The Trial of Elizabeth Cree

by Peter Ackroyd

  But there was another element involved in his recognition of his surroundings; sometimes he looked upon them as a form of experiment, with his own life as a self-conscious exercise in realism. He had been reading Émile Zola’s volume of essays, The Experimental Novel, published a few months earlier, and it had confirmed all his latent faith in “naturalisme, la vérité, la science”—to the extent that he congratulated himself on leading a thoroughly modern and even literary life. In such a light even Nell could be considered a heroine of the new age. There was only one difficulty and it was, appropriately, a stylistic one; despite Gissing’s interest in realism and unstudied naturalism, his own prose encompassed the romantic, the rhetorical and the picturesque. Within the narrative of Workers in the Dawn, for example, he had bathed the city in an iridescent glow and turned its inhabitants into stage heroes or stage crowds on the model of the sensation plays in the penny gaffs. Even now, as he settled down in his small room and began looking through his notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, he might have noticed that he referred to it as a “towering Babylonian idol” which “faces out towards the heaving masses.” This was not the language of a realist.

  He could not begin writing this essay, however, until he had eaten. There was nothing in his lodgings except a suspect piece of ham left beside the sink, so he permitted himself a visit to a chophouse on the corner of Berners Street where he knew he could dine for less than a shilling. Of course it was not a fashionable setting—it was the haunt of the local cabdrivers who came in at midday for their pies and porter—but it served its purpose. Gissing could sit here undisturbed (except for the occasional, sporadic raids of a young waiter) and write, or dream, or reminisce. This chophouse was also a favorite resort for the performers who appeared at the Oxford Music Hall down the road, and on many occasions Gissing noticed how those “out of a crib” were supported by their more fortunate colleagues; he had even thought of writing a novel upon a music-hall theme, but realized just in time that the subject was too light and frivolous for a serious artist. Instead he spent this particular evening sitting in the chophouse and contemplating the inventions of Charles Babbage. Even as he waited to be served, he began a paragraph on the nature of modern society which anticipated almost exactly the words of Charles Booth who nine years later, in Life and Labor of the People of London, defined “the numerical relation which poverty, misery and depravity bear to regular earnings and comparative comfort.” This was the statistical grid about to be stretched across London, and over the next two days George Gissing composed an essay in which he attempted to explain the role of data and statistics in the modern world. Here, against his better instincts, he also extolled the virtues of the Analytical Engine.

  Nell did not come home that night, and so he slept very soundly amid the noises of the Tottenham Court Road. He woke up at dawn, breakfasted on bread and tea, and then at ten minutes before nine set off for the Reading Room of the British Museum. He had in fact chosen these lodgings because of their proximity to the library, and he always considered this area of London to be his true home. He had been born in Wakefield, he had lived for a while in America, he had lodged in the East End and south of the river, but only within this small neighborhood of Coptic Street and Great Russell Street did he feel entirely at ease. It was the spirit of the district itself which, he supposed, affected him so profoundly. Even the tradesmen he passed on his walk to the Museum—the map-seller, the umbrella man, the knife-grinder—seemed to share his sense of place and to accommodate themselves to it. He knew the porters and the cabmen, the strolling musicians and the casual street sellers, and he considered them as part of some distinctive human family to which he also belonged.

  Of course the interpretation of any area is a complicated and ambiguous matter. It was often remarked, for example, how magical societies and occult bookshops seemed to spring up in the vicinity of the British Museum and its great library; even the Superintendent of the Reading Room in this period, Richard Garnett, was attached to the practice of astrological forecasting and had remarked, very sensibly, that the occult is simply “that which is not generally admitted.” Mr. Garnett might even have speculated on the coincidence of this particular September morning, when Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, and George Gissing himself, all entered the Reading Room within the space of an hour. But such speculations are nevertheless hazardous; the connection between occult bookshops and the British Museum might simply be explained on the grounds that libraries are commonly the home of lonely or thwarted people who are also likely to be attracted to magical lore as a substitute for real influence or power.

  Gissing was one of the first to enter the Reading Room when its doors were opened at nine; he went immediately to his customary seat, and continued work upon his essay on Charles Babbage. He hardly thought of Nell at all while he sat over his desk, since in this place he felt himself to be protected from the vulgar life he was constrained to lead beyond its walls; here he could mingle with the great authors of the past, and imagine a similar destiny for himself. He wrote until evening, covering the pages of his bound notebook with the thin black ink which the library provided; he always signed and dated the first drafts of his essays as soon as they were finished and, after he had completed his signature with a flourish, strolled beneath the dome to recover himself.

  It was already dusk by the time he left the Museum, and he bought some chestnuts from the street seller who stood with his brazier beside the gates during the autumn and winter months. He passed a boy selling newspapers, but paid no attention to the “Terrible murder!” he was announcing in a hoarse voice. Then, when he turned into Hanway Street, he saw two policemen outside the door of his lodgings. He realized that something must have happened to his wife and, curiously enough, he felt quite calm. “Do you wish to see me?” he asked one of the officers. “I am the husband of Mrs. Gissing.”

  “So you are Mr. Gissing?”

  “Naturally. Yes.”

  “Could you come with us then, sir?”

  Gissing, to his surprise, found himself being escorted up the stairs of his lodgings exactly as if he were under arrest; then, even before he could reach his door, he could hear Nell’s voice raised in argument with some other person. “You fucker!” she was screaming. “You fucker!”

  He closed his eyes for a moment before they led him into the room he knew so well, but which now seemed quite changed. There was another police detective with his wife but Nell was not, as he had feared, under any form of restraint. She had been crying, and Gissing knew that she had been drinking gin, but as soon as he entered the room she looked at him with an interest that he found peculiar. “Are you Gissing?” the detective asked him.

  “I have already told these gentleman my name.”

  “Are you acquainted with an Alice Stanton?”

  “No. I have never heard of any such woman.”

  “Were you aware that she was unlawfully killed yesterday evening?”

  “No, I was not.” Gissing was becoming more and more puzzled; he glanced across at his wife, who shook her head from side to side with an expression he did not understand.

  “Can you tell me where you were, yesterday evening?”

  “I was here. I was working.”

  “Is that all?”

  “All? That is a great deal.”

  “I gather that your wife was not with you?”

  “Mrs. Gissing—” It was a delicate matter, but he assumed that the police already knew her profession. “Mrs. Gissing was with friends.”

  “I believe she was.” It was clear to Gissing that these men did not know how to address him. He was sensitive about such matters and guessed, correctly, that they were surprised by his manner: he was the husband of a common prostitute, and yet his speech and dress (threadbare but clean) were those of a gentleman. But he was also in an anomalous position: they had come to his lodgings, and he still could not discern their purpose. “There are several questions we must put to you, Mr. Gissin
g, but we cannot do so here. Would you be so good as to come with us now?”

  “Have I any choice?”

  “Not in this matter. None.”

  “But what is this matter?” They did not answer him but took him down at once into the street, where a closed cab was waiting for them. Nell did not accompany them and, when he turned around to look for her, they simply told him that she had already “identified the body.”

  “What body? What do you mean?”

  They led him into the cab, saying nothing else, and Gissing sank back into the stale leather seat with a loud sigh. He closed his eyes and did not open them again until the cab stopped and its door was opened quickly; he found himself in a small courtyard and heard someone shouting, “Take him through.” He was escorted into a building of dark yellow brick, and followed the three policemen into a narrow room lit by a row of gas jets. There was a wooden table in front of him, with a cheap cotton cloth laid across it. He knew well enough what it covered, even before Detective Paul Bryden pulled it away. The face had been partially disfigured, and the head lay in an unnatural position, but Gissing recognized her at once: it was the young woman who had come to the door in Whitecross Street when he was searching for his wife. “Do you recognize this person?”

  “Yes. I recognize her.”

  “Will you follow me, Mr. Gissing?” He could not resist looking down at the face again. Her eyes, which had been turned towards the home of the Analytical Engine in Limehouse, were now closed; but her expression, sealed at the time of her death like some hieroglyph upon a tomb, was one of pity and resignation. Bryden led him away, and together they walked down a brightly lit passage; there was a green door at the end, and Bryden cleared his throat before knocking gently upon it. Gissing had heard no one reply, but Bryden opened it and then suddenly pushed him forward. He was inside a room which had barred windows; another police detective was seated at a desk and he directed Gissing to sit opposite him.

  “Do you know what a golem is, sir?”

  “It is a mythical creature. Something like a vampire, I believe.” He was no longer surprised by anything which was happening to him, and answered as naturally as if he had been in a schoolroom.

  “Exactly so. And we are not men to believe in mythical creatures, are we?”

  “I hope not. May I ask your name? It would make our conversation so much easier.”

  “My name is Kildare, Mr. Gissing. You were born in Wakefield, were you not?”

  “I was.”

  “Yet you retain no trace of your native accent.”

  “I am an educated man, sir.”

  “Quite. Your wife”—there seemed to Gissing to be no particular emphasis upon the word—“tells us that you have written a book.”

  “Yes. I have written a novel.”

  “Would I have seen it? What is its title?”

  “Workers in the Dawn.”

  Kildare looked at him more sharply. “Are you a socialist, then? Or a member of the International?” The police inspector had glimpsed some fatal connection between Karl Marx and George Gissing and, even in that moment, contemplated the possibilities of an insurrectionary conspiracy.

  “By no means am I a socialist. I am a realist.”

  “But your title has such a ring to it.”

  “I am no more a socialist than Hogarth or Cruikshank.”

  “I know of these men, of course, but—”

  “They were artists, like myself.”

  “Ah, I see. But there are not many artists who can boast that they have been to prison.” Gissing felt that he ought to have anticipated their knowledge of his crime but, even so, he could not meet the man’s eyes. “You served one month’s hard labor in Manchester, Mr. Gissing. You were convicted of theft.”

  He had thought it forgotten, erased from every memory except his own; when he had moved to London with Nell, he even began to experience what he was later to describe as “a time of extraordinary mental growth, of great spiritual activity.” It may seem odd to talk of “spiritual activity” within the dark city, but Gissing knew well enough that it has always been the home of visionaries. He had already written down some words of William Blake, which had been quoted in Swinburne’s recent study of that poet, “the spiritual Four-fold London eternal.” But now George Gissing sat with his head bowed before a police detective. “Can you please tell me why I am here?” Chief Inspector Kildare took something out of his pocket, and handed it to him. It was a piece of notepaper, stained with blood; on it was written Gissing’s name and address. “This is my hand,” he said quietly. “I gave it to her.”

  “So we supposed.”

  “I had been looking for my wife.” He realized, at last, exactly why he was being questioned. “Surely you cannot believe that I am in any way connected with her death? It is absurd.”

  “Not absurd, sir. Nothing to do with such a crime is absurd.”

  “But do I seem to you to be a murderer?”

  “In my experience, prison hardens a man considerably.”

  “You must have learned some flash tricks.” This was another voice, coming from behind him; there has been a second policeman in the room throughout this interview. For Gissing, their suggestions were unendurable. He knew well enough that, in the idiom of the day, he was suspected of being a “moral degenerate” who was living with a prostitute and whose first taste of crime and punishment must inevitably lead to more and more outrageous assaults upon virtue and good order. It might even result in murder.

  “The dead woman was a good friend to your wife,” Kildare was saying. “And I expect you knew her very well. Am I correct in supposing that?”

  “I had never seen her before. I knew nothing of her.”

  “Don’t you like to meet your wife’s friends?”

  “Of course not.” He could stand this no longer. “You know very well what kind of woman my wife is. But you do not understand what kind of man I am. I am a gentleman.” He looked so defiant, and yet so frail, in the glare of the gas that even these two policemen might have been inclined to believe him. “At what time, precisely, was she killed?”

  Kildare hesitated, unsure whether he should volunteer such information. “We cannot be certain, but she was found at midnight by one of her trade.”

  “Then I am not your man. Go to the chophouse on the corner of Berners Street, and inquire about me. I sat at a table there until after midnight. Ask Vincent, the waiter, if he remembers Mr. Gissing.”

  Kildare leaned back in his chair with an expression of consternation. “You told my officers that you were working.”

  “And so I was. I was working in the chophouse. In all the sudden alarm and confusion I quite forgot that I had been there last night. It is one of my habitual places.”

  There was a knock upon the door, which so startled Gissing that he rose from his chair for a moment. A policeman came in, and whispered to Kildare; Gissing could not hear him, but in fact he was providing further exoneration. No blood had been found upon the novelist’s clothing in Hanway Street, and the knives were all clean. This was truly disappointing to Kildare, who believed that he was at last on the track of the Limehouse Golem. What better suspect could there be than the husband of a shameless prostitute—a former convict—who found himself being endlessly compromised by her and by her associates? What kind of vengeance might such a man seek? He left the room with the police officer who had conducted the search of the lodgings, and instructed him to visit the chophouse which Gissing had mentioned. He would have been less agreeable if he had known that the same officer had enjoyed sexual congress with Nell Gissing only an hour before—on the very same bed where Gissing had lain last night and dreamed of the Analytical Engine. The policeman had given her a shilling, and she had gone immediately to a gin shop in the Seven Dials.

  Gissing sat perfectly still, and in the silence became aware once again of the corpse which lay only a few yards away. Since childhood he had entertained fantasies of suicide—particularly of death by d
rowning—and for a moment he tried to imagine that it was he who was lying upon the wooden table. He had always believed that his purpose was to endure life with as little suffering as possible, and to think of death with affection—but now, as he sat in this police office, he was also beginning to realize that the shape of his destiny might not lie within his own power. Here, in the course of one day, he had gone from the wonderful seclusion of his books in the British Museum to the degradation of arrest and the possibility of a criminal’s death by hanging. And on what action had these events turned? A casual meeting in Whitecross Street, and the chance decision to write down his name and address in the search for Nell. And yes, of course, there was a more enduring reason for his present suffering—his wife had brought him to this. He would never have encountered the dead woman if Nell had not led him that way; he would never have been suspected, if he had not already been branded as a convict and an outcast because of her. What a thing it was, to be bound from head to foot by another person!

  Bryden tapped him on the shoulder (he flinched, because at that moment he had been contemplating the possibility of Nell’s own sudden death) and led him out of the room towards a flight of stone steps. He descended into a basement corridor, and found himself being taken into a small cell. “Am I to be kept here?” he murmured, almost to himself.