on it for years.’
‘I think you’re confusing us with crime writers.’
Celia smiled, but the sharpness of the rebuke was not lost on Josephine. ‘You don’t approve?’
‘Of your writing about this for pleasure? It depends how you do it, I suppose, but I do question why someone would choose to put herself through those emotions if she doesn’t have to—and why somebody would read about it to be entertained. Can I ask why you’re doing it?’
Josephine thought carefully before she answered. ‘I’ve never forgotten that night at Anstey,’ she said eventually. ‘When you broke the news to us, it was such a shock. We didn’t see anything, of course, and you saved us from the details of how Elizabeth must have suffered, but that made her death all the more powerful in our imaginations. You know how fanciful girls of that age can be and we were at a vulnerable time in our lives, worrying about our futures—I suppose we all felt the poignancy of how easily that future could be snuffed out. I remember being intrigued by what her mother must have been like and what drove her to do what she did. It wasn’t that long ago, and yet it seemed like a crime from a different age, something that Dickens would write about but not something we could reach out and touch in our own memories.’
Celia nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it must have felt very alien to a group of modern young women.’
‘And of course we never found out who discovered Elizabeth’s secret and taunted her with the past, so there was a mystery there, something that we could speculate about for hours even though it was never likely to be solved. I spent days afterwards trying to put myself in that poor girl’s position, wondering about my own past and what I would find too terrible to live with.’
‘And?’
‘I don’t think shame would make me do it, if I’m honest, but I can understand how terrible it must be if you suspect you might be disposed to that sort of violence somewhere in your genes. Perhaps she thought there was a deep-seated cruelty in her which made her afraid of her own future—the sins of the mothers, and all that. It could be why she chose to end her life in that way—she thought her mother’s fate might one day be hers, so she took the punishment into her own hands.’ She smiled defensively. ‘Or perhaps that’s still the imagination of an eighteen- year-old talking.’
‘No, I think there’s something in that,’ Celia said seriously. ‘You know, Sach worried about her daughter all the time she was in prison. It’s ironic when you think about how callously she dealt with other people’s children, and I suppose it shows how far she was able to distance herself from what she was doing, but she was forever fretting about whether her husband would remember to save for the child’s new boots or what she’d be told about her mother when she was older. And she was right to worry—the child’s father washed his hands of everything the minute the trial was over. During those last few days, she begged me to make sure that Elizabeth was looked after and it seemed such a small thing to promise at the time. I never dreamt that I’d let them both down so badly.’
‘You can’t keep blaming yourself,’ Josephine said gently. ‘We were all at fault to some extent. Elizabeth was a hard girl to like—she could be sly and manipulative—but if we’d tried harder to make her feel at home, then perhaps she’d have felt able to cope with what she found out about her mother. She needed a friend, and that wasn’t your fault.’
‘Perhaps,’ Celia said, unconvinced.
‘Had you kept in touch with her regularly while she was growing up?’
‘Not her directly, but I contacted her adoptive parents from time to time and kept an eye on her education— she was a bright girl, for all her faults. And I arranged for her to come to Anstey, of course. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that—apart from anything else, it wasn’t fair on all of you who worked so hard to earn a place in the proper way. But I honestly believed it would be the making of her.’
‘And perhaps it would have been if she’d had time to make the most of the opportunity. But someone else denied her that, not you.’
‘Even so, I should at least have got to the bottom of who drove her to it.’
‘What good would that really have done? It wouldn’t have changed anything for Elizabeth, and I’m sure whoever it was never meant things to go that far—she’s had to live with that, and it’s probably worse than any punishment you could have dished out. Look, I shouldn’t even be asking you about this,’ Josephine added, genuinely sorry. ‘It’s insensitive of me to rake over the past and expect you to fill in the gaps for the sake of curiosity and entertainment.’
‘It’s painful, certainly, and I do still feel guilty. Not just about Elizabeth, but about her mother. That execution changed my life for the better, and it seems so wrong to profit by someone’s death.’
‘Profit in what way?’
‘It’s hard to explain, but the thing that really stands out for me about that terrible morning was the moment when we got to the execution chamber. You’re absolutely right in your description of Sach’s mental state—she was so frightened that she could barely stand, but the prison doctor was waiting at the door and that seemed to give her strength. She recovered for a moment—only very briefly, but long enough to thank him for the kindness he’d shown her. I’ll never forget it. Sach and Walters both called themselves nurses—certainly Sach was a qualified midwife—and yet they took the lives of those innocent babies in the most cold-blooded way imaginable, and made capital out of desperate women who came to them for help because society drove them to it. That doctor was a fine medical man, and those two women had made a mockery of his profession. He could have been forgiven for refusing them any humanity at all, but he didn’t. He put his hand on her shoulder and told her to be strong, and that struck me as such a remarkably compassionate thing to do.’ She laughed nervously, and Josephine got the impression that she was embarrassed at having dropped her guard quite so readily. ‘I suppose I’ve been trying to live up to it ever since.’
‘Did that make you decide to take up nursing?’
‘To go back to it, yes. I’d already done some training before I went into the prison service, and I spent some time on the hospital ward before I left. Believe me—if you ever need a salutary reminder to stay on the right side of the law, that’s the place to be. Those women have no shred of privacy: they’re always under the eagle eye of a nurse, and the more infamous ones are subjected to intolerable scrutiny from other prisoners. You can imagine the sort of atmosphere that’s created when women like that are forced together.’
‘Do I have to imagine it?’ Josephine asked drily, looking around at the other tables.
Celia laughed. ‘Trust me—the food’s better here. Seriously though—we’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but sometimes I wonder. How can anyone prepare for an ordeal in court under those circumstances?’
‘Is there anyone else from the prison who might be willing to talk to me? What about the doctor?’
‘He died in the war, I believe,’ Celia said, ‘and I can’t think of anyone else off the top of my head. I kept in touch with Ethel Stuke—the other warder—for a while, but she was killed in a Zeppelin raid in 1915. Billington might be about still, I suppose, but God knows where—he was only hangman for a few more years. I’ve no idea what happened to the chaplain, but he was an elderly man even then. The best I can offer you is Mary Size—do you know her?’
‘No.’
‘She’s the present deputy governor, and she’s done some remarkable things for Holloway and for prisons in general. She’s also a member here, so I’d be happy to introduce you. Sach and Walters were long before her time, but she could talk to you generally about prison life if that would help.’
‘I’m sure it would—thank you. What about their families, though? You mentioned Sach’s husband?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know how you’d find him—assuming he’s still alive of course.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Walters had two nieces—they came to visit her several times, but I can’t remember what their names were and I’m not sure how much they could tell you, even if you traced them. She didn’t strike me as a family woman.’
‘And the trial? There must have been witnesses?’
‘Again, that’s something you’d have to look up. It’s all so long ago now, Josephine, and I start to feel like a very old woman when I think about everything that’s happened in between. It’s hard to look back at the beginning of your career when you find yourself too near the end—you’ll understand that one day.’
Feeling a little patronised, Josephine made a note of Walters’s nieces and finished her drink. ‘I’ve got a lot more newspaper reports to look at,’ she said, gathering up her papers. ‘And if the worst comes to the worst, I’ll call in a few favours from the police.’ Celia raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘One of my closest friends is an inspector at the Yard, and God knows I’ve helped him often enough. No point in having police connections if you don’t use them.’
