Dilke (44 page)

The other Hill Street witnesses were more specific. There were six of these. The first was Mrs. Sarah Anne Thomas, who had been a friend of Mrs. Harvey's and had stayed with her in February, May and December, 1882. She had a distinct recollection of seeing Forster and Mrs. Crawford (who passed under the name of Captain and Mrs. Green
^[6]
) at Hill Street during the first and last of these visits. Mrs. Thomas's husband, John Thomas, signed a joint statutory declaration
with a Mrs. Mary Ballard, who had been housekeeper at 9, Hill Street in 1880 and 1881, which went back even farther. They said that they had seen Mrs. Crawford (or Miss Smith as she then was) at the house in April or May, 1881. A Mrs. Emily Hallett, who had been temporary housekeeper, testified in a similar form to her having come with Forster on several occasions in the winter of 1882-3.

“On one occasion,” Mrs. Hallett stated, “the lady did not keep her appointment, and while waiting for her Captain Forster told me that the lady was married to an old man who she did not like and that she was always after him, Captain Forster, not he after her as he had another lady who he liked better.”
⁶

Mrs. Winifred Barzettelli, also an employee at the house, made a declaration in roughly similar terms, relating to the same winter. She added that she thought Mrs. Crawford had “a very nice voice,” but “was a plain-looking woman with an ugly turned-up nose.” The last of this group of witnesses was Mrs. Susan Etheridge, who had replaced Mrs. Ballard as permanent housekeeper at the beginning of 1882. Her evidence was regarded as of particular value, because she made her declaration in St. Bartholemew's Hospital where she was dying of tuberculosis. Her statement began with a dramatic reference to her awareness of her rapidly approaching end—which did indeed occur within a few days. She testified to frequent visits by Captain Forster, accompanied sometimes by Mrs. Crawford and sometimes by other women, between February, 1882, and June, 1884. At times they came together as often as twice a week.

From the sum of these statements several significant details about the Hill Street arrangements emerged. The meetings there between Mrs. Crawford and Captain Forster normally took place between eleven and twelve in the mornings. They were known in consequence as “the early people.” They occupied two rooms while they were in the house, a sitting-room which led on to a bedroom. The curtains of the latter were always kept drawn, with the gaslight burning. Forster
paid a sovereign for each occasion on which he used the rooms.

The statements also brought out one other fact of importance. They involved not merely Mrs. Crawford but her sister, Mrs. Harrison. This sister, Helen, was four years older than Mrs. Crawford; she was married to Robert Harrison, a partner in the stockbroking firm of Hickens, Harrison and Co., and a brother of Frederic Harrison, the positivist writer; and she becomes from this point a key figure in the investigation of the case. She was mentioned in the declaration of Mrs. Thomas as having been at Hill Street in 1880 and 1881, but not with Forster. Mrs. Harvey, however, said that she had been there with Forster and also with Mrs. Crawford, all at the same time. Dilke stated that it was Mrs. Harrison who, in the autumn of 1886, first gave him the Hill Street address, and it was probably on the assumption that she was the originator of the connection that he wrote later to Chesson: “I happen to know that (Mrs. Crawford) took Forster there—i.e.,
she
was the
habitu
é of the house.”
⁷

Mrs. Harvey, in her statement, cast the net still more widely over members of the Smith family. She said that Mrs. Ashton Dilke used also to visit Hill Street—accompanied by Forster. Dilke, however, appended a note at the side of this section of the statement saying that he did not believe it, although he had also received information
via
Chamberlain that Mrs. Dilke had at one period been living abroad with an unspecified man.

The next piece of evidence relating to Forster and Mrs. Crawford came from Captain Ernest Martin, who had been an intimate friend of Forster's. Martin stated: “Forster used to boast of his conquests over women and frequently confided to me . . . various particulars in reference to intrigues he was carrying on with ladies married and single.
^[7]
He made no disguise of his illicit connection with Mrs. Harrison and spoke of her in contemptuous terms, and he mentioned Mrs. Donald
Crawford as having frequently compromised herself with him. . . .”
⁸
Martin was apparently sceptical of Forster's success, and entered into a curious arrangement by which, in order that he might be convinced, a telegram should be sent to him informing him when Forster was at Hill Street with Mrs. Crawford. He would then go and watch them leave. Mrs. Hallett, the temporary housekeeper at 9, Hill Street, confirmed the incident, saying that she had sent the telegram. In response to it Martin went to Hill Street and, between noon and one o'clock on May 7th, 1883, observed the departure of Forster and Mrs. Crawford. It should be stated that the value of Martin's evidence is diminished by the fact that, when he gave it, he had quarrelled with Forster, and, the latter claimed, had tried to blackmail him.

Another statement came from Catherine Ruddiman, who had been a parlour-maid in the service of the Crawfords at 3, Sydney Place in 1882. She had been subpoenaed as a witness for Crawford at the second trial, but Matthews had not called her. She stated that during 1882 there were frequent calls from both Forster and Robert Priestley (the “R.C.P.” of the diary). Dilke called on only one occasion. When Forster or Priestley were in the house she was told to say that Mrs. Crawford was not at home to any other caller. On the occasion of Dilke's visit she was not so instructed.

The next group of evidence came from Mrs. Harrison's servants. The principal one was George Ball, who had been her butler at 73, Cromwell Road, from November, 1879, to March, 1885, and who had appeared briefly in the witness-box at the first trial. He joined with his wife and George Reeves, Mrs. Harrison's footman, in giving written testimony that in the summer of 1882, when Mrs. Crawford had told her husband that she was going to stay with her sister at Cowes (and when there was no suggestion that she had been with Dilke) she had not in fact appeared there. Ball also testified that Mrs. Crawford had been acquainted with Forster as early as January, 1882, and that, during the early months of that year he and she had frequently called on Mrs. Harrison at the same
time. Mrs. Harrison, he believed, had first met Forster at a ball in Gloucestershire at the end of 1881.

George Ball, however, went much further in his testimony than this. He did not merely add to the already formidable pile of evidence that Mrs. Crawford had known Forster long before the date to which she had sworn in the witness-box. He also provided information about Mrs. Crawford's activities upon one of the specific dates which she had alleged against Dilke. This was February 13th, 1883, one of the only two occasions on which she said that she had spent the night at 76, Sloane Street. She had been free, she told the court, because she had returned from Scotland that morning, twenty-four hours in advance of her husband; and she had gone to Sloane Street, waited for Dilke until he had returned from addressing his constituents at the Kensington Town Hall, and stayed with him until 7-30 the following morning. Ball's testimony was as follows:

“I distinctly recollect that one night in February, 1883 (and on 13th February '83 to the best of my recollection and belief), Mrs. Crawford dined with Mrs. Harrison at 73 Cromwell Road about seven o'clock in the evening. I waited upon them at dinner and gathered from their conversation that Mrs. Crawford had just arrived from Scotland. Just before ten o'clock on that evening I was directed to call a hansom cab for Mrs. Crawford, which I did and handed her into it, at the same time asking her where I should tell the cabman to drive. She replied, ‘Straight on—I will tell him where to stop.' My curiosity was rather excited and I made a move as if to return to the house but instead of doing so I remained on the pavement kerb and distinctly heard Mrs. Crawford tell the cabman through the trap in the roof of the cab as it was pulling off from the door to drive to Earls Court Gardens. When she said this I was standing behind the back of the cab, which drove off in the direction of Earls Court.”
⁹

Ball added that Earls Court Gardens was a significant address to him because a messenger who had often brought notes from
Forster to Mrs. Harrison had told him that he (the messenger) kept a lodging-house there.

This statement obviously offered a whole new line of enquiry which the Dilke partisans were quick to follow up. They discovered a Mrs. Julia Medland who, with her daughter, of the same name, kept a lodging-house at 32, Earls Court Gardens. She recognised photographs of Forster, Mrs. Crawford (who had “a peculiarly loud voice”) and Mrs. Harrison, and linked them with a Mr. de Jersey,
^[8]
who, she said, had lodged with her from December, 1882, to February, 1883, and had occupied a front sitting-room on the first floor and a back bedroom on the second floor. Forster, Mrs. Medland said, used frequently to be in de Jersey's rooms, and they were on many occasions visited by Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Crawford. After de Jersey left the two sisters continued to visit a Mr. Stewart, who was another lodger in the house.

Mrs. Medland continued:

“I recollect on one particular occasion in the middle of February, 1883, Mr. de Jersey informed me that a friend of his who was a stranger in town was going to occupy his room for one night and would dine with him that evening. The ladies whom. I have identified as Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Crawford came to tea in the afternoon of the same day. About midnight the same night my door was opened by a latchkey by Mr. de Jersey's friend and I distinctly heard the rustle of a lady's dress ascending the stairs talking very loud to the gentleman who was accompanying her. I heard them enter Mr. de Jersey's bedroom and heard the door closed and both my daughter and myself heard their voices in conversation for a very long time during the night. At about six o'clock in the morning I heard the bedroom door open and I heard both the lady and the gentleman descend the stairs. I heard the front door closed after the lady and the gentleman
returned to his room and remained there until about two o'clock in the afternoon, and then he sent down to see if there was any breakfast for him. My daughter informed him that no breakfast was provided for him. I saw him leave the house about two o'clock in the afternoon and I recognise him as the same gentleman whose photograph is now produced and shown to me. . . .”
¹⁰

This story was fully corroborated by Mrs. Medland's daughter. It was also to some extent supported by a Mrs. Castell, who kept another lodging-house at 28, Earls Court Gardens, and made a signed declaration that Forster engaged a room at her house for the night, but did not occupy it, returning in the middle of the following day in evening clothes and without an overcoat.

Unfortunately, however, from the point of view of neatness at least, Mrs. Medland's statement cannot be accepted in its exact form. C. J. C. Pridham, a solicitor who was in charge of this part of the enquiry, wrote to Dilke in 1891 to say that Forster was in fact much better known at the Medlands' house than the statement implies. He lodged there frequently when on leave, and he merely took a room at No. 28 in order to change because the house was full that evening. Later Miss Medland left to stay with relatives at Acton so that a room might be freed for Forster and his guest. She and her mother were thus much more privy to what was going on than they admitted. “This is what the Medlands are ashamed of,” Pridham wrote. But their evidence was nevertheless substantially true, he believed.

A further element of confusion was provided by Mrs. Harrison who, Dilke noted, “positively denies that Forster lodged in Earls Court Gardens at any time, and does so with so much vehemence, while admitting her own adultery with him both at Hill Street and at the British Hotel in Jermyn Street, that there seems to be some strong motive in the denial.”
¹¹
Whatever the motive there is no indication that it was ever discovered.

This completes the evidence touching on Mrs. Crawford's
relations with Forster. It should perhaps be noted that the dates of his leaves from the Curragh, where he was in charge of the gymnasium in 1882-3, fit in well enough with the dates mentioned. In 1882 he was on leave from February 6th to 28th, and from July 7th to 30th (the time of the assumed Cowes visit); in 1883 he was on leave from February 1st to March 9th.

The next section of subsequently accumulated evidence concerned Mrs. Crawford's relations with men other than Forster, and was of a much more tenuous nature. The most important figure was Warner. He was traced with difficulty and found to be in practice as a doctor at 140, Fulham Road. He was described as very good-looking, lately married to a rich wife, and having previously “led a fast life.” No information was apparently forthcoming from him. He had been a student at St. George's Hospital in 1882, and had come into contact with Mrs. Harrison there, and through her with Mrs. Crawford. Mrs. Harrison and to a lesser extent Mrs. Crawford had been frequenting the hospital because Robert Harrison, as a result of a riding accident in Hyde Park, had been a patient there for nearly two months. It will be remembered that the first of the anonymous letters received by Crawford, which ended with the phrase “beware of the member for Chelsea,” had referred also to the flirtations which his wife and her sister were carrying on with students at the hospital. Crawford in his evidence at the first trial said that he received this letter while Harrison was a patient there, but that he thought the date was March or early April. Records showed, however, that Harrison had in fact left the hospital on February 23rd, the date of Mrs. Crawford's alleged first seduction by Dilke. This was thought to be of importance because it showed, first, that Mrs. Crawford's relations with Warner must have begun before February 23rd, and second, that the reference to “the member for Chelsea” could have been at most no more than a prophecy.