Chapter 16. William Fairchild

It was with a heavy heart that I met Lucy the following day to report this latest news. I knew how much she had come to admire Ellen for her vision, her self-belief, her sheer courage! Now this sudden, catastrophic end to her career.

I was unsure how much to tell my love. The sheer violence was bad enough, but the calculating manner in which it was dealt made the whole thing so much worse. Lucy is a strong young woman, but was there any real need to burden her with all the terrible details? A woman of her class leads a sheltered life. How far should I go in breaking through those illusions? Many men I know would see it as a form of respect to hide the details from her, to protect her from the savagery of this world. But I was not many men, nor is Lucy the kind of girl such people would associate with. Instead I told myself to judge from her manner and reaction to the news, how far I should go.

She had predicted this. ‘Some crime ...’ she said not long ago. At the time I thought she was drunk on her stories, yet she had seen more than I had. Could it be - is it possible - that stories, in some strange, sideways way, can tell us truths that facts are blind to? For a moment I was so struck by this idea that I thought - what a discovery for science that would be! But then reality returned and I realised that it was exactly through myth and make-up that Mankind had struggled so long in dark ignorance to understand the world around them.

We cannot dismiss intuition. If only we could rely on it!

I met Lucy in town that day, and asked her to come with me to my chambers. She looked shocked, of course, but agreed once I had reassured her my that aim was not intimate. We went in secret, first myself then Lucy following, as my landlady would not have been at all happy to see an unaccompanied young lady visiting in rooms let to a bachelor.

My intentions were wholly pure. The news I had to convey was of a kind that could not be made in public, but nor could they be made at her parent’s home, where her aunt, Betsy, who I have mentioned before, was staying. In the streets of London, privacy is hard to find, and, I was unsure how upset Lucy would be. I felt she deserved some privacy.

Inside she looked around - curious, I think, about what a bachelor’s home would look like. Then she sat down in the chair I indicated, and I began my report - unsure at this time, how far I should go in telling her.

She took it well at first, sitting very upright in her chair as I spoke, very still, holding her hands in her lap. I was encouraged to go on. Her hand went to her mouth when I mentioned the iron bar. She hid her face behind her hands when I told that Ellen was held down, and when I said that she was beaten with it, she waved her hands at me to stop. It was enough.

I went to comfort her. She put her arms around my neck and trembled violently, and then she said, ‘Is there more?’

‘I think that’s enough, now, Lucy, don’t you?’

‘No, William, I do not. I want to know everything that happened. All of it, please.’

It was against my better judgement and I said so, but she would not have it. I held out, but this was the arrangement of our engagement - that I treat her, not as a man, of course, but as a person in her own right, who was able and willing to make her own decisions. So I told her of the nine blows.

There were tears then, many of them, and not all of them Lucy’s, let me admit that now. She shook so violently that I was scared for her, but in a few minutes she pulled herself together and thanked me for not sparing her. We took a glass of water and some brandy. Lucy went to clean her tear-stained face at my dresser. Then we sat a while longer, talking chit-chat about this and that, waiting for the shock to recede, before slowly moving on to other matters.

We had more to discuss that day, but after the ordeal of going through the destruction of poor Ellen Sikes, we both felt in need of a change of scenery. So we went out to walk the streets, down to the Regent’s Park. It was a fine day in late spring. The weather had been still and warm for over a week, the blossom was out.. Some men were scything the grass short in places ... the smell of the cut grass, the rhythmical march of the scything men ... the sun, Lucy on my arm. What a contrast to the story we had been talking about indoors!

We walked. We found a coffee stall by the water and took tea. Lucy pronounced herself still shocked and in need of more brandy, but I pronounced the day too sweet for brandy - it had to be champagne! After all, I had drunk champagne in Kentish Town with Mrs Swindells and survived, I surely owed at least as much to my fiancé. We ordered a half bottle. We drank; we laughed, the horrors of just an hour ago forgotten. The wine disappeared; we had another half. Lucy became a tipsy and made a confession.

‘You know William,’ she said. ‘When you asked me to come with you to your rooms, and explained that you were not planning on any intimacies ... I have to admit that I was relieved, of course. But ... oh, I was disappointed as well. Just a part of me. Not the sensible part, I know. But the passionate part of me ...’

Here she became embarrassed and hid her nose in her glass.

‘Oh, didn’t I think of that? Didn’t I just!’ I exclaimed.

We both smiled and laughed. But suddenly the laughter died on our lips. Our eyes met - sparkling, I have no doubt, by the same desire.

‘It’s such a long wait,’ she murmured.

Lucy suddenly became confused and spilled her glass. I re-filled it with mine. She said that she now understood what chaperones were for. We both rose ...