The Petticoat Men (35 page)

We feel certain that some sinister influence has been at work to screen people of higher position from being placed in the same predicament as Boulton and Park, and hence their prison doors are thrown open—

She stopped reading. ‘Are they free
now
?
’

‘Keep reading,’ said Billy.

—and hence their prison doors are thrown open, bail for ten times the required amount will be forthcoming; the trial if it ever takes place will be postponed for months, no further exposures will be made – and so the farce is ended! It would have been more complete, perhaps, if Lord Chief Justice Cockburn had stood upon his head, or turned a somersault, after granting the writ of ‘certiorari’ and before the curtain fell on the first act of this comedy.

Billy started to laugh despite himself. But Mrs Stacey stared into her glass of port. ‘And that’s why Sir Alexander Cockburn, that old party fellow, was sitting at the back of the Old Bailey that day, directing the proceedings, I knew it!’

‘And
Reynolds News
will lose hundreds of pounds!’ said Billy. ‘No wonder they’re furious. All the Sunday readers – like us – deprived of the Scandal of the Men in Petticoats!’

Mattie neatly folded the newspaper
.
‘And Freddie and Ernest will now be freed on bail.’

‘So it is reported.’

‘And that must be what Freddie’s father knew.’ Mattie was still folding and refolding the
Reynolds News
into smaller and smaller squares. ‘Well. That’s it then. I don’t suppose they will visit us ever again. Like you said to me, Billy, when we went to Newgate, we’re the “criminal element” at 13 Wakefield-street, not to be mixed with. The End.’

‘And I suppose I’ll work at the funeral parlour at half my erstwhile salary until I am a very old man,’ said Billy. ‘And all because we rented rooms to Ernest and Freddie.’ He looked at his mother. ‘They always win in the end.’

Both women saw his somehow resigned face and it hurt their hearts for they had never in all their lives seen Billy
resigned.

Neither Mattie Stacey nor Mrs Stacey said anything more.

However, that Sunday both women – each quite independently, and without consulting the other – decided, for Billy’s sake, to act further.

33

I
MADE
A
Plan.

Our life with Freddie and Ernest was over for ever but I made one of my Plans, for Billy, because it wasn’t fair. Everyone else to live happily ever after more or less but Billy without his work that he loved, my brother Billy deserved better than this. It was a bit hard to arrange because I had to wait till Ma and Billy had gone to bed, or be sure Billy was still out with death duties.

I started going down the Strand late at night. I didn’t want to wait in the Strand itself exactly, the other girls might have gone after me for walking in their streets but there’s a pump at the top of Whitehall just before it joins to the Strand and I waited there, good for leaning on. Night people walked past about their business, carriages still rolling along Whitehall, even a few ladies and gentlemen walking past, but nobody took any notice of me, good.

Billy had always said they often worked late in the Parliament, they were often there in the House of Commons, he said, till midnight or after, and I’d seen him and knew what he looked like, so I used to get there before midnight, walking the busier, bigger streets from Wakefield-street to be safer, didn’t take that long, and always making sure I had my sharp rock and some hatpins.

I was lucky the first night, I didn’t talk to him but, well at least I knew this was the way he came like Billy said, it was nearly one o’clock and I was thinking of going home,
is this what it’s going to be like waiting, boring and tiring
? – but then there he was, walking and talking with another man, they were in serious conversation – loud booming voices too! he didn’t seem to think he had to be quieter in the street so I supposed it couldn’t have been very private, I could hear them clear, they were talking about Canada, I suppose Canada’s not private, anyway I couldn’t stop him with the other man there, but I could have a proper look at him, Prime Minister of England, very tall, funny high collar he had and walked very upright, booming along.

Billy had told me he wanted to talk to Mr Gladstone. Well if he couldn’t, I would.

The second night he didn’t come at all, damn. I waited till half past one in the morning, funny people going past, servants, and gentlemen in top hats and a policeman but he was drunk and oblivious, lucky for me. I felt a bit dejected going home, sneaking in the door and up the creaky stairs, lucky Ma’s deaf. Maybe this wasn’t going to work.

The third night he was by himself. I’d thought and thought how I would do it, what I might say to introduce myself. I sort of stepped forward and looked at him wondering how to start but all he did was – very courteous – move out of my way and walk on, well that was a lot of bleeding use, I had to be more blooming urgent than that to stop him. It was tiring this pump-waiting, next night I was so weary I didn’t go at all, went to bed at eight o’clock!

‘You all right, Mattie?’ said Ma.

‘Course. I was sitting up too late sewing that’s all.’

I didn’t go back for a couple of nights and then I saw Billy’s face one afternoon as he was called out to walk behind the hearse to Highgate. That night I went again.

When he came past I just stepped forward very firm and said, ‘Mr Gladstone, sir!’ He looked like he didn’t like being accosted (maybe he did the accosting) but anyway I couldn’t stop now.

‘Could I speak to you, Mr Gladstone? I so very much require your assistance.’

His voice in answer wasn’t unfriendly but it wasn’t friendly either, I saw him looking at me. I remembered Billy saying he only talked to young, pretty girls so I hoped I was pretty enough. I was young anyway.

‘What is it?’ he said.

I didn’t want to walk with him really, he would see my leg. But I s’pose we could hardly discuss Billy’s future over a street pump. So I took a deep breath. ‘Could I walk with you for a few moments, sir? That’s all.’

‘Very well.’

He straightway saw me limping, he frowned and I thought,
oh
my God limping makes me not pretty enough
but he seemed to be thinking something, or puzzling about something.

‘Do I know you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Have you damaged your leg?’

‘I was born this way, sir. But as you see I do not have to walk slowly, I can walk just as fast as you.’ But he slowed a little bit, I thought that was kind. We turned into the Strand and in the darkness the gas lamps caught his face, one by one, his face was bright and then dark as we walked, mine too I suppose.

And then I plunged in. ‘My brother has lost his position. We can manage, he has found other work but he is not happy, he so loved the work he used to do and he was so good at it and he misses it so dreadfully. Now he works in a funeral parlour and me and my mother cannot bear to see the spirit knocked from him. It’s as if his soul is a little bit dead itself, because of the unfairness that happened to him.’

He looked a bit surprised – that I could speak in sentences I suppose! He seemed to have forgotten the rotten limp anyway. ‘How did your brother lose the work he was so fond of?’

Having got to speak to him at last I couldn’t stop myself, out came the words. ‘It was so
unfair
! He is such a good person, and such a clever worker and no action of his was responsible. I am not asking anything for myself, Mr Gladstone. I am not a street-girl, I have just waited there some nights in the hope that you might hear my story. I knew I would never get near to you if I came to the Parliament.’

Again he looked at me very carefully, then he nodded very slightly, and then he did a gentle thing, he might have been the Prime Minister of England but he gave me his arm in a courteous manner as we walked along the Strand. Night people still passed on their night business, I bet not many saw it was the Prime Minister of England walking with a cripple.

‘What is your name, my dear?’ he said.

‘My name is Martha, sir. People call me Mattie.’ (Me, Mattie Stacey along the Strand on the arm of Mr Gladstone.)

‘What is the work that you do yourself?’

‘I am a milliner, sir. Actually, I make ladies’ hats.’

He smiled. ‘You are a hard worker I am sure. I see your determination.’

‘I
am
a hard worker.’ I didn’t say yet about us running a boarding house. ‘I am sure you are a hard worker also, but, Mr Gladstone – can I ask you something, can a Prime Minister do
anything
he wants in the whole world?’ My hand rested lightly on the sleeve of his jacket, I didn’t lean on him of course but I felt a deep sigh from somewhere inside him. He was silent for a few moments as we walked.

‘Not, alas, my dear, everything. Although I often wish that it was so.’ And I tell you what, I heard something in his voice, some – regret.
Something.
As if his answer held more than he was saying. ‘Not everything he wants, alas,’ he said again, and it was almost to himself as if I wasn’t there. ‘The world cannot be like that.’

‘No, I s’pose some things none of us can do,’ I said, ‘even if we are hard workers.’ I didn’t mean to say the next words, I didn’t know I was going to say them in the darkness, I dont know how they got there. ‘I was married. My husband was killed by a drunk cart driver who was going too fast. I could not do anything about that.’

For a brief second he put his hand on mine; I could feel the old, dry skin. And I saw a clear half-moon in the sky and thought, like a heart-stab, of Jamey.

For a few moments then we walked in silence.

But I had to say what I came for.

‘Could I speak of my brother? I am so grateful for your time, Mr Gladstone, when you are such a busy man, but I must help him if I can.’

‘I do not know if I can help him. What was his work?’

The words rushed out at last. ‘He was a clerk in the Parliament, he sometimes worked even in your office because he was so clever, his name was William Stacey.’ At once, I could tell, Mr Gladstone knew what I was talking about, that Billy was the clerk involved with the Men in Petticoats.

He was so shocked that – he couldn’t help himself he just stopped abruptly in the Strand, I could feel he was trying not to be rude, trying to control himself, when he quickly took his arm away from me, but I couldn’t help it, I staggered a bit because he moved so quick from me, as if I would poison him. But still I saw how he still controlled himself – he didn’t turn away at once. ‘I am afraid I do not have anything to do with the employing and dismissing of clerical staff in the Houses of Parliament, Miss Stacey. And if you approach me again I will inform the constabulary. Good evening to you.’

He didn’t even get a chance to turn away properly because my words stopped him. ‘My brother and I went to see Lord Arthur Clinton in Mudeford, Mr Gladstone, a few days before he died, now surely you of all people would want to know that?’ And of course he couldn’t go: he turned back to me completely. ‘He was so
alone
, Lord Arthur
–
no friends or family came, he had no money, my Ma gave him some money, my brother who has now lost his position was one of the last people to talk to him and told him things might get better, and that friends might still help him, and Lord Arthur who you knew when he was a little boy, cried. My brother is not one of those kinds of men, Mr Gladstone, in case that is occurring to you, but he is an honourable person and there is something wrong in this world when an honourable person is kind, and loses his work, while people in high positions shelter each other from scandal.’

It was as if I was possessed, I couldn’t stop – and it was as if he was mesmerised, he could not turn away either.

‘Are you sure he died of scarlet fever, Mr Gladstone? In that case you better watch out because maybe you have caught it from me breathing beside you, because I wiped Lord Arthur’s face when he was crying, and nobody else in Mudeford died of scarlet fever, Mr Gladstone. In Mudeford they wonder how he died too. He sent you a message by the way, that if you didn’t help him he would haunt you. All my family ever did to even be part of this story – and my brother had nothing at all to do with it – was rent them a room sometimes, Freddie and Ernest, who told us they used to do acting parts as women sometimes, and they were pleasant tenants and no trouble to us or other tenants. We were not running a bawdy house or a criminal headquarters for sodomites whatever the papers say, we were just a boarding house like hundreds of boarding houses all over London. And this is not some blackmail attempt like in books just because Lord Arthur told us you were once named his guardian though you can call the constabulary if you want to. And I wont be hanging around the pump in the middle of the night and looking for you again so you dont have to be fearful.
But Billy
should
not have lost his position in the Parliament to save
other people’s reputations
. You should be grateful that Billy was kind to Lord Arthur before he died, not take his work from him – and Billy is not the only one!’