The Trial of Elizabeth Cree Read online

  There is a place between my legs which my mother loathed and cursed—when I was very little she would pinch it fiercely, or prick it with her needle, in order to teach me that it was the home of pain and punishment. But later, at the sight of my first menstrual issue, she truly became a demon. She tried to stuff some old rags within me, and I pushed her away. I had been afraid of her before but, when she spat at me and hit me across the face, I was filled with horror; so I took one of our needles and stabbed her in the wrist. Then, when she saw the blood flow, she put her hand up to her face and laughed. “Blood for blood,” she said. “New blood for old.” She began to sicken after that. I bought some purging pills and palliative mixtures from the dispensary in Orchard Street, but nothing seemed to give her any benefit. She became as pale as the cloths we stitched, and so weak that she could hardly manage the work; you can imagine, with her frequent vomitings throughout the day and night, how much now rested upon my own shoulders.

  There was a young doctor who sometimes came among us, from the charity hospital in the Borough Road, and I prevailed upon him to visit our lodgings; he felt my mother’s pulse, looked at her tongue and then smelled her breath before stepping back quickly. He said that it was some slow putrefaction of the kidneys, and at that she set up yet another wailing to her god. Then he took my hands, told me to be a good girl, and gave me a bottle of medical water from his bag.

  “Be quiet, Mother,” I said as soon as he had left us. “Do you think your god is moved by your screeching? I wonder at you for being such a fool.” Of course she was too weak to raise her hand against me now, so I saw no need to comfort her further. “He must be a very strange demon indeed, if he has left you to perish so miserably. To be pitched from Lambeth Marsh into hell—is that the answer to all your prayers?”

  “Oh God my help in ages past. Be now the water to comfort me in my affliction.” These were no more than the words she had learned by rote from the hymnal, and I laughed as she passed her tongue across her lips. I could see the sores upon it.

  “I shall bring you some comfort, Mother. I will bring you real water.” I poured out a little of the doctor’s cordial upon a spoon, and made her drink it. I glanced up and saw a passage she had pasted onto the ceiling. “Look here, Mother,” I said. “Here is another sign for you. Can you not read it now, you naughty girl? ‘Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus’—you know Lazarus, Mother?—‘that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue. For I am tormented in this flame.’ Is that your torment, Mother? Or will it become so?”

  She could scarcely speak, so I bent over her and listened to her foul-smelling whisper. “Only God can make the judgment.”

  “But look at you now. He has already made his judgment.” At that she set up another such wailing that I could no longer endure the sound of it. So I went down into the street and walked towards the riverside. The females of Lambeth Marsh are considered easy prey but, when a foreign-looking gentleman glanced at me in that way, I gave him no joy but laughed and went down to the water. I could see that the ferry was about to move off, so I lifted up my skirt, jumped over the ditch, and ran towards it; my mother said that it was common for a young woman to run, but how was she ever going to catch me now? The ferryman knew me well enough, and would not take my penny from me—so I came over to the Mill Bank with more coin than I expected!

  I had only one wish in my life, and that was to see the music hall. Curry’s Variety was by the obelisk, close to our lodgings, but Mother told me it was the abode of the devil which I was never to enter. I had seen the bills announcing the comedians and duettists, but I knew no more of them than I did of the cherubim and seraphim to whom my mother cried aloud. To me these patterers and sand dancers were also fabulous beings, wonderfully exalted and worthy of worship.

  I took off from the Mill Bank as fast as ever I could, and walked down towards the new bridge; I did not know London so well in those days, and it still seemed to me so vast and so wild that, for a moment, I looked back at my old patch in Lambeth. But she lay putrefying there, and with a lighter heart I continued my course beside the shops and houses; I was alive with curiosity, and never once did it occur to me that a young girl was in any danger among these streets. I came out upon the Strand and turned down Craven Street, just by the water pump, when I saw a penny gaff with some people loitering outside it. It seemed to be a penny gaff, at least, but, when I walked a little closer, I realized that it was a proper saloon of varieties with its colored glass and painted figures making such a contrast to the plain old houses to either side of it. It had an odor all of its own, too, with its mixture of spices and oranges and beer; it was a little like the smell of the wharves down Southwark way, but so much richer and more potent. There was a poster in bright green letters plastered at an angle on the front of the theater: the manager must have just put it there, because the crowd had gathered to read it. I looked at it in wonder, because up till that time I had never heard of “Dan Leno, the Whipper-Snapper, Contortionist and Posturer.”

  FIVE

  Elizabeth walked through the streets until it became quite dark but she did not want to stray too far from the little theater, so she lingered among the congeries of byways and alleys that lead into the Strand. Once or twice she heard a soft, low whistle and believed that she was being followed. By the corner of Villiers Street a man beckoned to her—but she swore at him fiercely and, when she put up her large raw hands marked by the thick fibers of the sailcloth, quietly he backed away. Only once did she think of her mother, when she passed the old churchyard in Mitre Court, but it was close to the time of Dan Leno’s performance and she hurried back to Craven Street. It was twopence for the gods and fourpence for the pit, but she chose the pit.

  The customers sat at several old wooden tables with their food and drink in front of them, while three waiters in black-and-white check aprons were being harassed by continual calls for more pickled salmon, or cheese, or beer. An ancient and very red-faced woman, with extraordinary ringlets of artificial hair cascading across her forehead and cheeks, sat down beside her. “Just the rakings here, dear,” she said as soon as she had sat down. “I don’t know why I bother.” Elizabeth could hardly hear her, through all the noise and uproar. The woman reached out and purchased an orange from a small child, who could barely carry his basket of fruit, and then stuffed it between her breasts. “That’s for later.” Then she made a grimace and fanned her face with one of the plates discarded on the table. “Aren’t they rank?”

  But Elizabeth was accustomed to the human smell—or, rather, she was hardly aware of the sharp odor of flesh—and her attention was entirely concentrated upon the threadbare stage curtain ahead of her. A very large man in the most extraordinary striped topcoat was being helped onto the raised wooden boards, and although he seemed the worse for drink he managed to stand upright and raise his arms in the air. He called, “Silence, if you please!” in a very stern voice and Elizabeth noticed, with some surprise, that a whole bouquet of geraniums was pinned to his buttonhole. Finally, to much cheering and laughter, he began to speak. “A keen east wind has spoiled my voice,” he bellowed out, and then had to wait for the cheers and catcalls to subside. “I am overwhelmed by your generosity. I have never known so many dear boys with such perfect manners. I feel as if I am at a tea party.” There was so much noise now that Elizabeth had to put her hands to her ears; the red-faced old woman turned and winked at her, then raised the little finger of her right hand in some kind of salute. “It is not in the power of mortals to command success,” he went on, “but I will do more. I will endeavor to deserve it. Please to note that the oxtail in jelly is only threepence tonight.”

  There was much more in this vein, which seemed very tedious to Elizabeth, but eventually the curtain was pulled aside by a young girl in a large old-fashioned bonnet; it revealed a London street scene which, in the flickering gaslight, seemed to Elizabeth the most wonderful sight in the world. The only paintings she had ever seen
had been the crude images daubed upon the boats by the riverside, and here was a picture of the Strand along which she had just walked—but how much more glorious and iridescent it now seemed, with its red and blue shopfronts, its tall lampposts, and its stalls and their goods piled high. This was better than any memory.

  A boy came out from the wings, and at once the spectators began to whistle and stamp their feet in anticipation. He had the strangest face she had ever seen; it was so slim that his mouth seemed to stretch from one side to the other, and she was sure that it must have continued around his neck; he was so pale that his large dark eyes seemed to shine out, and to be gazing at something beyond the world itself. He was wearing a stovepipe hat which was almost as tall as he was, with the strangest medley of patched cloths turned into a coat. Elizabeth realized at once that he was acting the part of an Italian hurdy-gurdy boy, and the entire audience stayed silent as, in a slow, sweet voice, he began to sing “Pity the Poor Italian.” She was ready to cry at the sorrow of it, as he depicted his life of poverty and misery, but then after a few verses he sauntered off the stage with his hands in his pockets. A few moments later an old woman emerged—except that, as far as Elizabeth could tell, she was not really old at all. She was of no age, and any age, dressed in a plain gown with an apron tied around her front. “I was in a terrible state last night,” she told the audience who, much to Elizabeth’s surprise, were already laughing. “A very terrible state. My daughter came back to me, you see.” Suddenly Elizabeth was reminded of her mother, lying with her putrefying kidney, and she began to laugh as well. Even as she laughed she realized that this was the same boy, dressed in female clothes: there was no more pain now, and no more suffering. “Oh she’s a mean woman, that daughter of mine. She’s so mean that she’ll buy half-a-dozen oysters and eat them in front of a mirror to make them look like a dozen. Oh you must know my daughter. Good life-a-mighty. Don’t look so simple. Everybody knows my daughter.” The boy in the clothes of the old woman now lifted up his skirt and began to perform a clog dance, while the little theater seemed to glow with the force of his personality. Elizabeth understood now that this must be the Dan Leno she had seen on the bills. She did not know how long his act continued but, afterwards, she was scarcely aware of the singing duets, the acrobats and the colored minstrels. She was conscious only of the strange comedy with which Leno had assuaged the misery of her life.

  It was over. When she shuffled out with the others into the street, it was as if she had been banished from some world of light. She walked down Craven Street and then crept over Hungerford Bridge—she knew her way to Lambeth Marsh well enough, even in the darkness, and she walked slowly past the riverbank where the rats and the “mud larks” went about their work. There were three small boys dragging something out of the water, but even this spectacle could not satisfy her after the enchantment of the Craven Street theater. By the time she arrived back at her lodgings in Peter Street, she was quite worn down by the excitements of the evening, and paid only cursory attention to her mother lying upon the bed; there was some white and green spittle coming from the side of her mouth, and her body trembled in a fit or delirium. Eventually Elizabeth brought her a cordial which she had prepared with her own hands, and forced her to drink it. “Don’t look so simple, Mother,” she whispered. “You’re very nicely, thank you.” Then she began to rip down the pages of the Bible which had been pasted to the walls.

  Her mother was given a pauper’s funeral two days later, and the night after the burial Elizabeth returned to the theater in Craven Street where she heard Dan Leno sing one of those ditties which led to his being known as “The Funniest Man on Earth”:

  I really think Jim’s very partial to me,

  Though never a word has he said.

  But this moment I passed where he’s building a house,

  And he threw half a brick at my head.

  SIX

  Dan Leno was widely believed to be the funniest man of that, or any, age but the best description of him is probably Max Beerbohm’s in the Saturday Review: “I defy anyone not to have loved Dan Leno at first sight. The moment he capered on, with that air of wild determination, squirming in every limb with some deep grievance that must be outpoured, all hearts were his … that poor little battered personage, so put upon, yet so plucky, with his squeaky voice and his sweeping gestures, bent but not broken, faint but pursuing, incarnate of the will to live in a world not at all worth living in …”

  He was born at Number 4, Eve Court, in a neighborhood beside the old church of St. Pancras before the Midland Railway Company erected its station there—the day of his birth, the 20th December, 1850, was also, curiously enough, that of Elizabeth Cree. His parents were already “theatricals” and toured the music halls and variety saloons as “Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Wilde, the Singing and Acting Duettists” (Dan Leno’s real name was actually George Galvin but he quickly discarded it, just as Elizabeth Cree was never known to use her mother’s surname). Their son first appeared on the stage at the age of four, at the Cosmotheka Music Hall in Paddington, wearing an outfit which his mother had manufactured from the silk of an old carriage umbrella. He was billed as a “contortionist and posturer” at this early point in his career—he did indeed perform some very neat turns and tricks, perhaps the most remarkable being his impression of a corkscrew opening a wine bottle. At the age of eight he was billed as “The Great Little Leno” (all his life he remained of very small stature) and then a year later he became known as “Great Little Leno, the Quintessence of Cockney Comedians” or, on occasions, “Descriptive and Cockney Character Vocalist.” By the autumn of 1864, when Elizabeth first saw him, he had already developed that humor for which he was to become truly famous. Yet how was it that, less than twenty years later, Dan Leno was suspected by the police officers of the Limehouse Division of being the murderous Limehouse Golem?

  SEVEN

  These extracts are taken from the diary of Mr. John Cree of New Cross Villas, South London, now preserved in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, with the call mark Add. Ms. 1624/566.

  SEPTEMBER 6, 1880: It was a fine bright morning, and I could feel a murder coming on. I had to put out that fire, so I took a cab to Aldgate and then walked down Whitechapel way. I may say that I was eager to begin, because I had in mind a novelty for the first time: to suck out the breath of a dying child, and see if all its youthful spirit mingled with mine. Oh, in that case, I might go on forever! But why do I say child, when I mean any life? Look, I am trembling again.

  I had thought to see more people around Gammon Square, but in these poor lodging houses they are glad to sleep all day and take off the hunger. In earlier years they would have been put out in the streets at dawn, but these days standards are crumbling altogether—what have we come to, when the laboring poor no longer need to labor? I turned down into Hanbury Street, and a pretty stench they all made. There was the filthy aroma of a pie stall, where no doubt cat meat and dog meat were as plentiful as ever, and all manner of Jew merchants with their “Why hurry past?” and “How are you on a fine day such as this?” I can bear the smell of the Jew but the smell of the Irish, as thick and heavy as old cheese, is not to be endured. There were two of them lying dead drunk outside a free-and-easy, and I crossed the street to get them out of my nostrils. I entered a crumbling confectionery shop on that side, and purchased a pennyworth of licorice to make my tongue black. Who knows where I would have to place it that night?

  Then another fine thought occurred to me. I had an hour or two before the night came on and I knew well enough that, a little way down towards the river, stood the house which had witnessed the immortal Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1812. On a spot as sacred to the memory as Tyburn or Golgotha, an entire family had been mysteriously and silently dispatched into eternity by an artist whose exploits will be preserved forever in the pages of Thomas De Quincey. John Williams had come upon the household of the Marrs and wiped them from the world as you would wipe a dish. So what mo
re pleasant excursion than a stroll down the Highway itself?

  In truth it was a mean dwelling for such a glorious crime—no more than a narrow shopfront with some rooms above it. The man Marr, whose blood had been shed for the sake of greatness, had been a hosier by trade. Now, in his place, was a secondhand clothes seller. Thus, as the Bible tells us, are the sacred temples defiled. I walked in at once, and asked him how he did. “Pretty poor, sir,” he said. “Pretty poor.” I looked upon the place, just behind the counter, where Williams had split open the skull of one child.

  “This is a good spot for trade, is it not?”

  “It is said to be, sir. But all times are hard times along the Highway.” He watched me, as I stooped over and touched the ground with my forefinger. “A gentleman like yourself has no call for custom here, sir. Am I right?”

  “My wife has a maid, who needs no finery. Do you have something like an old-fashioned dress?”

  “Oh, there are many dresses and gowns, sir. Feel the quality in these ones.” He brushed his hand against a row of fusty objects, and I hovered close so that I might smell them. What dirty flesh had been pressed against this cloth? In this same room—perhaps upon these very boards—the artist had craved for more blood and hunted out the mistress of the house.

  “Do you have a wife and daughter?”

  He looked at me for a moment, and then laughed. “Oh, I know what you mean, sir. No. They never wear the articles. We are not of the poorest sort.”