The Killing of Louisa

by Janet Lee

  I bend my head to smooth my dress.

  He says a few words of greeting to Flora, and she steps up from her bed and speaks with him.

  Then he turns to me and the slop bucket is in the corner and I have just finished using it and the smell in this summer heat is none too pleasing. I am barely accustomed to it myself.

  He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and places it upon his nose, making a small noise as though he is about to sneeze, but I think he is trying to mask his displeasure at the smell.

  So I play along with his game, and wait for his sneeze to happen.

  He makes a pretence of wiping his nose.

  Good evening, Mrs Collins, he says.

  And I say, Evening, sir.

  You had a long day in court, he says.

  I think of watching my May in the witness box.

  Yes, it was a long day. I nod again. Yes, sir.

  And how did this day go for you, do you think? Does the matter progress in your favour?

  I give a shrug. I could not say, sir.

  He nods. No doubt you are tired after the day, he says. Well, I shall let you get your rest, Mrs Collins, and I shall call on you again tomorrow. And he gives a little prayer for Flora and me and we stand still and listen to his words.

  The slop bucket smells.

  He finishes his prayer and then he steps from our cell into the corridor and Alice shuts and locks the metal door. I hear them murmuring together as they walk away and, though I press my ear to the door, I cannot make out what it is they are saying.

  The Botany Murder Case

  Extracts from the Murderess’s Letters

  It’s the jury, and some good and some bad wishers. I will not be so wicked as to think they are not some that has common feeling in them for to see me in such a sad, deplorable position; and, above all, I am compelled to sit and see my only daughter, that is just 11 years old the 17th of October. I am the mother that has nourished and cherished her from her birth. In fact, many a time I thought I could not rear her. Being the only daughter, my heart and soul was wrapped up in her, and I hear her, I see her, before my eyes, made to stand in a witness-box, with a book in her right hand, and she takes her oath, and she says, of course, she knows the nature of an oath, and says sufficient to take her own poor mother to the gallows, and gives her evidence in such a straightforward manner that the words belong to another head and another mouth of some wicked and inhuman pieces of iniquity quite unfit to walk the earth …

  Evening News8

  The Botany Poisoning Cases

  Mrs Collins Sentenced to Death

  After the failure of two trials in the case of the death of the second husband and one in the case of the first husband a conviction has at last been recorded against Louisa Collins for the murder by arsenical poisoning of her second husband, Michael Peter Collins, at Botany in July, 1888. The last trial, which has extended over several days at the Central Criminal Court, was concluded yesterday afternoon, when the jury, after a retirement of two hours, returned a verdict of guilty. The Chief Justice, in passing sentence, said the verdict was the only one that could reasonably have been arrived at. The murder was one of most peculiar attrocity, as day by day the prisoner had watched the man whom above all others she ought to have loved and cherished die slowly from the effects of the poison she had given him without showing the least mercy. There was too much reason to suppose that Andrews (the prisoner’s first husband) had also met his death at the prisoner’s hands, and that she had watched his death to the same way as she had done that of Collins. It would be cruel for him (the Chief Justice) to hold out the least hope of a reprieve to the prisoner. Mrs Collins, who throughout the several trials has displayed great callousness, heard the sentence of death pronounced in the same unmoved manner.

  The South Australian Advertiser9

  6.

  Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney

  8 December 1888

  Shackles are placed about my wrists and ankles as I sit in the defendant’s box. I look down at them and see these are someone else’s hands, someone else’s feet. Where are my own?

  Alice is not with me today. What is she doing, why is she not here?

  I stand. Two warders take hold of my arms.

  I slip at the bottom of the steep steps which lead down from the defendant’s box. My dress catches on the shackles. I can’t see my bonnet, where has it gone?

  I stumble into a tunnel; it is these legs now, they aren’t walking properly.

  We come out of the tunnel and I am taken to a different part of the gaol, to the building near the main gate; perhaps the men will open the gates and remove the shackles and I will be free.

  But we turn and walk into a room and they tell me to sit.

  I sit.

  I can see out of the window. There is the building which has a skull and crossbones above the door. The mortuary. Flora has told me this is where the gaol dead are brought and doctors are allowed to poke and prod, the dead being unable to say no. I would never have thought such a place could exist, but now I have heard the terrible stories of what they did to my husband Charles and my baby John, and them not being freshly dead. I had not known such evil lived in the world.

  A photographer comes in and sets up his equipment. He says he will take a photograph of me. I think the gaol must have brought him in special to do so.

  Why do they want another photograph? They have one from when I first came to gaol.

  I look back out of the window. Will they hang me? Will they really hang me? And then lay me in that mortuary so they can poke and prod and measure? Will parts of me be put in a jar somewhere, or a cast made of my head?

  They take my photograph. I do not have the right hands and feet and I am not wearing my bonnet.

  I do not think the photograph will be of me.

  I hear the warders say that my being sentenced to hang will be a great inconvenience to the gaol, as I will not be able to be placed in the condemned cells on account of them being in the male wing and I need female warders to attend me.

  The Female Governor comes into the room and says if this business is concluded then I need to be taken to the female cell block, for arrangements have been made there. The warders take hold of my arms again and we walk behind the Female Governor, me shuffling and clinking along in the chains.

  Everything has changed.

  They said I done it.

  They said I should have no hope.

  They said I should hang.

  When we reach the female cell block, we do not go up the stairs to the second floor, to the cell I share with Flora. We stay on the ground floor and head to the far end of the block, to a different cell. It is a big cell, but there is only one bed and so I do not know where Flora will sleep.

  The bed is on the floor. There is a blanket on top of the mattress and a prison gown and cap lie upon it. There is a slop bucket and a water bucket in one corner and a chair in the other. The slit of a window has no bars, as the opening is too small to climb through. The floor is sandstone and it is wet. I think it has only just been washed. And I think the mattress will rot if it sits on the wet floor for any length of time.

  The Female Governor points to the shackles on my wrists and legs. The warder takes the key from her pocket and undoes these, then tells me to remove my cape.

  I cannot undo the tie.

  It is because these are not my hands. They are the hands of someone who murdered Michael.

  They cannot undo the ribbon.

  It is the Governor herself who steps forward and loosens the ribbon.

  I remove the cape and then the warder tells me to remove my dress. She holds out the black prison gown and cap. I fumble and take a great deal of time.

  I place my dress and cape upon the bed. I will need to find my bonnet.

  I put on the prison gown and cap.
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br />   The Female Governor is speaking and she says I am to have a warder with me at all times.

  The warder shall sit upon the chair in the corner.

  Why, ma’am? I ask, though it is not my voice which says this.

  To keep you safe, she says.

  The Female Governor looks about the cell and nods to the warder. Then she turns and leaves and locks the door behind her, leaving the warder. I see her now, it is Warder Anderson in the cell with me.

  Warder Anderson walks to the chair and sits upon it, then she stretches out her legs and folds her arms across her chest. She looks at me and I do not know what to do under her gaze.

  I sit upon the bed and look at the hands before me.

  They have become mine again.

  I feel my feet, my ears, touch my throat.

  It is all me.

  I am real.

  7.

  I lie down and turn my face to the wall and cry silent tears. I cannot be sure how long I lie upon the bed.

  There is the sound of the key turning in the lock.

  Warder Anderson is still sitting on the chair and she stands as Alice enters with a bowl and a wooden spoon. She says to Anderson that she is there to relieve her duty and that Anderson is free to go out into the prison. Anderson looks to Alice and nods, although I imagine sitting on a chair is more inviting work than some of the other chores.

  They exchange the key and Anderson locks Alice in the cell with me.

  Here, Louisa, she says, I have brought some dinner for you. Alice is as calm and as casual as you like, and I think I must have had a bad dream and that is why Anderson was in the cell.

  I look about me and see the cell is not my own, and I look down and see I wear a prison dress.

  Then I remember.

  8.

  Alice motions for me to sit on the chair and I rise from the bed and do so, taking the bowl of food from her.

  She bends and pats my bed, fluffing the area where I have lain, tucking the blanket in over the sacking. She smooths the blanket almost tenderly and as I watch her do this I feel myself about to cry.

  I place a hand over my eyes.

  I hear the rustle of Alice’s skirts and she is beside me; a firm hand squeezes my shoulder.

  She tells me not to be discouraged, that she will keep me company for the evening, and that I should eat up before my dinner goes cold.

  It is not like her to chatter.

  I eat.

  They found me guilty because of a nobbler glass, and a box, and because of the words of my child.

  I force the food down.

  A glass.

  A box.

  My daughter.

  I do not finish my dinner.

  I put the bowl down and go back to the bed. Alice takes her place upon the chair. We neither of us say anything.

  Some time later, for it is now dark, there is a key in the door and the Female Governor comes into the room and says a visitor wishes to see me and I am to come out of my cell. She is carrying shackles and motions to Alice to place the irons upon my hands and feet, which Alice does.

  My hands look different in these shackles, and again I think they are not my own. It is as though being in irons has made me a new person. I am now a woman who has done a terrible thing.

  But it was not me who done it. It was the woman who wears the black prison gown and shackles, and that is why these hands are not mine.

  The Female Governor and Alice lead me through the cell block to the heavy wooden doors. They write in the book and then we cross a gravel path and head towards the Chapel.

  We go into a room on the bottom floor of the Chapel. I did not know this room existed; I thought the men’s bathhouse was under the Chapel, for that is what Flora has said. I have only ever been to this building by crossing the walkway from the female cell block.

  This room has only one straight wall, the main wall curving all around like half a circle, in keeping with the round shape of the building.

  There is a table, and the prison chaplain, Canon Rich, is bending over it as I enter. Through the material of his jacket I can see his shoulder blades; they are sharp and thin.

  He turns, having heard the clinking of my chains, and he winces when he sees me shackled.

  Surely there is no need for this? he asks the Female Governor.

  It is the regulations, Chaplain, she says. Now, at any time when Mrs Collins is to be moved around the prison she is to be attired like this.

  And can these not be removed when she is in the sanctity of the Chapel? he asks.

  They may not, she says.

  Canon Rich looks at me. Welcome, Mrs Collins, he says.

  Welcome yourself, I think, although I am glad to see him.

  He motions for me to sit upon one of the chairs. I shuffle to the chair and Alice helps me to sit, on account of my being unable to use these chained hands.

  All is well, Governor, he says. You may leave us in the care of your warder here.

  The Female Governor hesitates and then says that is as well for there is much to be done.

  He smiles at her and she turns and leaves, then he beckons to Alice to sit upon the bench at the side of the room.

  I look around me. There are three candles and they are all lit. They throw a gentle light across the sandstone.

  A Bible sits upon the table.

  Canon Rich turns to me. Are you well, Mrs Collins? he says.

  I think it is an odd question to ask someone who has just had the death sentence passed upon them, but I do not say this. Instead, I merely answer him as he would expect.

  I am very well, sir, I say.

  Very good, very good, he says.

  I am thinking he will next ask me of the trial and the verdict and to confess my sins, but he does not. He asks something completely different.

  I have enjoyed the little talks we have had in the past, he says, although you have never told me of where you grew up.

  I do not see how this matters on any account, but I say, No, sir.

  It was not in Sydney, I think?

  No, sir.

  Ahh, he says.

  I feel I have passed some sort of a test by knowing where it was that I grew up. I can hear by his voice that he is trying to create a friendship between us. I have leant against enough pub walls to know when a man is trying to make friends with you. Seeking to force an intimacy, my mother would say.

  The chaplain is not looking at me now; he has turned to face the curved wall of the room and examines the brickwork, poking his finger at the sandstone as though it is the first time he has seen a piece of rock.

  I see you in church, he says.

  Here it comes, I think.

  Yes, sir, I say.

  You love the Lord? he says.

  This is the test, soon he will ask me how many verses I know of the Bible, how often I go to church; it is always the same with the men of the cloth, they like to hear a good report card, or perhaps even a bad one as then they may fix it. Well, he knows I go to church regular since I have been here, for all the prisoners have to. So perhaps he won’t ask that one. I know what he expects me to say and so I say it.

  Yes, sir, I say. I do.

  He nods. Again, I have got it right. But then, I would hardly say different to a chaplain.

  He says nothing for a moment; he is like one of the men in court, pausing before each question.

  When you were a child, he says, were you baptised?

  I wait, playing his pausing game.

  I think so, sir, although I cannot remember it.

  Of course, he says and gives a gentle smile.

  Do you think of your parents? he says.

  I do not understand why he is asking me of my parents. His questions are all over the place; there is no reason to them, talking o
f church and where I was born and my parents. I think there must be some scheme to his questions. Perhaps he is being like one of the lawyers, asking his questions, trying to catch out a lie. I do not answer straight away, then I say, I think of my mother, sir, and I write to her, but my father has passed on.

  I see, he says.

  Then the chaplain runs his hand over the piece of sandstone, turns and steps to the table, pulling out a chair and making a loud scraping noise as he does so.

  I should like to know more about you, Mrs Collins, he says. I would like to know more of your life before. He waves a hand, at nothing in particular, but I take it to mean before prison. I only know of you from here, he says, and I am sure there is much more of you to know.

  Why do you want to know, sir?

  I am interested, he says. I think I might be able to help you and prepare you if I know you better and it might be of benefit to you to think of – here he pauses – other things. It might distract you from the trying times ahead of us.

  I lower my head at this.

  Prepare me? Prepare me? Does he have trying times ahead of him? Have the words of his only daughter been used to convict him? Has he been sentenced to death this very day and told to hold out no hope for mercy and to seek out a minister to prepare him?

  Mrs Collins, he says.

  I look up.

  He leans forward in his chair and looks at me intently. It will help if we consider happier times, he says, if we can talk of events other than the sad situation in which we find ourselves.

  Happier times? I think. What are they to me? When have I had happier times? I was most recently happy with Michael, but I cannot think of him now without a great sadness coming over me. I was happy when I was a carefree girl with my family, and when I was in Merriwa. I was happy when I held my new-born babies. But I have been laid low with all my troubles.

  For the moment, you should think of the times when you have been most happy, for these times will be of comfort to you, Canon Rich tells me.

  I try to believe him.

  9.