Arthur & George (26 page)

“Portland is in a most healthy situation,” George wrote to his parents. “The air is very strong and bracing, and there is not much sickness.” He might as well have been writing a postcard from Aberystwyth. But it was true too, and he must find what comfort he could for them.

He soon grew used to his cramped accommodation and decided that Portland was a better place than Lewes. There was less red tape, and no idiotic regulation about being shaved and barbered in the open air. Also, the rules governing conversation between prisoners were more relaxed. The food was better too. He was able to inform his parents that there was a different dinner every day, and two kinds of soup. The bread was wholemeal—“Better than baker’s bread,” he wrote, not as an attempt to evade censorship or ingratiate himself, but as a true expression of opinion. There were also green vegetables and lettuce. The cocoa was excellent, though the tea was poor stuff. Still, if you did not want tea, you might have porridge or gruel, and it surprised George that many insisted on having inferior tea rather than something more nutritious.

He was able to tell his parents that he had plenty of warm underclothing; also jerseys, leggings and gloves. The library was even better than at Lewes, and the terms of borrowing more generous: he could take out two “library” books, plus four of an educational nature, every week. All the leading magazines were available in volume form, though both books and journals had been purged of undesirable matter by the prison authorities. George borrowed a history of recent British art, only to discover that all the illustrations of work by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema had been neatly removed by the official razor. At the front of the volume was the warning written in every book borrowed from the library: “No turning down of pages.” Underneath it a prison wag had written, “And no tearing out of pages.”

Hygiene was no better, though no worse, than at Lewes. If you wanted a toothbrush you had to apply to the Governor, who seemed to answer Yes or No according to some private, whimsical system.

One morning, in need of metal polish, George asked a warder if there was any chance of obtaining some Bath-brick.

“Bath-brick,
D
462!” replied the officer, his eyebrows leaping towards his cap. “Bath-brick! You’ll ruin the firm—you’ll be asking for Bath-buns next.”

And that was the end of that.

George picked coir and hair each day; he took exercise as instructed, though with no great zeal; he borrowed his full allowance of books from the library. At Lewes he had become accustomed to eating with only a tin knife and a wooden spoon, and to the fact that the knife was often insufficient against prison beef and mutton. He no longer missed using a fork, any more than he missed newspapers. Indeed, he saw the absence of a daily paper as an advantage: lacking this daily prod from the outside world, he adapted more easily to the passage of time. Such events as occurred in his life now occurred within the prison walls. One morning, an inmate—
C
183, serving eight years for robbery—managed to climb on to the roof, whence he declared to the world that he was the Son of God. The Chaplain offered to go up a ladder and discuss the theological implications, but the Governor decided it was just another attempt to gain a transfer to Parkhurst. Eventually they starved him down and packed him off to chokey.
C
183 admitted in the end that he was the son of a potman and not of a carpenter.

After George had been in Portland a few months, there was an escape attempt. Two men—
C
202 and
B
178—managed to hide a crowbar in their cell; they broke through the ceiling, gained the yard with the aid of a rope, and scaled a wall. The next time “Caps under!” was called, there was hubbub: they were two caps short. There was another cap-count, followed by a count of bodies. The black flag was raised, the cannon fired, and the prisoners locked in for the interim. George did not mind this, even if he failed to share the general excitement, or join in the bet-laying over the outcome.

The two men had a couple of hours’ start, but in the judgement of the ordinaries they would be lying low until nightfall, and only then attempt to get off the Bill. But when the dogs were loosed into the prison grounds,
B
178 was swiftly discovered, sheltering in a workshed and cursing an ankle broken when jumping from a roof.
C
202 took longer to find. Sentries were posted on all the heights of Chesil Beach; boats were launched in case the escapee had decided to swim for it; soldiers sealed the Weymouth Road. Quarries were scrutinized, and searches conducted of outlying properties. But the soldiers and prison guards did not find
C
202; he was brought in roped and bound by an innkeeper who had come upon him in his cellar and subdued him with the help of a drayman. The publican insisted on handing him over to the receiving officer at the gaol, and obtaining a promissory note in the sum of £5 for the capture.

The hubbub among the prisoners turned to disappointment, and the searching of cells became more frequent for a while. This was one aspect of life George found more disruptive than at Lewes; not least because the searches were in his case entirely pointless. First would come the order to “unbutton”; then the officers would “rub down” the prisoner to make sure nothing was concealed in his clothing. They would feel him all over, and examine his pocket, and even unfold his handkerchief. This was embarrassing for the prisoner, and George thought it must be hateful to the officers, since the clothes of many inmates were dirty and greasy from their work. Some officers were very careful in their searches, while others would not notice if a prisoner had a hammer and chisel concealed about his person.

Then there was “turn over,” which seemed to consist of the systematic wrecking of a cell, the sweeping of books from surfaces, the unmaking of the bed, and the scouring of potential places of concealment which George would never have guessed at. Worst by far, however, was the “dry bath” search. You were taken to the bathhouse and made to stand on the wooden slats. You removed every stitch of clothing except your shirt. The officers minutely inspected each item. Then you were obliged to undergo humiliations—raising your legs, bending over, opening your mouth, putting out your tongue. Dry searches were sometimes ordered systematically, sometimes on a random basis. George estimated that he suffered this indignity at least as often as other prisoners. Perhaps, when he had expressed his disinclination to escape, they had taken it for a bluff.

And so the months went by, and then the first year, and then much of the second. Every six months his parents made the long journey from Staffordshire, and were allowed to spend an hour with him under the eyes of a guard. These visits were excruciating to George: not because he did not love his parents, but because he hated to see their suffering. His father seemed shrunken nowadays, and his mother could not bring herself to look around at the place where her son was incarcerated. George found it hard to strike the proper tone with them: if he was cheerful, they would think he was putting it on; if gloomy, he would make them gloomier themselves. Instead, he found himself adopting a neutral manner, helpful but inexpressive, like that of a booking office clerk.

Maud was initially judged too sensitive for such visits; but one year she arrived in the place of her mother. She had little chance to say anything, but whenever George glanced across at her, he encountered that steady, intense gaze he remembered from the courtroom at Stafford. It was as if she was trying to give him strength, to convey something from her mind to his mind without the medium of word or gesture. Later, he found himself wondering if he—they—had been wrong about Maud and her supposed frailty.

The Vicar did not notice. He was too busy telling George how, in the light of the change of government—a matter of which George was scarcely aware—the indefatigable Mr. Yelverton was renewing his campaign. A fresh series of articles was planned by Mr. Voules in
Truth;
while the Vicar intended issuing a pamphlet of his own about the case. George made a show of being heartened, but privately judged his father’s enthusiasm to be foolish. More signatures might be acquired, but the essence of his case would not have changed, so why should officialdom’s response change? He, as a lawyer, could see that.

He also knew that the Home Office was flooded with petitions from every gaol in the country. Four thousand Memorials were sent in annually; and a further thousand arrived from other sources on behalf of prisoners. But the Home Office was neither equipped nor empowered to retry a case; it could neither interview witnesses, nor hear counsel. All it could do was examine paperwork and advise the Crown accordingly. This meant that a free pardon was a statistical rarity. It might perhaps be different if there were some court of appeal, able to take a more active part in overturning injustice. But as things stood, the Vicar’s belief that a frequent reiteration of innocence, backed up by the power of prayer, would bring about his son’s release struck George as naive.

It grieved him to admit the fact, but George found his father’s visits unhelpful. They disturbed the orderliness and calm of his life, and without orderliness and calm he did not think he could survive his sentence. Some prisoners counted off each day until their future release; George could only get through prison life by treating it as the only life he had or could ever have. His parents upset this illusion, as did his father’s hopeful trust in Mr. Yelverton. Perhaps if Maud were allowed to visit him by herself, she would fill him with strength, whereas his parents filled him with anxiety and shame. But he knew this would never be permitted.

The searches continued, the rub-downs and the dry baths. He read more history than he knew existed, had despatched all the classic authors and was now proceeding through the lesser ones. He had also read his way through entire runs of the
Cornhill Magazine
and the
Strand.
He was beginning to worry about exhausting the library’s resources.

One morning he was taken to the Chaplain’s office, photographed in both full face and profile, then instructed to grow a beard. He was told that in three months’ time he would be photographed again. George could work out for himself the purpose of this record: it would be there for the police if he gave them future reason to search for him.

He did not like growing a beard. He had worn a moustache since Nature permitted, but had been ordered to shave it off at Lewes. Now he did not enjoy the daily prickle that spread across his cheeks and under his chin; he missed the feel of the razor. Nor did he like the look of himself with a beard: it gave him a criminal mien. There were remarks from the warders about him having a new hiding place. He carried on picking coir and reading Oliver Goldsmith. There were four years of his sentence left.

And then things suddenly became confusing. He was taken to be photographed, both full face and in profile. Then he was sent to be shaved. The barber told him he was lucky not to be in Strangeways, where they would charge him eighteen pence for the service. When he returned to his cell, he was ordered to collect his few belongings together and be ready for a transfer. He was driven to the station and put on a train with an escort. He could scarcely bring himself to look at the countryside, whose existence seemed to mock him, as did every horse and cow within it. He understood how men went mad from missing ordinary things.

When the train reached London, he was put in a cab and driven to Pentonville. There he was told that he was being prepared for discharge. He spent a day locked up by himself—the most miserable day, in retrospect, of his entire three years in gaol. He knew he should be happy; instead, he was as bewildered by his release as he had been by his arrest. Two detectives came and served him with papers; he was ordered to report to Scotland Yard, there to receive further instructions.

At ten thirty on the morning of October 19th, 1906, George Edalji left Pentonville in a cab with a Jew who was also being released. He did not enquire whether the fellow was a real Jew, or just a prison Jew. The cab dropped his fellow passenger at the Jewish Prisoners’ Aid Society, and took him on to the Church Army’s Aid Society. Prisoners who had joined such societies qualified for a double gratuity upon release. George was handed £2 9s.10d. Officers of the Society then took him to Scotland Yard, where the terms of his release on licence were explained. He was to supply the address where he would be staying; he was to report once a month to Scotland Yard; and he was to inform them in advance of any plans to leave London.

A newspaper had sent a photographer to Pentonville to obtain a snapshot of George Edalji leaving the prison. By mistake the man photographed a prisoner released half an hour before George; and so the newspaper printed a picture of the wrong man.

From Scotland Yard he was driven to meet his parents.

He was free.

Arthur

And then he meets Jean.

He is a few months short of his thirty-eighth birthday. He is painted that year by Sidney Paget, sitting straight-backed in an upholstered tub chair, frock coat half open, fob chains on show; in his left hand a notebook, in his right a silver propelling pencil. His hair is now receding above the temples, but this loss is made irrelevant by the compensating glory of the moustache: it colonizes his face above and beyond the upper lip and extends in waxed toothpicks out beyond the line of the earlobes. It gives Arthur the commanding air of a military prosecutor; one whose authority is endorsed by the quartered coat of arms in the top corner of the portrait.

Arthur is the first to admit that his knowledge of women is that of a gentleman rather than a cad. There were certain boisterous flirtations in his early life—even an episode which had to do with flying fish. There was Elmore Weldon who, if it was not an ungentlemanly observation, did weigh eleven stone. There is Touie who, over the years, became a companionable sister to him and then, suddenly, an invalid sister. There are, of course, his real sisters. There are the statistics of prostitution which he reads at his club. There are stories told over port which he sometimes declines to hear, stories involving, for instance, private rooms in discreet restaurants. There are the gynaecological cases he has seen, the confinements he has attended, and the cases of disease among Portsmouth sailors and other men of low morals. His understanding of the sexual act is diverse, though related more to its unfortunate consequences than to its joyful preliminaries and processes.