The Great Train Robbery (13 page)

The presumed intellectual inferiority of the female was reinforced by her education, and many well-bred women probably were the simpering, tittering, pathologically delicate fools that populate the pages of Victorian novels. Men could not expect to share much with their wives. Mandell Creighton wrote that he found “ladies in general very unsatisfactory mental food; they seem to have no particular thoughts or ideas, and though for a time it is flattering to one’s vanity to think one may teach them some, it palls after a while. Of course at a certain age, when you have a house and so on, you get a wife as part of its furniture, and find her a very comfortable institution; but I doubt greatly whether there were ever many men who had thoughts worth recounting, who told these thoughts to their wives at first, or who expected them to appreciate them.”

There is good evidence that both sexes were bored silly by this arrangement. Women, stranded in their vast, servant-filled households, dealt with their frustrations in spectacular displays of hysterical neurosis: they suffered loss of hearing, speech, and sight; they had choking fits, fainting spells, loss of appetite, and even loss of memory. In the midst of a seizure they might make copulating movements or writhe in such arcing spasms that their heads would touch their heels. All
these bizarre symptoms, of course, only reinforced the general notion of the frailty of the female sex.

Frustrated men had another option, and that was recourse to prostitutes, who were often lively, gay, witty—indeed, all the things it was inconceivable for a woman to be. On a simpler level, men found prostitutes agreeable because they could, in their company, discard the strained formalities of polite society and relax in an atmosphere of “unbuttoned easiness.” This freedom from restraints was at least as important as the availability of sexual outlets
per se
, and it is probably this appeal that gave the institution such a broad base within society and allowed prostitutes to intrude boldly into acceptable arenas of Victorian society, such as Rotten Row.

Beginning in late September, 1854, Edward Pierce began to meet Miss Elizabeth Trent on riding excursions in Rotten Row. The first encounter was apparently accidental but later, by a sort of unstated agreement, they occurred with regularity.

Elizabeth Trent’s life began to form itself around these afternoon meetings; she spent all morning preparing for them, and all evening discussing them; her friends complained that she talked incessantly of Edward; her father complained of his daughter’s insatiable demand for new dresses. She seemed, he said, “to require
as a necessity
a new garment every day, and she would prefer two.”

The unattractive young woman apparently never thought it strange that Mr. Pierce should single her out from among the throng of stunning beauties in Rotten Row; she was completely captivated by his attentions. At the trial, Pierce summarized their conversations as “light and trivial,” and recounted only one in detail.

This occurred sometime in the month of October, 1854. It was a time of political upheaval and military scandal; the nation had suffered a severe blow to its
self-esteem. The Crimean War was turning into a disaster. When it began, J. B. Priestley notes, “the upper classes welcomed the war as a glorified large-scale picnic in some remote and romantic place. It was almost as if the Black Sea had been opened to tourism. Wealthy officers like Lord Cardigan decided to take their yachts. Some commanders’ wives insisted upon going along, accompanied by their personal maids. Various civilians cancelled their holidays elsewhere to follow the army and see the sport.”

The sport quickly became a debacle. The British troops were badly trained, badly supplied, and ineptly led. Lord Raglan, the military commander, was sixty-five and “old for his age.” Raglan often seemed to think he was still fighting Waterloo, and referred to the enemy as “the French,” although the French were now his allies. On one occasion he was so confused that he took up an observation post behind the Russian enemy lines. The atmosphere of “aged chaos” deepened, and by the middle of the summer even the wives of officers were writing home to say that “nobody appears to have the least idea what they are about.”

By October, this ineptitude culminated in Lord Cardigan’s charge of the Light Brigade, a spectacular feat of heroism which decimated three-quarters of his forces in a successful effort to capture the wrong battery of enemy guns.

Clearly the picnic was over, and nearly all upper-class Englishmen were profoundly concerned. The names of Cardigan, Raglan, and Lucan were on everyone’s lips. But on that warm October afternoon in Hyde Park, Mr. Pierce gently guided Elizabeth Trent into a conversation about her father.

“He was most fearfully nervous this morning,” she said.

“Indeed?” Pierce said, trotting alongside her.

“He is nervous every morning when he must send the
gold shipments to the Crimea. He is a different man from the very moment he arises. He is distant and preoccupied in the extreme.”

“I am certain he bears a heavy responsibility,” Pierce said.

“So heavy, I fear he may take to excessive drink,” Elizabeth said, and laughed a little.

“I pray you exaggerate, Madam.”

“Well, he acts strangely, and no mistake. You know he is entirely opposed to the consumption of any alcohol before nightfall.”

“I do, and most sensible, too.”

“Well,” Elizabeth Trent continued, “I suspect him of breaking his own regulation, for each morning of the shipments he goes alone to the wine cellar, with no servants to accompany him or to hold the gas lanterns. He is insistent upon going alone. Many times my stepmother has chided him that he may stumble or suffer some misfortune on the steps to the basement. But he will have none of her entreaties. And he spends some time in the cellar, and then emerges, and makes his journey to the bank.”

“I think,” Pierce said, “that he merely checks the cellar for some ordinary purpose. Is that not logical?”

“No, indeed,” Elizabeth said, “for at all times he relies upon my stepmother to deal in the stocking and care of the cellar, and the decanting of wines before dinners, and such matters.”

“Then his manner is most peculiar. I trust,” Pierce said gravely, “that his responsibilities are not placing an overgreat burden upon his nervous system.”

“I trust,” the daughter answered, with a sigh. “Is it not a lovely day?”

“Lovely,” Pierce agreed. “Unspeakably lovely, but no more lovely than you.”

Elizabeth Trent tittered, and replied that he was a
bold rogue to flatter her so openly. “One might even suspect an ulterior motive,” she said, laughing.

“Heavens, no,” Pierce said, and to further reassure her he placed his hand lightly, and briefly, over hers.

“I am so happy,” she said.

“And I am happy with you,” Pierce said, and this was true, for he now knew the location of all four keys.

Mr. Henry Fowler, seated in a dark recess of the tap-room at the lunch hour, showed every sign of agitation. He bit his lip, he twisted his glass in his hands, and he could hardly bring himself to look into the eyes of his friend Edward Pierce. “I do not know how to begin,” he said. “It is a most embarrassing circumstance.”

“You are assured of my fullest confidence,” Pierce said, raising his glass.

“I thank you,” Fowler said. “You see,” he began, then faltered. “You see, it is”—he broke off, and shook his head—“most dreadfully embarrassing.”

“Then speak of it forthrightly,” Pierce advised, “as one man to another.”

Fowler gulped his drink, and set the glass back on the table with a sharp clink. “Very well. Plainly, the long and the short of it is that I have the French malady.”

“Oh, dear,” Pierce said.

“I fear I have overindulged,” said Fowler sadly, “and now I must pay the price. It is altogether most wretched and vexing.” In those days, venereal disease was thought to be the consequence of sexual overactivity. There were few cures, and fewer doctors willing to treat a patient with the illness. Most hospitals made no provision for gonorrhea and syphilis at all. A respectable man who contracted these diseases became an easy target for blackmail; thus Mr. Fowler’s reticence.

“How may I help you?” Pierce asked, already knowing the answer.

“I maintained the hope—not falsely, I pray—that as a bachelor, you might have knowledge—ah, that you might make an introduction on my behalf to a fresh girl, a country girl.”

Pierce frowned. “It is no longer so easy as it once was.”

“I know that, I know that,” Fowler said, his voice rising heatedly. He checked himself, and spoke more quietly. “I understand the difficulty. But I was hoping …”

Pierce nodded. “There is a woman in the Haymarket,” he said, “who often has a fresh or two. I can make discreet inquiries.”

“Oh,
please
,” said Mr. Fowler, his voice tremulous. And he added, “It is most painful.”

“All I can do is inquire,” Pierce said.

“I should be forever in your debt,” Mr. Fowler said. “It is most painful.”

“I shall inquire,” Pierce said. “You may expect a communication from me in a day or so. In the meanwhile, do not lose cheer.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Fowler said, and called for another drink.

“It may be expensive,” Pierce warned.

“Damn the expense, man. I swear I will pay anything!” Then he seemed to reconsider this comment. “How much do you suppose?”

“A hundred guineas, if one is to be assured of a true fresh.”

“A hundred guineas?” He looked unhappy.

“Indeed, and only if I am fortunate enough to strike a favorable bargain. They are much in demand, you know.”

“Well, then, it shall be,” Mr. Fowler said, gulping another drink. “Whatever it is, it shall be.”

*  *  *

Two days later, Mr. Fowler received by the newly instituted penny post a letter addressed to him at his offices at the Huddleston & Bradford Bank. Mr. Fowler was much reassured by the excellent quality of the stationery, and the fine penmanship displayed by the unmistakably feminine hand.