show-off trial.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Mr Tom Dent looked a bit embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to say that at all,’ he said, like he was taken aback at himself, and he stood up. ‘I must go on to the other witnesses. You’ve filled me with cake, Mrs Fortune, and made me injudicious! But – Mr Park did say I might talk freely here.’

  And Tom Dent bowed to Dodo, and thanked her, and I took him to the door. Just before I opened it he said: ‘I’ll probably have to come back once more before the trial. I think Mr Park’s barrister might want to give you a private message about your evidence beforehand, about the cross-examination. Mr Park has the best barrister in England! Mr Serjeant Parry.’

  ‘Serjeant? Is he a soldier or something?

  ‘No, no – it’s the way very senior barristers are addressed. Mr Serjeant Parry is my – my mark.’

  ‘Your mark?’

  ‘I – I would like to be as good as him one day. You know what they say about him? They say he speaks like an angel – but cross-examines like a knife.

  ‘And you said he wants to give me a private message? Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I s’pose he thinks I might mess it up because I’m uneducated, but I wont – please tell Mr – Serjeant – Parry that I want to help Freddie and Ernest in any way I can.’

  He looked at me. ‘Mrs Stacey, I know perfectly well you are not uneducated at all. Can I say something private to you and you keep it to yourself?’

  I saw his open, honest face and big eyes, he had blond floppy hair and he kept pushing it away from his eyes impatiently. He didn’t look like Billy but he reminded me of Billy. ‘Course you can.’

  ‘Barristers send private messages to all sorts of people.’ He lowered his voice even though there was no one there. ‘And when the Prince of Wales was called in the Mordaunt divorce case last year, a particular person – somebody very legally important – went over and over with him what it would be like to be cross-examined if – that is – I mean – if cross-examination couldn’t be prevented. I know this because the firm of Lewis and Lewis were involved in that case too.’

  ‘Really? Is – is that how it all works? Behind the doors?’

  ‘But of course lawyers prepare their witnesses. That’s part of their work! That’s how it all happens, especially in big important cases.’

  ‘Is this a big important case?’

  ‘In an odd way it has become so, yes.’

  ‘Is it – legal?’

  ‘I think many things are legal to a lawyer, to win his case. And everyone knew that time that they had to keep the Prince of Wales from scandal.’

  I thought quickly. ‘Does that “everyone” include the Prime Minister?’

  ‘Mrs Stacey, everybody had to help the Prince of Wales. It was a very dangerous time for the monarchy. Should one so care.’

  ‘You’ll like my brother!’ I said. ‘I’m not Mrs Stacey.’

  ‘That’s your name on the Magistrates’ Court reports.’

  ‘I just wanted to give evidence for them, so I said I was the landlady instead of my mother. My name is Mattie.’

  ‘I know. Freddie – Mr Park – told me.’

  ‘Can you say – am I allowed to ask – is Mr Gladstone involved this time?’

  His face closed slightly. ‘I cant say anything more, Miss Mattie,’ he said. ‘I’ve been very indiscreet and said far too much already. And it wont help Mr Park and Mr Boulton – talking about others working behind the scenes – in fact it will do the opposite – they have to seem not guilty of what they are accused, dont you see that? It must not seem that they are getting assistance from higher places!’

  ‘I can see that,’ I said. ‘But I know that Freddie and Ernest aren’t important people, not really – and I know they would never have been able to afford all this – paraphernalia and big lawyers without—’

  ‘Other important people did – become involved, yes.’ But I saw he was discomforted at having been so open and I touched his arm.

  ‘You can trust me, Mr Dent,’ I said.

  He looked at me carefully and I saw him nod very slightly, as if he had decided he could, but he said no more. He didn’t know what to do next, he looked around at the flowers and the polished table by the door. ‘This is nothing like I first thought 13 Wakefield-street would be,’ he said. ‘But Mr Park, he said I would like it.’

  ‘Did he? Do you talk to him?’

  ‘Of course. We are preparing the defence case and we talk to them a lot. Mr Park said’ – he cleared his throat – ‘he said that I would like you too, Miss Mattie, as well as the house. And I do.’ I felt myself go a bit red, in surprise, but also in embarrassment because his cheeks were red too. ‘And that I was to be sure to give you his very best wishes and’ – he was looking slightly puzzled as well as embarrassed but he had obviously been given some particular words – ‘to thank you for all the good memories and the sad ones.’

  It’s strange how tears just – they just get there in your eyes when you’re not even expecting them and I had to really bite my lip for a minute, really really hard, as I opened the front door.

  43

  The sad announcement was made
that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales had lost a child, their sixth, born too early to live. It was christened Prince Alexander John Charles Albert, was given a solemn funeral, and the court went into mourning.

  The Reynolds Newspaper wrote an editorial.

  We have much satisfaction in announcing that the newly born child of the Prince and Princess of Wales died shortly after its birth, thus relieving the working men of England from having to support hereafter another addition to the long roll of State beggars they at present maintain.

  ‘That’s cruel,’ said Mattie Stacey sharply to her brother. ‘Don’t read any more.’ But afterwards, satisfied that nobody was watching her, Mattie picked up the newspaper and read further.

  The miserable mockery of interring with a Royal Funeral ceremony a shrivelled piece of skin and bone grandiloquently entitled ‘Prince’ not twenty-four hours old took place at Sandringham on Monday, as described in the Court Circular. And to augment the folly of the entire proceeding, the Court goes into mourning for the loss of the wretched abortion, which our readers will observe was carried to the grave by four stalwart men!

  Next day when everybody was at work and her mother was with her soup-ladies and Dodo was reading Bleak House, Mattie went to the nearby churchyard and pulled up a small honeysuckle, already in flower, as she and Jamey had done so long ago. She took it into the back of 13 Wakefield-street and carefully planted it near the old covered cesspit. While she was digging the earth she came across some strands of Freddie’s blue shawl. She suddenly did not dig any further. But she mixed the loose blue strands with the earth, and planted the small honeysuckle carefully. She wished happiness for the Princess of Wales.

  Her mother saw, of course, and understood.

  Isabella Stacey’s theory that Freddie and Ernest were dangerous to know for the people who were around them applied – she had supposed – only to the people who didn’t really matter, although the case had obviously reached right up to Freddie’s poor father, certainly. But he was not the nobility. The nobility as usual, she believed, apart from that sad and balding Lord Arthur Clinton, would emerge safely from the scandal of the Men in Petticoats unchanged, unscathed: the way they always did.

  This was not exactly true.

  Because also that year the spring brought not only the death of a baby Prince, but the confirmation for Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, widow, mistress to the Prince of Wales (and sister of Lord Arthur Clinton), that she was also with child.

  Her mother had insisted she be bold.

  The desperate fear she had experienced when she had realised she might lose the Prince because of her brother’s involvement in a huge scandal had finally made her bold.

  Lady Susan Vane-Tempest was bold enough to make sure she would not be able to be ‘treated’ by the discreet and pomade-scented Dr Oscar Clayton, who was always brought forth at once by the Prince of Wales, if required.

  She told herself it would be cruel to give the Prince the news so soon after the death of his sixth child, which had made him so sad, when he came to her after the sad death, for consolation.

  Soon.

  She would tell him soon.

  On his next visit, as he smoked his cigar and she smoked her long Turkish cigarette, the Prince told her that the final trial of the Men in Petticoats was about to begin, and would take no more than one week.

  ‘That old thing,’ said Lady Susan lightly. ‘I thought it was all forgot.’

  ‘It has been decided that the matter must be dealt with for once and for all, and quietly die.’

  ‘For Arthur’s sake?’

  ‘For the sake of the country. The felony charge has already been removed.’ (Of course Lady Susan had in fact been following matters very carefully indeed, and knew this.)

  The Prince explained that a few other really very unimportant men, as well as the unimportant Mr Boulton and Mr Park, would now also be tried at the Court of the Queen’s Bench at Westminster, a much more refined place than the Old Bailey. And that with the very, very important legal team that had been set up for them, they would all – including her brother – be likely found not guilty, unless of a minor misdemeanour to pacify public opinion, but probably not even that.

  Smoke drifted upwards. ‘I am so glad, for Arthur’s sake.’ (She knew she also meant, for her own.) ‘For surely, my dearest sir, they will not even mention poor Arthur now!’

  ‘His name is still attached, of course, but only to the minor charge. And it is indeed hoped he will be mentioned solely with the respect and decorum due to those who have passed on, my dear Susan. To that end I believe it has been arranged that the same solicitors will be used who advised me in the Mordaunt case, that is, the Lewis firm.’

  She did not ask how he knew it had ‘been arranged’ but she suddenly stubbed out her cigarette and leaned quickly and lovingly towards him.

  ‘Your Royal Highness is always so kind and generous and thoughtful and I adore Him!’ She knew there would always be other mistresses; now it would not matter. ‘And I happen to know that, as well as being kind, you have also been naughty. It has come to my attention that you have been a very naughty Prince again.’

  ‘I have. Yes. Yes, yes, I have.’ And she moved across him in the old familiar way.

  ‘Yes.’

  It was early days; there might even be some miscalculation on her part. She would mention the matter when the trial was over.

  44

  A fine May spring day; a smaller, well-behaved and somewhat noble crowd controlled (in a deferential manner) by police constables; an old regal court inside the famous Palace of Westminster.

  Mattie Stacey could not attend until she was called as witness; one of Mrs Stacey’s soup-ladies was very ill and cried for Isabella to sit with her; Elijah and Billy were walking behind hearses. But Dodo Fortune was determined to attend the trial. ‘I shall take an omnibus and return to my old haunts,’ she said. ‘Where once I fed noble stomachs!’

  ‘My dear, it might be too far,’ said Elijah, anxious.

  ‘I’ll take you, Dodo,’ said Mackie, ‘on my way to Blackfriars.’

  ‘But you always walk, dear fellow,’ Dodo said, ‘I’m not sure that I could…’

  ‘I’ve never even seen the Palace of Westminster! I’ll take you on the omnibus.’

  ‘And I’ll collect you at the end of the day, Dodo,’ said Mrs Stacey. ‘If I have to hear Freddie and Ernest’s story all over again a whole year after it all began I’d rather hear it from you anyway, who at least can make me laugh, you can tell us it much better than Reynolds News and The Times rolled into one!’ She whispered, ‘And don’t drink too much tea before you go.’

  ‘Don’t worry, dear, I know a place or two. I didn’t work in that building for twenty years for nothing!’ And they both laughed for although London provided conveniences for gentlemen, women were ill served, as if it were unseemly that they should be inconvenienced anywhere except in their own homes.

  Today on the omnibus a young man offered Dodo a seat (not surprisingly after the way Mackie the fisherman loomed over him). They endured a crowded and somewhat rollicking ride because of the antics of one of the horses, which was skittish, or sick, or insane; they were grateful to arrive at all. There were people outside the Houses of Westminster certainly, but not the wild, roistering, unruly mobs of Bow-street, although the usual placarded gentleman stood on a corner:

  THOU SHALT NOT LIE WITH MANKIND AS WITH WOMANKIND: IT IS AN ABOMINATION.

  Leviticus 18:26

  Mackie got Dodo to a special part inside Westminster Hall where the Court of the Queen’s Bench was sitting, away from the public who very often came from far and near to stare at the famous, high-curved wooden roof of the famous building.

  ‘How does it stay up without anything to hold it?’ marvelled visitors, fearful even, gazing upwards. ‘It might fall on our heads!’ And Mackie too had looked upwards carefully as they entered, thinking of how boats were built.
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br />   He placed Dodo on the end of a row of chairs. Dodo looked about her; people were mostly very well dressed, with lots of hats. She turned to thank Mackie for his kindness. And was struck suddenly at how he looked: his stillness as he stared across the court area. His cloak was a seaman’s cloak, not that of a city gentleman, and somehow it gave him a strange timeless look in this historic building. She watched him for several moments; she thought he looked like an old painting.

  ‘Do you by any chance know that man, Dodo?’ Mackie pointed out a particular young gentleman with wavy brown hair on the other side of the court. She looked carefully.

  ‘No, dear. Oh – but I do recognise the gentleman sitting right in front of him, who has turned to speak to the one you pointed out, look.’ She indicated a fine, white-haired gentleman in a clerical collar and a cassock, now talking to the young man behind him. ‘He’s one of the bishops from the House of Lords. He used to like my cakes when I was a housekeeper.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Mackie. ‘One of the bishops from the House of Lords.’ He looked carefully across the crowd. ‘Is that right?’ he said again very quietly.

  And then, seeing she was comfortable, and that her shawl was about her shoulders, Mackie was gone from her sight. But when he got to the doorway he looked back at the two men he and Dodo had been discussing.

  One of whom he recognised.

  Of the newly-accused called in this trial, one was dead, two had disappeared, and frankly most people paid little attention to the other two who did appear: Mr Fiske and Mr Hurt. The American Embassy did pay attention because John Fiske was unfortunately their consul in Edinburgh; the higher echelons of the Post Office did pay attention because Mr Louis Hurt was unfortunately one of them – but otherwise everybody else was looking for Mr Frederick Park and – in particular – Mr Ernest Boulton, Star of the Strand.

  It was noted by many familiar with the case that Mr Park’s appearance was somewhat changed. He had put on much weight and had grown much facial hair; he almost looked like a different person; he certainly did not have an effeminate appearance. Mr Boulton now had a small moustache but it did not change him very much. All the accused wore sober suits – although Mr Park and Mr Boulton each wore a flower in their lapel, but then so did the Prime Minister sometimes. The demeanour of all four gentlemen was solemn. Ernest Boulton (although he may have been sorely tempted) was under strict instructions, and did not wave to the crowd.