The Disgrace of Kitty Grey (20 page)

Because kindly Mr Holloway (I had, of course, completely reversed my previous opinion of him) was paying one shilling a day to the governor's office I was able to have a few little luxuries in gaol. I smile at calling them such, for they were only what everyone down to the lowliest bootboy had as a matter of course in Bridgeford Hall: a thin, straw mattress to sleep on, milk to drink and a little cooked meat at dinner time. I had also obtained a blanket which, though grubby and worn, kept off the draught from the barred window above us and, with this blanket over and the straw mattress under, I sometimes managed to get a few hours' uninterrupted sleep at night.

Women were allowed outside for half an hour a day to exercise, but few took up this privilege, for there was a men's ward next to our walking area and, by climbing up their wall, they could see us and subject us to any amount of abuse and foul language, spitting and catcalling. Besides, it was bitterly cold outside now and, so a popular story had it, a girl had walked around the perimeter of the wall but twice and got frostbite, following which she lost all her fingers. When I heard that I spread my hands and looked at them hard: at the grime now etching the lines on my palms, and the dirt under my nails. My hands had once been pale and soft, smooth as a lady's hands because of the buttermilk rubbed into them, but now they were as filthy and stained as those of a street child. At least I had the use of them, though; if I lost them to frostbite I'd never be able to milk a cow again! This thought brought tears to my eyes (indeed, they were never far away) and I quickly sought out Betsy and occupied myself teaching her and Robyn their letters, writing in the dust on the floor with a stick.

 

About ten days after I'd arrived, the women in my ward were greatly cheered to have a visit from a wealthy society lady by the name of Mrs Elizabeth Fry. She arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and at first we thought she was one of the usual visitors who were allowed in twice a week for the sport of it. They would arrive with a party of friends and walk about with a kerchief to their noses, exclaiming at the smell and conditions and looking at us with horror, then go home to their elegant houses and forget about us. She was not of this ilk, however.

Betsy met her first. She was playing with Robyn and some other children – there were nine altogether in our ward – when she ran over to tell me that a grand lady had arrived on her own.

‘A very grand lady!' she reported. ‘The turnkey didn't want her to come in without an escort because he said that the women would set about her and steal her fine things.'

‘Did he indeed?'

‘He wanted her to take off her jewellery and watch at the gate, but she wouldn't.'

‘And then what?'

‘Now she is talking to the children and admiring the babies.'

‘Then go back quickly in case she is giving something away!' I said, for occasionally one of the society ladies who visited would give the children a sweetmeat or piece of gingerbread.

This lady stayed on, talking earnestly to several of the girls, and after a short while curiosity got the better of us and Martha and I went over to her. She spoke to us very gently and politely (which we were not at all used to in there), asking us about our backgrounds and wanting to know how we came to be in the gaol, which she called an abode of misery and despair.

‘But I am shocked to see many of you wearing men's clothes,' she said when we had briefly told her our stories. ‘It looks very brutal and indelicate and I fear may make a woman forget the gentler part of her nature.'

‘These clothes are all we have, madam,' several of us replied.

‘Then I shall send you in some gowns that I've been collecting,' she said. There was a stir of excitement at this. ‘And I will take down the ages of the children so that they may have clean clothing, too.'

We all curtseyed our thanks, and I think each one of us was trying to outdo the other in gentility, so that Mrs Fry might remember us in particular.

‘Is there anything else you wish for?' she asked.

One woman spoke of the hatefulness of having nowhere to wash ourselves, another said they would like to eat meat a little more often, and I ventured to say that if something could be supplied for the children to play with – even just a ball or some chalks – then that would give them something to amuse themselves with through the long days.

Mrs Fry smiled at me. ‘You have a child here?'

I nodded and pointed to Betsy, doing so without any embarrassment, for I'd realised that no one else there cared a ha'penny button whether she was my own child or not.

‘As a matter of fact, I am thinking of starting a little school,' Mrs Fry said. ‘I have a friend who's a governess and she is willing to come in three times a week and give lessons to the children. This will, perhaps, enable them to have a better start in life.'

We all expressed our pleasure at this, and some of the other women asked if they could also attend the classes, as they could neither read nor write and wanted to learn.

The great lady seemed pleased. ‘I am gratified by your response,' she said in her gentle voice. ‘Once the classes for children are established, I intend to start Bible-reading classes and teach needlework, for I am of the opinion that habits of order, industry and sobriety will improve things for everyone.'

‘But they'll surely never permit classes,' said Mrs Goodwin, who by then had also joined us.

‘I think they will,' Mrs Fry said with a smile. She was very beautifully dressed with a fur muff and matching bonnet, and she rose and adjusted this latter as she spoke. ‘It has always seemed to me that if people are treated like animals then they will behave like animals, but if they are permitted to go about their lives with dignity, then a great good will come of it.'

So saying, she touched the hands of those gathered about her (not even looking at the grime upon them!) and called a turnkey to unlock the gate, leaving us to marvel at the promises she'd made and the thought that someone seemed to care about our welfare. Only a hardened few said that nothing would come of it, that do-gooders had visited before and made promises about food, mattresses and the like which had never been kept.

 

In the days following we talked of little else but the promised clothes. They had still not arrived, however, when I received a message to say that my trial was to take place the next morning, and would be the tenth to be heard that day. Martha was very cast down by this news; firstly at the thought of Betsy and me going from the gaol (for Betsy and Robyn had become the best of friends) and also because she herself had been held in prison for several months and, as she frequently said, her newborn babe had never yet breathed the fresh air of freedom. The several witnesses to her crime having disappeared, she was hoping that a prison official would take up her case and petition for her release.

Mrs Goodwin took it upon herself to advise me on my court appearance. ‘You must look as meek and demure as possible,' she said. ‘Pay particular attention to the judge. Be sure to call him “Your Honour” and curtsey every time you address him.'

I nodded, already terrified. I was anxious to get my court appearance over with, of course, but the thought of any punishment alarmed me very much. I was not a brave person and the stocks, the pillory, the lash all seemed equally terrible. I was not allowing myself to think, even for one moment, about the ultimate penalty. Surely, if there was any justice in the world, that would not be allowed to happen?

 

The following morning manacles were put back on my legs and I was chained with about twelve other prisoners, both men and women. Together we shuffled in a line to the Old Bailey, a forbidding building right next to the prison, separated from it by a passageway with high brick walls, where we were to stand trial.

Mrs Goodwin had lent me an extra shawl (her best one, she emphasised, stolen some years ago from an exclusive draper's in Paradise Row) and I had tied it around my head, for the weather was bitterly cold and even the few breaths I took 'twixt gaol and courthouse caught painfully at the back of my throat. I was feeling very down, both because I feared what sort of sentence I would receive, and also because I had spent several distressing moments with Betsy clinging to me, sobbing and asking me not to go. I had promised her that I would return as soon as I could, and in the meantime entrusted her to Martha's care.

There was a little crowd waiting outside the Old Bailey to watch the arrival of the day's prisoners, and I believe it was then, blinking around me in the daylight, that I felt at my very worst and most degraded. I looked, I knew, like a common beggar, for I was dressed in ill-matched bits and pieces, with filthy, knotted hair and a grimy face, and did not need the little group of society people standing there in their furs and velvets to make me feel any worse.

We prisoners entered a type of waiting room, which turned out to be just below the court itself, and then came a long wait during which, being occupied by our own thoughts, none of us spoke a word to each other (saving a madman with us who said, over and over again, ‘Jack's a pretty boy!' in the manner of a parrot). One by one, each member of our party had their shackles knocked off and went up the wooden ladder into the court, and – from listening hard – I heard each of them addressed in a commanding voice by someone I took to be the judge. Twice I heard laughter: once when the madman had to answer a charge of burglary and would say no more than his parrot phrase, and once when a girl who had been chained next to me, by the name of Sarah, was accused of being a pickpocket, and admitted that she had been arrested twenty-six times before. I did not hear all the sentences given, only that Sarah was to be transported for twenty years, one man was to be branded, and the madman told he would be sent to Bethlem Royal Hospital for the rest of his life.

It was with great trepidation that I finally heard my name called. My shackles were removed and I was prodded up the ladder. Trembling, holding on to a rail to steady myself, I found I was standing in a wooden box affair within a vast church-like space. Alongside were polished wooden benches holding legal men in black and, on the first floor, a public gallery containing the type of befurred members of society who had gathered to stare at us outside. The fug of tobacco hung in the air and there were bowls of vinegar placed about, which (Mrs Goodwin had already told me) were precautions against gaol fever being passed from prison to court.

A dark-gowned clerk of the court told me to remove the scarf from around my head and instructed me to turn in a certain direction. I found out later that this was so that the daylight from a mirrored reflector could fall on my face and allow the court to see my expression, thus helping them decide whether I was guilty or not.

I realised I was facing the judge, a burly figure in robes and a lavish wig, and, remembering Mrs Goodwin's words, I sank into a deep curtsey.

A different clerk asked my name and then my address and, not knowing what to say, I answered that I lived in Newgate Prison. This provoked some laughter, so I amended it to Bridgeford Hall, in the village of Bridgeford, Devonshire.

‘You are accused of arson,' the clerk said, ‘in that you did feloniously and wickedly set fire to a room in a lodging house belonging to Daniel Burroughs, Esquire. How do you plead?'

‘Not guilty, Your Honour,' I said.

‘And what is your defence?'

‘I
did
set fire to an old chair . . .'

There was a murmur in the court.

‘. . . but it was only in the fireplace, Your Honour, whereas
arson
makes it sound as if I had lit up the very house. I had to light a fire because my child was sick and very cold and I was frightened for her life.'

‘Most people use coal on their fires, not chairs,' the judge remarked, and there was some laughter at this.

‘I did not have the money for coal,' I said clearly. ‘I bought some firewood, but it burned quickly and I did not dare leave her to go out and buy more.' The judge did not comment so I added, ‘It was a very old chair, Your Honour – not worth more than a few coppers.'

‘It was a good and sturdy chair!' came an objection from elsewhere, and I looked to see my enemy, the horrid Mr Burroughs, standing behind a table on the courtroom floor.

‘If it had been sturdy, Your Honour, then I could not have broken it up so easily,' I said very politely.

The judge looked down at the papers before him. ‘Sturdy or no, you should not have burned it, for it didn't belong to you.' He looked over towards one of the court clerks. ‘Is there anything against this girl? Has she any previous convictions?'

‘I have found nothing, Your Honour,' said the clerk. ‘There was some business about chickens, but it seems that Mr Burroughs cannot prove he ever had any.'

‘Anything else?'

‘She is unmarried and has a child,' said the clerk, ‘so her morality is in doubt.'

The judge studied me. ‘You have a child?'

I hesitated, then answered, ‘Yes, I have, Your Honour.'

He shook his head. ‘You have embarked on a life of vice at a very young age.'

‘Indeed! 'Tis a disgusting and immoral state of affairs!' Mr Burroughs barked.