The Petticoat Men

by Barbara Ewing

  Mr Serjeant Parry smiled at me, like an angel, and bowed.

  And then Ernest’s lawyer said to me very courteous and gentle: ‘Mrs Stacey, did you ever, in all the time the defendants Boulton and Park were at your house, notice a look, a gesture or a word, on the part of the defendants, that was any way improper?’

  ‘No. No I did not! I can say with certitude that at no time did I notice a look, a gesture, or a word, on the part of the defendants, that was any way improper.’ And then I gave Freddie my last message. ‘I would also like to state so that every single person in this whole court can hear it clear, I have never known a more polite, or kinder lodger in our establishment – ever – than Mr Frederick Park.’ I didn’t even look at Freddie. But I thought he would understand.

  I thought I was finished, blooming time, my leg was pulsating like a drum but blow me down a Juror requested to ask me a question and was given permission – that’s the fifth man asking me things!

  ‘Can she tell us please, were the dresses high-necked or low-necked?’

  ‘Oh – oh high-necked I should think, almost always high-necked.’

  ‘But never low.’

  ‘I dont say never, but they were certainly mostly high. Very high-necked. Whatever was fashionable.’ And I thought of Ernest, powdering his bare shoulders and his neck low low down, and the boxes of ‘Bloom of Roses’.

  I went to sit by Ma when I was finished, I could have used some ‘Bloom of Roses’ myself by then, I was blooming exhausted. I looked round for Mackie, but if he had been there he was gone. People whispered that the medical evidence was coming next, and I’d seen doctors outside where I’d had to wait but we didn’t want to stay and hear again about their rectums and anuses and syphilis (and new talk about Ernest’s ‘fistula’ apparently, which Ma told me came from a burst boil in a bottom) so Ma and me were just about to leave when there was a policeman suddenly appeared, with two large parcels. He put them down on the floor in front of the Judge and undone them. And when I saw what it was I felt a little gasp inside me and I heard another loud gasp at the same time, all through the courtroom. Afterwards I thought it was the saddest part of the whole trial.

  It was Ernest and Freddie’s women’s clothes.

  All their exciting gowns and shawls, their boots and their corsets and their feathers and their jewellery and their chignons and their fashionable hats. But I suppose they’d been packed away in some old police cupboard for a year and they were – well most of them weren’t fun any more, or lovely, or pretty, or expensive-looking. It certainly didn’t look as if they had spent fortunes on clothes. But I suppose the prosecution wanted them to think they were the clothes of cheap prostitutes. Next to the ladies’ boots, the policeman lay everything all around the floor to show the judge and the jury, and daylight shone in bright and you could see quite clearly: most of the skirts weren’t very clean, or the bodices, there were marks on them. Stains. The chignons were dank and dull, fallen apart. All the once-beautiful gowns: the velvet and the silk and the moiré and the muslin and the satin. Some, you could see, had been elegant once – that one of Ernest’s with the pink and white roses was still lovely but they’d taken old gowns Freddie and Ernest had discarded and stuffed in an old bag as well, and now everything had all been squashed up together and now they mostly looked like things from a second-hand clothesman’s cart, they didn’t look exciting like they used to when Freddie and Ernest laughed down our stairs in the flattering, soft lamplight. And the shiny jewels that had looked so exotic were dull and broken.

  And finally the policeman roughly shook the last package upside down and one last rather grubby gown, Freddie’s yellow satin gown, fell out and lay with all the others. It had been folded up, it was torn, but the policeman lay it out like the others – and there was a sharp shock-noise in the court. The yellow gown looked as if it had old blood – well – well it had a lot of blood in – well in a most inappropriate place on the skirt. I could feel a feeling around me at once – people thought that was unbelievably shocking.

  Because these were men.

  It was my blood.

  46

  An editorial in the Daily Telegraph stated that it would not be printing some of the Men in Petticoats Trial medical evidence because it was not suitable for a family newspaper. ‘In such a case we do not desire to report more than is really necessary.’

  Such information would of course, everybody knew, be found in Reynolds News on Sunday if it was required.

  Nobody in 13 Wakefield-street required it.

  In her home in Chapel-street, Westminster, waiting for a visit from the Prince of Wales, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, widow, dropped the newspapers and dreamed. She dreamed of Palaces and Kings.

  She had followed – she could not attend of course – the present trial in which once again her brother’s name – despite his tragic death from scarlet fever – was still being impertinently mentioned. However, friends attending had reported to her that when the defence started their case, one of the defence lawyers had made a powerful speech regarding Arthur.

  ‘Do you mean little Mr Roberts who used to be one of my father’s secretaries?’

  ‘No, no, no!’ Susan’s particular and closest friend, Mrs Harriet Whatman, who filled her in every day after the court closed, had laughed. ‘This is a greatly superior defence team. My dear, Mr Digby Seymour it was who spoke of Arthur – he is defending the pretty boy, he defends only in very important cases. And that Mr Serjeant Parry is there who cross-examines so cleverly and so mercilessly, I swear he made that fat Beadle weep and I would not like to be cross-examined by him on my private life, thank you very much! And dear Sir John Karslake is defending the American consul from Edinburgh, no less – Oh my dear, everyone who is everyone is involved, you know, so they have to have the best barristers, and they all, simply all of them, have to defend the pretty boy if the others – including Arthur – are to be found not guilty. And if there was any disrespect in court, dear Sir Alexander – the Lord Chief Justice, naughty old Sir Alexander whom I have sat next to at Lady Hatton’s – you know him of course, Susan dear – got very strict and cross. Oh but Mr Digby Seymour was most moving about Arthur.’ She picked up one of the strewn newspapers. ‘Look – here it is! Word for word, in The Times.’

  Lord Arthur Clinton is dead – aye dead! But he is included in this indictment, and, Members of the Jury, you are trying the living and the dead! And from his grave Lord Arthur Clinton beseeches you to do justice to his memory and to liberate him from the load of infamy which must rest upon him if this young man is convicted.

  ‘It was very moving, darling,’ said all her friends to Lord Arthur’s sister.

  As she waited now for her royal lover, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest considered her situation, and her options – for of course she would say nothing to him until this wretched trial was over and the matter forgotten.

  She knew – so long as dear, lost Arthur’s name was buried with the end of this trial – that her mother had been right and she had had to be bold.

  For she was nearly thirty-two years old.

  She dreamed of this child. A son with special – albeit confidential, of course – privileges – and financial security.

  She told herself again; she told herself again: the Prince needed her and relied upon her, and was able to talk to her with a confidence and a confidentiality he could not with others. She was from his background and his youth. She was one of the noble families of England; her own father had accompanied the young Prince to Canada, to the United States. She knew the rules. She would never be an embarrassment to him.

  And he knew that.

  It could all be dealt with satisfactorily, and it was already too late for Dr Oscar Clayton and his pomade of roses.

  She heard the maid go to the door to open it for the Prince.

  She would tell him after the trial.

  Or, to be absolutely safe, just a few weeks later.

  47

  In his opening speech
for the defence, the famous barrister Mr Digby Seymour, Ernest Boulton’s defence lawyer, apart from saying, ‘Lord Arthur Clinton is dead – aye dead,’ also said:

  Gentlemen. I say that in a case like this I trust your verdict will establish that the moral atmosphere of England is not yet tainted with the impurities of continental cities, and that free as we are, from our island position, we are insulated from the crimes to which you have had allusion made, and you will pronounce by your verdict – in this case at all events with regard to these facts – that London is not cursed with the sins of Sodom, nor Westminster tainted with the vices of Gomorrah.

  This sentiment was printed with approval (and the occasional extra flourish) in many newspapers.

  A seventeen-year-old boy in Tooting, who worked as a clerk in an ironmonger’s, could not understand the almost uncontrollable feelings he had for another young boy who carried watering cans and coal scuttles and large rods of iron from the ironmongers to be delivered to addresses near by.

  This boy in Tooting read Mr Digby Seymour’s speech.

  And then he walked to Blackfriars.

  And then he killed himself.

  There was no mention of this in either The Times or Reynolds Newspaper or indeed in any of the newspapers, for people were always jumping off Blackfriars Bridge.

  48

  ‘WAS THAT YOU in the court, Mackie, when I was giving evidence?’

  ‘I look in sometimes,’ he said in a dry voice. ‘To see how the other half dispense justice. You were impressive!’ All of us were in the kitchen. Mackie turned to Dodo. ‘Who was that bishop in court the first day, Dodo? From the House of Lords.’

  ‘With the young man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Everyone looked at Mackie and Dodo, curious. Then Dodo seemed to go off at a tangent. ‘Elijah, you remember in the old days how in the afternoon a gaggle of bishops used to come to the dining room for afternoon tea?’

  He nodded. ‘Those prune-cake clericals,’ he said, and Dodo smiled, and then explained to us: ‘That was my name for them – they asked me to put extra prunes in my delicious fruit cake and I understood them to mean it was for their noble bowels,’ and everyone in the kitchen laughed. ‘He was one of them.’

  ‘D’you know his name?’ said Mackie, quiet.

  ‘Oh Mackie, I’m an old woman with a failing memory! They all looked the same to me – no wait, I know, he had something to do with Shakespeare.’

  ‘Shakespeare?’

  I saw that Dodo looked at Elijah for help. ‘Dearest, you know, from a Shakespeare play.’

  Elijah looked puzzled – and then his face suddenly cleared. ‘Well of course, I should have guessed straightaway. Would the play be Julius Caesar, Dodo?’

  ‘Yes!’ and she laughed at once, remembering. ‘At least I didn’t say Brutus, dearest! That one, Bishop Julius. Of course!’

  And Elijah looked at Mackie. ‘Julius. Bishop Julius. She means the old hypocrite who got Billy out of his job. Doesn’t surprise me to hear he’s sitting in court, waiting for a not guilty verdict to celebrate. I always presumed it was him who gave orders for Dodo and me to be thrown out also.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Mackie.

  ‘Ernest mentioned him,’ said Billy, looking at Mackie. ‘Present at one of their – entertainments, remember?’

  ‘I remember,’ said Mackie.

  ‘He was the one who first came and told Mr Gladstone about the arrests,’ said Billy. ‘I was in the Prime Minister’s office.’

  ‘This subject is going to be bleeding banned in my house!’ said Ma, sounding like a warning.

  ‘Ma,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly over, they’re only allowed a week for the trial and I don’t think any of us are interested in hearing all that old stuff any more. But Mr Tom Dent from Mr Lewis and Lewis, he told me that Ernest’s mother and Freddie’s father are both going to be witnesses for the defence tomorrow. You always said you’d like to meet Ernest’s mother because he was so spoilt. You said she had a lot to answer for.’

  ‘I think I can live without knowing her after all,’ said Ma. ‘I dont really want to go back there again, Mattie. Let’s be finished with this whole damn business for God’s sake.’

  ‘Ma,’ I said. ‘I wish you’d come with me. It’s Freddie’s father, I’d like to hear what he will say. He must feel so – anxious till it’s over, with one son already doing hard labour for sodomy, he was so troubled when I saw him, poor thing, though I didn’t know everything then and I didn’t understand. But at the end of meeting him I thought that he might actually be – a nice man.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A nice man,’ I said, louder.

  ‘Like Freddie.’

  ‘Ma. When I see Freddie now, when I saw him in court, I just felt so, so sorry for him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ma. And dear old Ma, she sighed. ‘So did I. I was hard on them I expect.’

  We went back to Westminster Hall.

  ‘I just might see you in there,’ said Mackie, who had walked down with us on his way to Blackfriars. He put his hand very gently on Ma’s shoulder as he left, I saw, a tiny loving gesture.

  ‘Gothic!’ said a lady in an extremely large hat, looking upwards (precariously it seemed to me as a milliner). ‘Nothing less than a masterpiece of Gothic architecture and construction!’

  When some people came out we sneaked in at the back, I wriggled down the front a bit so’s Ma could hear better. The defence was in charge now and Ernest’s barrister was talking about Ernest being called Stella.

  ‘Why, gentlemen, I will be bound to say that there are none of us here who have passed through a public school who have not known at least half a dozen boys who have been always called by female names and laughed at and treated as girls, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, as they grow older they object to that kind of familiarity – or to call it by the only name it deserves “chaff” – but as regards this young man the longer it went on the more he became enamoured of these characters and parts which he was constantly playing.’ Ma rolled her eyes.

  And then that Mr Serjeant Parry stood up, and the court went really quiet, everyone knowing how clever he is. ‘Gentlemen. You must not judge these young men by your own circle. You must try to understand the Acting Life. They were stage performers and great familiarity is bred on stage – they were performing characters offstage that they had performed on stage.

  ‘Now, gentlemen, I am told that when those dresses that have been exhibited – I am so short-sighted that without a glass I cannot discern the features of the jury whom I have the honour of addressing – but I am told by those that have a better and sharper sight than I have that a sort of thrill of horror ran through the jury box when all these dresses appeared on the floor of the court. I confess I did not observe it. I do not believe it is true although I was told so by a very respected person. But, gentlemen, these dresses are a theatrical wardrobe – neither more nor less – and a witness will be called to say that one was used in the very respectable performance of Morning Call in Scarborough – there is paint, there is powder – all this is theatrical. It is theatrical and not – I must use the word – sodomical – you must excuse me for such a term. There is the powder and there is the paint and they have played the same part in the street as they did on the stage. There is the lace, there is the silk, there are the fans – all theatrical! And now – a year having passed since they were seized by the constabulary – somewhat the worse for wear, as theatrical costumes often are! I confess I cannot understand how my learned friend,’ he bowed to the Attorney-General, ‘seeks to make out that these dresses mean that an unnatural crime was committed.’

  (And Ma leaned over to me and whispered: ‘He’s the greatest performer of the lot of them!’)

  And then came Ernest’s mother. To be examined for the defence very politely by Ernest’s barrister. There was a rustle of real interest as she had not been seen before.

  She was pretty, with curls, not beautiful like Billy a
nd me (and Mackie) think Ma is, but she was of course very much more high-class than any other woman who had appeared, all us landladies and maids. She wore a small hat and lady-like gloves and sometimes she dabbed her eyes with a lace handkerchief, she was a life away from that maid who talked of Ernest in a ladies’ negligee and Lord Arthur calling him darling.

  ‘My name is Mary Anne Sarah Boulton. I am the mother of Ernest Boulton. We live in Peckham. I have two sons, my husband is a stockbroker but he is away at present. In fact he is in the Cape of Good Hope.’ She recounted in most respectable tones that Ernest had always delighted in dressing-up and performance from a very young age, they would have performances at home, she and her husband had enjoyed them thoroughly – ‘and my Ernest was always the star, there is no denying it.’

  ‘Were you acquainted with Lord Arthur Clinton?’

  ‘Oh, very well indeed. We were very pleased to first meet Lord Arthur Clinton’ – and she just slightly emphasised ‘Lord’ just exactly like Ernest used to do – ‘nearly three years ago perhaps at the house of friends. He became a great admirer of my son for they had similar theatrical interests and he would come to our house in Peckham.’

  ‘Did he enter into these – home theatricals?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, all coy. ‘Perhaps once. No more than that I am certain.’

  ‘Did he dress up in dresses?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said smiling. ‘Lord Arthur was always the husband, or the father!’

  ‘Did you ever go to his house?’

  ‘We visited him at his quarters at Southampton-street and there we took refreshment before we went with Lord Arthur – that is my husband, my son and myself – to the theatre.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Ah – I do not have a retentive memory I am afraid. Lord Arthur Clinton was the Member of Parliament for Newark at the time you know.’