Within a month I had completed Misery Junction to my own satisfaction, with Catherine Dove’s triumphant return to the stage; I had made a fair copy in my large, round hand and decided to send it at once by messenger to Mrs. Latimer of the Bell Theater in Limehouse. She specialized in strong melodramas, and I explained to her in an accompanying letter that Misery Junction was bold and very “up-to-the-minute.” I had expected a proposal from her in the next post, but for an entire week I heard nothing at all—even though I had explained in my letter that several other managements were greatly interested. So I decided to visit the Bell myself, and hired a brougham for the purpose; I knew that it would make more of an impression if it was seen to be waiting for me in the street, and I stationed it just in front of the theater while I marched through the famous stained-glass doors. Mrs. Latimer—Gertie, to her intimates—was in her little office behind the bar, counting out the proceeds from the previous night’s house. For a moment she did not recognize me in my wifely costume, but then she put back her head and laughed. She was what the comical element would call a “fine-looking woman,” and the fat quivered beneath her chin in a most distasteful manner. “Why,” she said, “it’s Lambeth Marsh Lizzie. How are you, deary girl?”
“Mrs. Cree now, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t mind in the slightest. But it’s not like you to stand on ceremony, Lizzie. Last time I saw you, you were the Older Brother.”
“Those times are gone, Mrs. Latimer, and a new day has dawned. I have come here about the play.”
“I don’t follow you, dear.”
“Misery Junction. It has been written by my husband, Mr. Cree, and it was sent to you over a week ago. Why oh why have you not replied?”
“As the shop girl sighed? I see you haven’t forgotten all your old songs, Lizzie.” She was not at all abashed. “Now let me see. There was a drama by that name, or something of the sort—” She went over to a cupboard in the corner and, when she opened the door, I could see that it was filled with manuscripts and wads of paper. “If it came last week,” she said, “it will be on top. What did I tell you?” Misery Junction was the very first play she found, and she glanced through it before handing it to me. “I gave it to Arthur, dear, and he declined it. He said that it lacked a really good plot. We need a plot, Lizzie, otherwise they get restless. Do you remember what happened with The Phantom of Southwark?”
“But that was a bit of nonsense. All that moaning and groaning.”
“It almost caused a riot, dear. I was the one who was groaning, I can assure you.”
I tried to explain to her the story of Misery Junction, and even went so far as to read out certain choice passages, but she was not to be swayed. “It just won’t do, Lizzie,” she told me. “It’s all gravy and no meat, dear. Do you know what I mean? There’s nothing to chew on.”
I could have chewed on her, fat though she was. “Is that your final word, Mrs. Latimer?”
“I’m afraid so.” She settled down in her chair very comfortably, now that business was completed, and surveyed me. “So tell me, Lizzie, have you quite given up the stage on your own account? You were ever such a good patterer. We all miss you.”
I was in no mood to be intimate with her, so I prepared to leave. “What shall I say to my husband, Gertie Latimer, who has labored night and day on this drama?”
“Better luck next time?”
I walked out of her office, passed the bar, and was about to make my way to the brougham outside the theater when I was suddenly struck by a very interesting and curious idea. So I marched straight back to her, and laid Misery Junction on the table. “What would it cost to hire your theater? For one night only?”
She looked away from me, and I could tell that she was doing her calculations very rapidly. “You mean something in the way of a benefit, dear?”
“Yes. And you will be the beneficiary. All I require is your stage. You will lose nothing by it.”
Still she hesitated. “I do have a space between The Empty Coffin and The Drunkard’s Last Farewell …”
“I need only that one night.”
“At this time of year, Lizzie, my takings can be considerable.”
“Thirty pounds.”
“And all the wet money?”
“Done.”
The money came from my own modest savings, which I kept in a purse concealed behind the mirror in my room; I returned with it a few hours later, and we shook hands on the spot. We agreed upon a night, in three weeks’ time, and she promised me all the props and scenery I required. “I have a very fine Covent Garden,” she said. “Do you remember The Costers? It was used for the burlesque, but it will make a very good forlorn scene. And there is a lamppost in the wings which you can lean against, dear. There may even be a dust cart somewhere from Oliver Twist, although I have the strangest feeling that Arthur exchanged it for a flying carpet.” I thanked her for the use of the lamppost, but in fact everything I needed was within my own self.
I already knew my part by heart, while Aveline had taken on the role of my wicked sister to great effect, and we needed only three walk-on males to complete the cast. They were easy enough to find; Aveline knew an unemployed prestidigitator who was an excellent study as the drunken husband, and I found two cross-talkers to play the parts of the theatrical agent and the heavy swell. They all came quietly to the house while my dear husband wasted his time in the British Museum—I wanted him to know nothing about my plans until I could reveal them to him “on the night.” What a delightful surprise that would be! My only difficulty was the audience. Naturally I wanted to play to a full house, but how was I to obtain one without the benefit of bill posters or newspaper paragraphs? Then Aveline hit upon a solution—why not invite all the loiterers and dawdlers of Limehouse, as well as anyone else we could find who was unoccupied on the day? I was a little hesitant at first, because I had wanted to perform in front of a better class of person, but I saw the merit in her plan. It would not be a select house, but it would be a good one. We both knew the area well enough and, on the very morning before the performance, we distributed our own handwritten tickets with the promise of free entertainment. There were so many hawkers and street sellers and porters who wanted to be amused gratis and for nothing that we realized we had filled the theater in less than an hour. “Don’t forget,” I said to each one of them. “Tonight at six. Sharp, mind.”
I had asked Mr. Cree to return home early from the Reading Room that day, on the pretext that I needed his assistance with an impudent plumber, and I was waiting for him at the door with such an expression of joy and affection that he stopped short on the steps. “Whatever is the matter, Lizzie?”
“Nothing is the matter. Except that you and I are going on a journey.”
“Where?”
“Say nothing more. Just be pleased that you are traveling with one of the immortals of the stage.”
The cab was waiting for us at the corner of the street, the driver knowing our destination in advance, and we set off at a good trot. “Lizzie. Dearest. Can you please tell me where we are going?”
“You must learn to call me Catherine tonight. Catherine Dove.” I was so bursting with anticipation that I could keep the secret from him no longer. “Tonight, John, I will be your heroine. Tonight we are going to Misery Junction.” Still he had no conception of what I meant; he was about to speak, but I put my forefinger up to his mouth. “It is what you always wanted. Tonight your play will live.”
“It is only half-written, Lizzie. Whatever are you talking about?”
“It is complete. Done.”
“I do not understand a single word you have told me since I came home. How can it possibly be complete?”
I might have become angry at his tone, but nothing could stop my enthusiasm now. “I finished Misery Junction on your behalf, my love.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I saw how you suffered with it, John. I knew you considered yourself a failure as a writer, beca
use you could not finish it. So I set to work myself. Now it is done.”
He sat back in the cab, as pale as a sheet; he put his hands up to his head and clenched his fists. For a moment I thought he was about to strike me, but then he rubbed his eyes savagely. “How could you do this?” he whispered.
“Do what, my love?”
“How could you ruin everything?”
“Ruin? What ruin? I have simply completed that which you began.”
“You have ruined me, Elizabeth. You have taken the one hope I had of fame and achievement. Do you know what that means?”
“But, John, you had abandoned it. You spend your days in the Reading Room of the British Museum.”
“Do you still understand nothing about me? Do you really think that little of me?”
“This conversation is becoming absurd.”
“Don’t you see that I did not want to complete it yet? That I was not ready? That I wanted to keep it there as a perpetual center for my life?”
“I am surprised at you, John.” I felt curiously composed, and even managed to look out of the window as we passed the Diorama in Houndsditch. “You have told me more than once that you were never likely to finish it. I thought I was relieving you of a burden.”
“You don’t understand, do you? As long as it was incomplete I could remain hopeful.” He had become quite calm, and I believed that I might still be able to rescue the situation. “Don’t you see that it was my life? I could hold out to myself the eventual promise of a literary reputation. And now what do you tell me? That you have finished it yourself.”
“I am astonished, John, at your selfishness.” I have found out that, with men, to attack them is to defeat them. “Did you never consider my feelings in the matter? Did you never think that I might be tired of waiting? I was meant to be Catherine Dove. I have lived that play many times. It is as much mine as yours.”
He said nothing, but looked out of the window as we came up into Limehouse. “I still cannot believe this,” he murmured to himself. Then he turned, and patted my hand. “I will never be able to forgive you, Elizabeth.”
We had come up to the corner of Ship Street, and the cab had stopped to allow a baker’s stall to be wheeled through; my husband opened the door, jumped out and, before I could say or do anything, began walking away towards the river. Ever since that day I have considered Limehouse an accursed and desolate spot. But what was I supposed to do? I had a hall waiting for me and I suspected that, whatever Mr. Cree might say now, he would eventually realize that Misery Junction had created a new life for me upon the professional stage. So I hurried on to Limehouse Street, greeted Gertie Latimer at the door with a peck on the cheek, and went straight to the little dressing room where Aveline was waiting for me. “Where is he?” was the first thing she said.
“Who, dear?”
“You know.”
“If you are referring to my husband, he sends his apologies. He cannot be with us tonight. Owing to an indisposition.”
“Oh lord!”
“It is of no consequence, Aveline. We will continue as planned. We will triumph.” Our three male walk-ons were in the other dressing room and, when I went next door to inspect them, I thought I could smell strong drink in the general atmosphere; but I chose to say nothing and, instead, took a small peep at the body of the hall. It was filling up rather nicely, although I could already distinguish a rowdy element in the pit. There were two or three loose females loitering at the back, and some porters were enjoying what Dan used to call “illiterate operative character singing.” But I was accustomed to the habits of the crowd, and expected no trouble whatsoever.
“How is the house?” Aveline asked me when I came back. She had my first costume prepared, so I slipped out of my daily duds and began to change.
“Very good, I think. Ready for anything.”
“Do you remember how Uncle used to say, ‘A good time was had by hall’?”
“Don’t think of Uncle now, Aveline. This is a different type of production altogether, and we must approach it in the proper spirit.”
“Talking of spirits, Lizzie, did you smell the breath on those boys next door?”
“I did. I will punish them later, but nothing can be done at this moment. Now be a good little maid and button me up.”
I was wearing a wonderful turquoise creation, symbolizing Catherine Dove’s high hopes on her first arrival in London; of course I had insisted that Aveline wear something much more drab, befitting her rank as my wicked spinster sister who spurns me in my hour of degradation and consigns me to a workhouse. I was dressed soon enough and, as the minutes passed and the hall filled (I could hear the screams and shouts from the dressing room), was swept up in such a mood of anxiety and anticipation that I was close to fainting away. All thought of John Cree’s ingratitude had left me, and I felt myself quite alone in facing my moment of glory. It was almost time. Gertie Latimer appeared with a “restorative” and, between great gulps of porter, commented how full we were. But I was beyond caring. The curtain was about to rise and I summoned Aveline to walk behind me as we went onto the stage. “Don’t forget,” I whispered. “Stay three paces from me, and do not attempt to address the audience. That is my task.” The curtain rose and Gertie’s small orchestra whined its way into silence. I took a few steps forward, put my hand up to shield my eyes and looked dolefully around the hall. Catherine Dove had arrived. “London is so large and strange and wild. Oh, Sarah dear, I do not know if I will be able to endure it.”
“Charlie, vot is it?” A fishmonger, or some such, had shouted from the gallery; I waited for the hubbub to die away.
“I don’t know. But it’s a miracle it can move.”
Another voice shouted from the gods. “It’s the two ugly sisters!”
There was general laughter, and I could have torn the heads off them; but I carried on, even louder than before. “Will there be a bed here I can call my own, dear sister?”
“Yours and mine, if you’re in luck!” It was another voice from the gallery, and the vile remark was followed by others of a similar nature. I recognized at once that it had been a mistake to invite an audience from the streets of a wretched area such as Limehouse; I had supposed that Londoners like myself would understand a tragedy, but I was quite wrong. Within a few minutes I realized that they considered Misery Junction to be some piece of light comedy; all my efforts at pathos and grandeur were wasted on them, and every line was greeted with hoots of laughter, shouting and applause. It was the most humiliating episode of my life, and my agony was compounded by the fact that our three male walk-ons played up to the gallery: they seized the mood, and began to indulge in the usual spoof and chaff. Even Aveline, I regret to say, allowed herself a little low buffoonery.
I could think of nothing after the final act. I rushed off the stage and fell, weeping, into a chair by the thunder machine. Gertie Latimer brought me over a glass of “something strong” which, I am ashamed to say, I gobbled up. “It’s all one,” she said, trying to calm me. “Tragedy and comedy is all one. Don’t take it to heart.”
“I understand that perfectly,” I replied. “I am a professional.” But it is hard to describe my horror and revulsion at the mob who had packed the pit and the gallery. They hardened my heart forever—I can say that now—just as they finished my career upon the stage with ridicule and laughter. Yet something else happened to me in that terrible theater, even as I reached the climax of the drama and was found moaning piteously by Long Acre. I reached out my arms to a passing stranger, played by Aveline in a white gown we had found in the wardrobe, and called out, “Beneath these rags I am a woman like you. Take pity on yourself if not on me.” The hall found this irresistibly amusing but, amid the drunken cheers and laughter, I felt myself to be changed. It was as if I were alone in the theater, like some hard and self-sufficient jewel which shines out even among ordure. But then that sensation faded, and I became so unsure and bewildered among the bedlam that I savagely struck my fis
ts upon the wooden boards to awaken within me some sense of my own pain. I could see the faces of the fallen women all lit up by the gas, grinning and yawning, and at that moment they became the images of my own anxiety and bewilderment. I had surrendered myself to them—that was what had happened—and now I would never be returned. Something had left me—whether it was self-pride or ambition, I do not know—but something had gone from me forever.
I could cry no more. Aveline and the males looked rather apprehensive when they came off the stage, but I could not bother myself with them. I took no calls, despite the clamor of the crowd. How could I? But, as Aveline and the others marched back upon the stage like a freak show, I quickly changed and left by a side door. It did not matter what happened to me now, so I walked quite calmly through the filthiest lanes and byways of Limehouse without any certain sense of direction.
FORTY-ONE
George Gissing came across the quotation from Charles Babbage just as he was about to finish his essay on the Analytical Engine for the Pall Mall Review. He had found it in one of Babbage’s prefaces or “Advertisements”: “The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.” He repeated the line to himself as he walked through the damp and misty streets of London; it was late at night, and he had just dropped his article into the letter box of John Morley’s office in Spring Gardens. He did not want to return to his lodgings by way of Haymarket, in case he should see his wife in the vicinity, and instead walked eastwards towards the Strand and Catherine Street. But he walked too far, and found himself among the maze of streets by Clare Market; Gissing did not know this area of London, even though it was only a mile or so from his own lodgings, and he realized soon enough that he was thoroughly lost among the small courts and alleys. Some stray dogs were feeding off the scattered remnants of rubbish or excrement; he passed a hut or hovel but, when he glanced within, he saw that it was a rag shop illuminated by an old-fashioned rushlight. An old man, looking as rough and as ill-used as any of the rags around him, sat on a wooden box in the middle of the shop; he was smoking a clay pipe, and did not take it from his mouth as Gissing stood on the threshold. “Could you direct me to the Strand?” The old man said nothing, but then Gissing felt a hand upon his leg. He backed away, startled, and saw two girls sitting upon the mud floor at his feet. They were naked, apart from some filthy undergarments, and to Gissing they seemed half-starved. “Please help us, sir,” one of them said. “We have so many mouths to feed, and nothing but a piece of yesterday’s bread.” The rag-seller said nothing, but watched as he smoked his pipe. Gissing dug into his pocket, and found some coins which he put into the small girl’s uplifted hand. “For you and your sister,” he said. He was about to pat her on the cheek, but she made a movement as if to bite him and quickly he left the rag shop. He turned a corner and came across two men, in corduroy jackets and dirty neckerchiefs, banging upon a stovepipe with some wooden clubs—he did not know what they were doing, but they looked as if they might have been doing it forever. They stopped when they heard him, and gazed at him silently until he turned and walked away. He had to leave this place but, as he tried to make his way down one of the wider lanes, he heard someone whistle to him. A young man, wearing a long-sleeved waistcoat and a canvas cap, came out from the dark entrance of an oyster shop.
The Trial of Elizabeth Cree Page 20