The Girl on the Gallows

by Q. Patrick

Indignantly Freddie denied to Percy that he had run away from him. “I didn’t even see you,” he said. And, in a passion of righteous indignation, he accused Percy of making Edith’s life “a hell.” If he was a man, he would realize that he was not worthy of so special a creature. If he was a man, he would give her a divorce, or at least a separation.

  Percy retaliated: “Well, I’ve got her and I mean to keep her. And I don’t see how it concerns you.”

  After some other heated championing, in which he made Percy promise “he would not knock Edith around any more or beat her,” Freddie left.

  This little episode is of great psychological interest. Freddie was by then Edith’s lover in fact. They felt themselves eternally bound to each other. They dreamed of nothing but a “future in each other’s arms.” Here was the perfect opportunity to make a bid for that future. All they had to do was to tell Percy the truth and demand a divorce so that they could marry.

  But this is what they didn’t do. Freddie suggested a divorce, but gave no hint that he wanted the divorce in order to have Edith for himself. For some reason, both he and Edith refrained from admitting what must have been almost certainly guessable. Edith said nothing. Freddie, after his man-to-man bluster, departed.

  It could be pointed out that Freddie was earning very little, that Edith feared a scandal that might lose her her job, that there were, therefore, practical reasons against challenging the husband at this time. It is true that divorce in England in those days was both complicated and expensive. It is also true that the stigma attached to living openly “in sin,” especially in the modest suburban world, was far stronger than it is today. But if Freddie and Edith had been in love, solidly, normally in love, wouldn’t they have brushed even those obstacles aside in order to resolve an impossible situation, requiring as it did secrecy, intrigue, frustration, and deceit?

  One would think so, but they did not do it. In fact, from then on, although there are countless references in Edith’s letters to vague attempts to “talk” to Percy, to “make him see,” to “risk all,” it is doubtful whether either of them ever actually tried to cope with Percy again.

  This, perhaps, is the clue to what was wrong with their relationship. Their romance had become Edith’s invention—an invention to which Freddie, with increasing damage to his character, managed somehow to adapt himself. This romance could operate perfectly in the realm of snatched meetings, tragic separations, ecstatic reunions, rhapsodic letters. In this atmosphere, Edith and Freddie could shine in all their splendor, tragically thwarted lovers, dreamers about a golden future, sufferers of excruciating nights of loneliness, Great Sinners, perhaps—but never, never just an Ilford housewife, never, never just a little ship’s clerk, and a thousand times never just a common couple of fornicators.

  This, then, is the key. It shows why Edith’s and Freddie’s romance was inevitably paralyzed the moment it had come to grip with the real world. Almost a full year was to follow, with four more anguished partings, four more reunions, but during that time no real move was made on either of their parts to alter their situation, although Edith’s letters are crammed with wild, never realized plots and schemes for elopements, romantic exiles, suicide pacts, and—yes—even murder attempts.

  But when one has carefully examined the letters, one realizes that none of this necessarily happened at 41 Kensington Gardens or at 168 Aldersgate Street. It all happened in the dream house that Edith had built in her mind. And Edith’s house was a terrifying house. In it there were mirrors that reflected with varying degrees of distortion the real world outside, so that often its rooms seemed deceptively like real rooms and the woman who resided there seemed deceptively like a real woman. But that wasn’t really so. In Edith’s house, you couldn’t have opened the windows or the air outside would have turned the golden curtains to cobwebs and the lover’s rose-strewn couch into a mussed, adulterous bed.

  This was the house that Edith and Freddie inhabited for almost exactly a year. This was the house in which the letters belonged. It was in this house that they were written and in this house that they were intended to be read. For Edith, who was blissfully at home there, this house became month by month ever more real, while the rest of life outside became more and more of a mist. For Freddie, who didn’t belong there, it became just as inevitably the magic but alien house of a Morgan le Fay, demanding an ever increasing and ever more dangerous split in his personality.

  And Edith, for all her lack of anchoring stability, was no fool. She had created for herself the perfect existence and, whether she realized it or not, it was her dearest wish to preserve it exactly as it stood, forever. But she wasn’t as blind to the true nature of Freddie Bywaters as she pretended to be. During the course of the correspondence, it is apparent almost from the beginning that she was obsessed by a single dread—the dread that Freddie, for all her efforts, might suddenly come alive, that a large, healthy steward’s boot would break awkwardly through the gossamer walls, that her darlingest boy would fall with a bump out of the dream house onto the mundane sidewalk outside.

  And this dread, of course, was justified. That Freddie Bywaters tried to see life her way is certain. It is also certain that he made a tremendous effort to bewitch himself into her mood. But one cannot do the impossible. Part of Freddie Bywaters remained rebelliously a sensible, ordinary, vigorous nineteen-year-old boy, rollicking with his fellows from port to port. In those moments, he must sometimes have wondered what he had let himself in for. In those moments, he certainly considered a break. There was a time when he stopped writing to her completely, and another time when he suggested that it would be better for them not to see each other for a while. There was even a time when, clumsily, he had a friend of his in London redirect to her an anonymous letter that read:

  If you wish to remain the friend of F. Bywaters be careful. Do not attempt to see him or communicate with him when he is in England. Believe this to be a genuine warning from

  A WELL-WISHER

  Even then, one sees, while he was trying to escape, Freddie Bywaters was still hopelessly innoculated with Edith’s dream serum. The Freddie of the old days, of the affair with the Australian girl, would have made a simple break. Now he has to couch it, Edithwise, in the romantic, absurd, touching form of a fake anonymous letter from a “Well-wisher.”

  But, bewitched as he was, he still struggled on occasion, and these were the moments when Edith’s sense of danger was at its most acute. Whenever these alarming signs of the real Freddie Bywaters started to emerge, faster, faster scribbled the pen to lure him back into fairyland.

  Chapter Five

  One does not have to read all Mrs. Thompson’s letters to capture the flavor of her personality or of her relationship with Freddie Bywaters. Sixty-two of them were preserved and many of them are interminably long. Almost all of them reflect the same mood. In fact, except for a change in detail, Mrs. Thompson really wrote the same letter over and over again. She was invariably at a high pitch of emotion, loving, longing, worrying, pleading, imagining she was planning for the future. Novels were constantly being reviewed. Newspaper clippings were often enclosed, covering a variety of subjects, ranging from “Chicken Broth Death” and “The Poisoned Curate” to “Do Women Fail as Friends?” “My Sweet Offer,” and “The Ideal Dancing Partner.” The gossip of the moment was distorted to give it a melodramatic flourish. Above all, Edith Thompson was making a consistent and desperate effort to hold Freddie’s interest, regardless of where her fantasies might lead her. No role was left unplayed so long as it seemed glamorous—not even the role of murderess.

  Chosen for reproduction here are three of Edith’s letters, virtually in their entirety, and part of a fourth. Almost all the “sinister” passages appear in them. It must be remembered that, apart from the letters, there was no evidence whatsoever on which to accuse Mrs. Thompson of murder. It was from an analysis of the letters alone that the prosecution tried to show that, up to within a few hours of the crime, Edith Thompson had bee
n steadily and deliberately inciting Bywaters to murder, and that therefore she was just as guilty as he. The letters were the whole trial. If the letters do not show what the prosecution claimed they show, there was no case at all.

  The reader is now the jury.

  Exhibit 50; March 30 (1922)

  Darlingest Boy,

  This will be the last letter to England—I do wish it wasn’t, I wish you were never going away any more, never going to leave me—I want you always to be with me.

  Darlint, about the doubt—no I’ve never really doubted—but I do like to hear you reassure me.… I like you to write it … so that I can see it in black and white … please do believe darlint that I don’t really doubt.… its just a vain feeling I have to hear you say things, to me … nice things—things that you mean … which most people don’t—but I always say and think and believe nobody on this earth is sincere … except the one man—the one who is mine.

  Pride of possession is a nice feeling don’t you think darlint—when it exists between you and me.

  I sent you the books darlint, all I felt were worth reading … I hope you’ll think of me when you’re reading them and I hope you’ll talk to me about them.

  After tonight I am going to die … not really … but put on the mask again darlint until the 26th May—doesn’t it seem years and years away? It does to me and I’ll hope and hope all the time that I’ll never have to wear the mask any more after this time. Will you hope and wish and wish too darlint—pour moi.

  This time really will be the last you will go away … like-things are, won’t it? We said it before darlint I know and we failed … but there will be no failure this next time darlint, there mustn’t be … I’m telling you … if things are the same again then I’m going with you … wherever it is … if its to sea I’m coming too and if it’s to nowhere—I’m also coming darlint. You’ll never leave me behind again, never, unless things are different.

  I slept on your letter last night unopened I had no chance to read it, but got up at quarter to six this morning to do so. Darlint you can’t imagine what a pleasure it is for me to read something that you have written. I can’t describe it. Last night darlint—I didn’t think of you (Because you once told me not to) but I hope you were thinking of me. Its much harder to bear when you’re in England than when you’re away. This must be au revoir now darlint in the flesh at all events—not in the spirit Eh! We are never apart in that. Here’s luck to you in everything especially in the thing concerning two halves—one of whom is

  PEIDI

  I always do and always will love you whatever happens.

  Exhibit 17; April I—to Bombay

  I believe I insufficiently stamped the first Marseille letter I sent. If I did darlint I am ever so sorry. I hate doing anything like that. You know don’t you.

  I think Thursday was the worst day and night I ever remember. All day long I was thinking of the previous Thursday, and contrasting my feelings, one day with the other—the feelings of intense excitement and those of deep depression, and then when night came it was worse—it was awful. I was fighting all night long to keep your thoughts with me darlint. I felt all the time that you were not with me—didn’t want to be. Just had withdrawn yourself, and try as I would I couldn’t bring you back. Darlint, tell me what was happening on Thursday. I cried and cried and cried until I eventually went to sleep, but I had heard the clock strike five before I did so, and then Friday morning I saw your sister and she just gave me one of those looks that are supposed to wither some people and then I felt that the whole world was up against me and it wasn’t really much good living.…

  Darlingest boy—is she or your Mother any judge of whether “I’m no good”, and if she is has she any right to judge me. Whether she or anyone I knew were good or bad I shouldn’t judge them.

  Darlint I love you such lots and lots and the mail today made it more—by that mail I knew you loved me more—yes more than you did.

  It must be au revoir until Aden now—Je suis fache you have to wait such a long time to talk with me but darlint I am always with you wondering what you are doing and feeling and loving you every minute of always.

  PEIDI

  Don’t keep this piece.

  About the Marconigram—do you mean one saying Yes or No, because I shant send it darlint I’m not going to try any more until you come back.

  I made up my mind about this last Thursday.

  He was telling his Mother etc the circumstances of my “Sunday morning escapade” and he puts great stress on the fact of the tea tasting bitter “as if something had been put in it” he says. Now I think whatever else I try it in again will still taste bitter—he will recognise it and be more suspicious still and if the quantity is still not successful—it will injure any chance I may have of trying when you come home.

  Do you understand?

  I thought a lot about what you said of Dan.

  Darlint, don’t trust him—I don’t mean don’t tell him anything because I know you never would—What I mean is don’t let him be suspicious of you regarding that—because if we were successful in the action—darlint circumstances may afterwards make us want many friends—or helpers and we must have no enemies—or even people that know a little too much. Remember the saying, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.

  Darlint we’ll have no one to help us in the world now and we mustn’t make enemies unnecessarily.

  He says—to his people—he fought and fought with himself to keep conscious—“I’ll never die, except naturally—I’m like a cat with nine lives” he said and detailed to them an occasion when he was young and nearly suffocated by gas fumes.

  I wish we had not got electric light—it would be so easy.

  I’m going to try the glass again occasionally—when it is safe. I’ve got an electric light globe this time.

  Exhibit 19; May I

  Darlingest Boy I know,

  If you were to hear me talk now you would laugh, I’m quite positive and I should be angry—I’ve got practically no voice at all—just a little very high up squeak.

  It started with a very sore throat and then my voice went—it doesn’t hurt now—the throat is better but it sounds so funny. I feel like laughing myself but altho you’d laugh darlint you’d be very kind wouldn’t you? and just take care of me. I know you would without asking or you answering—but you can answer because I like to hear you say it.…

  Talking about “Felix” darlint I can’t say I was disappointed in the end because I didn’t expect very much of him. You say you expected him to do a lot for Valevia—I didn’t—he was too ordinary—too prosaic to do anything sensational—he’d do anything in the world for her if it hadn’t caused comment but when it did—he finished. Do you remember the railway station scene when her husband appeared, and took command of the proceedings. Felix was nowhere and he allowed himself not only to go home, but to be ordered to go home by Mr. Ismay. What were your feelings for Mr. Ismay—did you like him? About the word you starred—I can’t say I actually know the meaning of the word only of course I guess but you can tell me darlint I certainly shan’t ask anyone else.

  Darlint isn’t this a mistake “Je suis gache, ma pauvre petit amie”. This is how you wrote it.

  I was glad you think and feel the same way as I do about the “New Forest”. I don’t think we’re failures in other things and we mustn’t be in this. We mustn’t give up as we said. No, we shall have to wait if we fail again. Darlint, Fate can’t always turn against us and if it is we must fight it—You and I are strong now. We must be stronger. We must learn to be patient. We must have each other darlint. Its meant to be. I know. I feel it is because I love you such a lot—such a love was not meant to be in vain. It will come right I know one day, if not by our efforts some other way. We’ll wait eh darlint, and you’ll try and get some money and then we can go away and not worry about anybody or anything. You said it was enough for an elephant. Perhaps it was. But you don’t allow for the tas
te making only a small quantity to be taken. It sounded like a reproach, was it meant to be?

  Darlint I tried hard—you won’t know how hard—because you weren’t there to see and I can’t tell you all—but I did—I do want you to believe I did for both of us.…

  We have changed our plans about Llandudno—it is too expensive. We are going to Bournemouth July 8th, and while Avis was over last night he asked her to come with us. The suggestion was nothing to do with me—it was his entirely and altho’ I wouldn’t have suggested-such a thing for the world—I’m glad—because if things are still the same and we do go—a third party helps to make you forget that you always lead the existence we do.

  Au revoir for the week end darlint.

  The mail was in this morning and I read your letter darlint, I cried—I couldn’t help it—such a lot of it sounded so so sad I cried for you I could exactly feel how you were feeling—I’ve felt like that so often and I know.

  I was buoyed up with the hope of the “light bulb” and I used a lot—big pieces too—not powdered—and it has no effect—I quite expected to be able to send that cable—but no—nothing has happened from it and now your letter tells me about the bitter taste again. Oh darlint, I do feel so down and unhappy.

  Wouldn’t the stuff make small pills coated together with soap and dipped in liquorice powder—like Beecham’s—try while you’re away. Our Boy had to have his thumb operated on because he had a piece of glass in it that’s what made me try that method again—but I suppose as you say he is not normal, I know I feel I shall never get him to take a sufficient quantity of anything bitter. No I haven’t forgotten the key I told you before.

  Darlint two heads are better than one is such a true saying. You tell me not to leave finger marks on the box—do you know I did not think of the box but I did think of the glass or cup or whatever was used. I wish I wish, oh I wish I could do something.