The Trial of Elizabeth Cree (26 page)

“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 fists 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.

G
eorge 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.

“What is it fer you’re doing?”

“I am doing nothing. I am walking.”

“Walking, are you? Why in this spot?” There was menace in the young man’s voice, but also something deeper and slyer.

“Are you looking for a chicken?”

“Chicken?”

“You seem like a man who would like a chicken.” He stroked the front of Gissing’s trousers. “A shilling will do for me. Do you see what I’m on about?”

Gissing pushed him away and began walking even more quickly than before; then he started to run when he heard footsteps coming up behind him, and he fled down another lane. But what was ahead of him? There was a vast form belching out light and heat; for one moment it might have been the Analytic Engine come to monstrous life among the poor, like some medieval
specter bathed in fire, but then he realized that he was standing in front of a manufactory. There was a sound of movement behind him still; he had no wish to linger here and, for want of any better escape, he walked towards the building. There was an extraordinary and almost overpowering smell of lead, or acid, or both mixed; he went over to an open door, which seemed to be the entrance to this place, and saw a line of women in dark gowns proceeding up a staircase towards a loft. Each one carried a large pot on her shoulder, and the smoke bellowed from these vessels towards the wooden roof; it wreathed through their dark gowns, and formed clouds around them, as they climbed upwards. On the floor of the manufactory there was another line of women, passing pots from hand to hand until they were pushed into a large, glowing oven. He had no notion of what they were doing but then, among the noise and the billowing smoke, he realized that they were all singing. They might have been proceeding up and down the staircase for eternity, as they slowly sang in unison. He could even make out the words now—it was that old melody from the halls, “Why Don’t They Have the Sea in London?”

He stayed a few minutes longer until he believed it was safe to venture out again into the night; he turned down another lane and, to his great relief, found himself in a street that led back down to the Strand. He had really heard tonight what “man has ever said” and “woman whispered”—and if the air indeed were one vast library, one great vessel in which all the noises of the city were preserved, then nothing need be lost. Not one voice, or laugh, or threat, or song, or footfall, but it reverberated through eternity. He remembered reading in
The Gentleman’s Magazine
of an ancient myth which supposed that all lost things could be discovered on the other side of the moon. And perhaps there was such a place where perpetual, infinite,
London would one day be found. But then perhaps he had found it already—perhaps it was in him, and in each of the people he had encountered that night. He returned to Hanway Street and, finding Nell asleep upon their narrow bed, kissed her gently on the forehead.

I
t was just before dawn when I returned to Bayswater; I did not wish to wake my husband, but I aroused Aveline with a gentle knock upon the door of her attic room. She seemed very alarmed. “Where were you? What has happened to you?”