Beyond the Storm (21 page)

T
HE LAST GESTURE
of kindness made towards Eliza before she was thrown into the legal system of England’s capital city came from the wife of Padstow’s constable.

Shut up in the small fishing port’s lock-up, Eliza’s story was told to the woman by her husband, and the kindly Cornishwoman took her food, soap, towel and a blanket. Then she stayed talking to her for more than an hour, trying to give what comfort she could to the dejected young prisoner.

When the woman had gone Eliza was left to her own thoughts which grew ever gloomier with the passing of the hours. When darkness fell she cried herself into a fitful sleep that was frequently disturbed by a rat, or a mouse – it was too dark inside the lock-up to identify the inquisitive rodent – which scurried back and forth among the beams in the low-ceilinged and windowless room.

Soon after dawn the sympathetic constable’s wife brought Eliza a cooked breakfast, explaining that the London policemen would soon be along to collect her because the steamer travelling between Hayle and Bristol was due to pass by the mouth of the river estuary at eight o’clock and only prospective passengers waiting in a boat out in the bay would be picked up.

‘It’ll be another twelve hours before it reaches Bristol, and there’s no telling when your next meal will be coming, m’dear.
Them two policers being men, and from Lunnon at that, will satisfy their own bellies but I doubt if they’ll give much thought for anyone else. You get this down you and I’ll know you’ll be alright for the rest of the day. My Bob’s the constable here and he’s told me your story and why you’re being taken up to that wicked city. You’d think that after what you went through when you were shipwrecked, they’d have better things to do than come all this way just to arrest you. There’s many around here who deserve to be going, but some seem to get away with anything they like. Now you take that young Winnie from Trevone …’

Eliza ate her breakfast in silence while the constable’s kindly wife related the story of ‘Winnie’ who, it seemed, frequented the bars down by the harbour, picking up foreign sailors and as well as satisfying their ‘lustrous’ needs, also succeeded in relieving many of them of their purses as well.

‘I can see
you
ain’t that kind of maid,’ said the woman as she took the empty plate from Eliza and made her way from the lockup, ‘and I shall tell they two Lunnon policers they ought to be ashamed of themselves coming all the way down here to Cornwall just to take a young girl away to a wicked place where I’m told most of the women are like that Winnie, ’specially as my Bob tells me you’ve spent the last three years taking good care of a preacher and his sister. It’s a pity they folk up Lunnon way don’t have better things to do.’

With this observation, the constable’s wife left the tiny cell and went on her way, grumbling to herself about the shortcomings of ‘they folk from Lunnon.’

No more than ten minutes after the woman’s departure Sergeant Grubb and Constable Wicks came to the lock-up and she was handcuffed and taken through the streets of Padstow, a subject of great interest to those who were abroad at this early hour. Boarding a waiting boat, she and the two London
policemen 
were then rowed out of the estuary to await the Bristol bound steamer.

Once on board the vessel, Eliza shared a cabin with her escort and, in spite of the Padstow woman’s gloomy prediction, was given a meal at noon which proved to be her last meal of the day.

Soon after eight o’clock that evening the steamer berthed at a dock in the very heart of Bristol, where it was surrounded by the noise and bustle of one of the country’s busiest ports.

It was the first city Eliza had been to since leaving London and she found the activity going on about her intimidating, but there was little time to observe it in detail before she was bustled inside a closed police van and driven through the streets to the police headquarters, only a short distance from the docks.

Here she was locked in a large, communal cell which had only dank straw strewn on the floor on which to sleep with no bedding and a couple of wooden buckets to serve as toilets for a number of women, mainly thieves and drunkards, with whom she would be sharing the cell.

There was little sleep for Eliza that night. Not only were many of the women noisy and fractious, but their numbers were frequently supplemented throughout the night hours by a number of complaining prostitutes who had been arrested in the busy port, most having frequented the many dockside bars and inns that catered for sailors from all over the world.

The next morning, Eliza was taken from the cell by the two London policemen and without breakfast and having had no time to wash or otherwise tidy herself, she was driven to the railway station in the same police van that had conveyed her from the police station the previous evening. Here she and her escort boarded a London bound train.

Four hours later, thoroughly depressed by the sight of row
upon row of London houses backing on to the railway line, all of which seemed dirty and dreary in comparison to Cornwall, the train arrived at its destination and she was taken in a Hackney carriage to Bow Street police station.

Here Sergeant Grubb managed to obtain a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread for her but she barely had time to finish it before she was hustled before a stony-faced magistrate. After listening to the charges against her and speaking only to ask confirmation of her name, he remanded her in custody to Newgate, ‘In order that further enquiries might be made.’

She was escorted to the prison handcuffed to Sergeant Grubb and on the way asked him how long she was likely to remain in Newgate.

‘I shouldn’t think it’ll be too long,’ was the reply. ‘They’ll need to find the record of your conviction and sentence and have Constable Wicks formally identify you as being Eliza Brooks. Then I’ll give evidence about the manner of your escape from the ship taking you to Australia and your subsequent arrest, then you’ll be sent back to the Old Bailey for a judge to decide on whether you’ll be sent to Australia again for seven years, or whether he’ll add to it because you escaped from custody.’

‘It wasn’t exactly an “escape”,’ Eliza pointed out, close to tears, ‘I was got off the ship by the Mate. If anyone helped me “escape” it was him but you can’t do anything to him because he was drowned, and if it wasn’t for him so would I be. But perhaps it would have been better if I had been.’

‘Now don’t get thinking like that, girl. I know things look bad for you now, but while there’s life there’s hope, and I believe there are a lot of women sent to Australia who settle down and eventually make a good life there for themselves.’

‘I had made a good life for myself, in Cornwall and would have settled down to a good life with a kind husband! Anyway, what
you’re saying ain’t what I heard before, when I was on the hulk waiting for a ship to take me out there. According to the women who knew all about transportation it’s hell on the ship going out there and even worse once you’ve arrived.’

‘Well, as you know yourself, you can’t believe everything people tell you, especially the sort of women who are in prison.’

‘You mean the sort of women like
me
?’

Sergeant Grubb found he had no answer to Eliza’s embittered question and he remained silent.

That night, at home with his wife, soon after his young daughter had gone to bed, Sergeant Grubb spoke to his wife about Eliza, commenting that he felt very sorry for the predicament she was in, having spent the last three years making a good and honest life for herself.

During all the years they had been married, Sergeant Grubb’s wife had never known him to be so visibly moved over any of those he had arrested in the course of his duties.

‘She sounds as though she is a nice girl who has been really hard done by. Isn’t there anything you can do to help her?’

‘I can tell the court how she has spent the past three years and how highly she is praised by everyone who knows her, but that won’t alter the fact that she is under sentence of seven years transportation. The best she can hope for is that the sentence won’t be increased and I can’t guarantee that.’

‘It sounds very hard to me,’ his wife said. ‘It’s a pity she hasn’t got someone to speak up for her. I hate to think of a young girl like our Mary suffering in that way with no father, or anyone else, to speak up for her.’

‘So do I,’ Sergeant Grubb said unhappily. ‘It kept me awake last night worrying about it, but I can’t think of anything I can possibly do to help her.’

Eliza’s plight kept him awake again that night. Lying in bed
beside his sleeping wife, he went over the case in his mind, trying desperately hard to think of any way he might possibly be able to help her.

N
EWGATE PRISON HAD
not changed. It was still the place of Eliza’s nightmares and memories came flooding back as soon as the first iron-barred door slammed shut behind her and the smell of the place hit home in full force. It was the stench of unwashed bodies, primitive sanitation and the indefinable odour of human misery.

She had been travelling for two days without a wash or an opportunity to tidy herself to any degree, but her dress and personal appearance were still far superior to any of the women with whom she would be sharing a large, straw-strewn communal cell, and because of this she attracted unwanted attention.

A few of the women crowded around her, eyeing her up and down and one of them quipped, ‘Well look at this, they’re treating us as ladies at last and have brought in a maid to look after our every need. I think we’ll start off by having tea and biscuits, ducks, and mind you use the best china, we’re expecting guests.’

Her words brought forth a mixture of jeers and coarse laughter and one prisoner, big-busted and grossly overweight said, ‘I like those clothes you’re wearing, dearie, some of my men get a thrill out of seeing women wearing clothes like that. I’ve often wondered what they’d do if
I
was to dress myself up as a housemaid.’

Another of the women, carrying only marginally less weight than the one who had spoken to Eliza now said, ‘You try putting on what she’s wearing and your blokes will see more of you than they’ll enjoy seeing, because more than half of you’ll be hanging out.’

Her comment provoked more laughter and the first speaker turned on her angrily, ‘Are you saying I’m fat?’

‘It don’t matter whether I’m saying it or not, you
are
fat. Fat as a pregnant old sow.’

‘Why you…!’ The insulted woman launched her considerable weight at her insulter and they both fell to the floor scattering straw about them as they screamed obscenities, at the same time yanking out hair and throwing wild blows at each other.

The communal cell erupted in noise as the women convicts encouraged one or other of the combatants, the sound quickly spreading to other cells, some of whose occupants could see what was happening, others merely using it as an excuse to make a noise.

It was not long before warders had gathered in sufficient numbers to enter the cell safely with batons flailing and the participants were seized and dragged off to one of the prison’s ‘cold holes’ where they would remain for a few days in order to cool off.

The incident had unnerved Eliza, but at least her clothes were safe for the moment. One of the prisoners who had watched the antics of the two fighting women with quiet contempt now approached and asked Eliza, ‘Are you all right?’

When Eliza nodded, the woman said, ‘My name’s Grace, what’s yours?’

When she was told, Grace said, ‘We’re well rid of those two, they’re women of the worst type, selling themselves for the price of a gin in the alleyways behind the dockland ale-houses. One of them had the cheek to ask me if I would take her on when she got
out. I told her, someone like her would frighten
my
gentlemen away! Now you’re very different, Eliza, a girl like you could make a great deal of money in my establishment in Covent Garden, especially dressed up in a neat and clean maid’s uniform. You have the looks and the bearing that attracts men. With a little tuition from some of my girls you’d soon be attracting your own regulars. What are you in here for?’

Eliza had quickly realised this woman was a brothel keeper, but she was obviously of a class above the other occupants of the communal women’s cell who appeared to leave her alone. It would be as well to remain on a friendly footing with her if it were at all possible.

‘I was sentenced to seven years transportation for stealing from my employer, even though I only took what was owing to me in wages. That was three years ago, but the ship taking me was wrecked in a storm. Luckily – or so I thought at the time – I survived. I’ve spent the time since then working as a ladies’ maid, in Cornwall.’

‘What a
fascinating
story, my dear, but that means of course you will be sent off to complete your sentence.’

Eliza was aware the woman was disappointed that she would not be able to recruit her to entertain the men who frequented her ‘establishment’ but, anxious to keep her as an ally, she asked, ‘How long will you be in here?’

‘Only until one of my many influential men friends hears of my predicament and pays the fine imposed on me by one of the few magistrates in the area who is not one of my regular visitors.’

Looking speculatively at Eliza, Grace said, ‘I don’t suppose you have any influential friends able to make life easier for you while you are in here?’

Eliza shook her head, ‘All the friends I made are in Cornwall and that’s a long way from Newgate.’

‘I wouldn’t know, my dear, I have never found it necessary to
venture away from London and because of that I am familiar with all aspects of city life … even what goes on here, in this ghastly prison. I know the head warder and his little whims very well. If I explained them to you and informed him that you were willing to be nice to him, life in here could be far more pleasant for you – indeed, for both of us. What do you say?’

Despite her wish to keep this woman on her side, Eliza was unwilling to pay the price Grace was asking for her friendship. ‘It’s because I wouldn’t be nice to the husband of my employer that I was sentenced to transportation in the first place. I’m not likely to change the way I think just to make things a bit more comfortable here, in prison.’

Looking at Eliza disdainfully, Grace said, ‘Then more fool you. Every time you sit down you are sitting on a fortune, why not use it and make life easier for yourself?’

Angry now, Eliza threw caution to the wind, ‘If you are so good at giving good advice, what are you doing in here with all the rest of the women like me who’ve broken the law?’

‘I am here simply because I failed to pay enough to the policemen on the beat to close their eyes when they saw men coming to my house at all times of the day and night. One of them became greedy when I failed to pay what he asked and so he would stand right outside the door, watching the world go by. He frightened off those gentlemen to whom discretion is most important, with the result that my income fell off so alarmingly I had less to pay to those policemen who were more amenable. One of them reported me to his superior officers in a fit of pique and my establishment was raided. But why am I telling this to you? You have the chance to make things easier for both of us, my dear. If you are foolish enough to turn down such an opportunity then I am afraid you must accept the consequences.’

Eliza had very little sleep that night in Newgate prison. The communal cell was extremely crowded and included among their number were women who should have been committed to an asylum. One of these was a young woman who alternated between pleas to The Lord to take her, and shrieks of loud insane laughter.

Then, just as Eliza was dozing off in the early hours of the morning there was a stealthy movement before she felt the hands of someone searching her body, seeking anything that might prove to be of value.

Lashing out with her fist, she struck the unseen would-be robber in the face and had the satisfaction of hearing a grunt of pain, then the woman was gone but Eliza found she was unable to sleep for the remainder of the night.

In the morning one of a group of gipsy women who had been arrested under the Vagrancy Act sported a bruised eye and, confronting her, Eliza warned that if the actions of the previous night were repeated, this time she would ensure she had something heavy in her hand when she struck out.

Eliza hoped this would be the end of the incident but later, when a cauldron of soup was brought in as the main meal of the day, she found great difficulty pushing her way through the gipsies in order to reach the cauldron. She eventually succeeded, only to have the bowl of soup ‘accidently’ knocked from her hand as she returned with it to a place in the corner of the cell.

Eliza faced the prospect of going to bed hungry that night but, unexpectedly, Grace came and sat down on the straw beside her and produced bread and cheese. Handing it to her, she said, ‘Don’t ask where it came from, just accept that it’s from “an admirer”. See sense and not only will there be more to come but you might even be given a cell to yourself.’

Wolfing down bread and cheese quickly in case Grace should decide to take it back, Eliza said, ‘I’m grateful for the food, but I
told you, I’m in here because I refused to give a man what he wanted from me. Besides, before I was arrested again I had agreed to marry someone in Cornwall, a good man who would look after me properly.’

‘That was in Cornwall,’ Grace retorted, ‘but you’re never likely to meet up with him again. You’re in Newgate now and have upset that lot over there.’ She indicated the gipsies, ‘So if you stay here things can only get worse. When are you expecting to be taken before the judge?’

‘I don’t know, nobody has told me.’

‘Well think about what I’ve said. It’s entirely up to you whether you appear before him looking clean and tidy, creating a good impression, or stand in the dock dirty and unkempt, looking like one of them.’ Once again she jerked her head in the direction of the gipsies.

That night the hopelessness of her situation flooded over Eliza as never before and she cried silently for many of the hours of darkness. Fortunately, no one tried to rob her but, just in case, she kept a firm grip on the only thing of value that she possessed, the silver heart necklace that Tristram had bought for her at Camelford fair.

The thought of Tristram made her tears flow even faster and by morning, tired and defeated, she was in such a despondent frame of mind she was almost ready to agree to any proposal Grace might put to her, but the self-confessed brothel keeper seemed to be avoiding her.

Then, early that afternoon, Eliza received a surprise visit from the governor of the prison – and with him was Commander The Honourable Jory Kendall in full naval uniform!