A Place Called Freedom (1995)

He had probably seduced a few seamstresses and shopgirls who were overawed by him and let him take charge. Lizzie had no experience but she knew what she wanted and believed in taking it. She was not going to change her ways. She was enjoying it too much. Jay was, too, even though he was shocked: she could tell by his vigorous movements and the pleased look on his face afterward.

She got up and went naked to the window. The weather was cold but sunny. The church bells were ringing muffled because it was a hanging day: one or more criminals would be executed this morning. Half the city’s workingpeople would take an unofficial day off, and many of them would flock to Tyburn, the crossroads at the northwestern corner of London where the gallows stood, to see the spectacle. It was the kind of occasion when rioting could break out, so Jay’s regiment would be on alert all day. However, Jay had one more day’s leave.

She turned to face him and said: “Take me to the hanging.”

He looked disapproving. “A gruesome request.”

“Don’t tell me it’s no place for a lady.”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“I know that rich and poor women and men go to see it.”

“But why do you want to go?”

That was a good question. She had mixed feelings about it. It was shameful to make entertainment of death, and she knew she would be disgusted with herself afterward. But her curiosity was overwhelming. “I want to know what it’s like,” she said. “How do the condemned people behave? Do they weep, or pray, or gibber with fear? And what about the spectators? What is it like to watch a human life come to an end?”

She had always been this way. The first time she saw a deer shot, when she was only nine or ten years old, she had watched enthralled as the keeper gralloched it, taking out its entrails. She had been fascinated by the multiple stomachs and had insisted on touching the flesh to see what it felt like. It was warm and slimy. The beast was two or three months pregnant, and the keeper had shown her the tiny fetus in the transparent womb. None of it had revolted her: it was too interesting.

She understood perfectly why people flocked to see the spectacle. She also understood why others were revolted by the thought of watching it. But she was part of the inquisitive group.

Jay said: “Perhaps we could hire a room overlooking the gallows—that’s what a lot of people do.”

But Lizzie felt that would mute the experience. “Oh, no—I want to be in the crowd!” she protested.

“Women of our class don’t do that.”

“Then I’ll dress as a man.”

He looked doubtful.

“Jay, don’t make faces at me! You were glad enough to take me down the coal mine dressed as a man.”

“It is a bit different for a married woman.”

“If you tell me that all adventures are over just because we’re married, I shall run away to sea.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She grinned at him and jumped onto the bed. “Don’t be an old curmudgeon.” She bounced up and down. “Let’s go to the hanging.”

He could not help laughing. “All right,” he said.

“Bravo!”

She performed her daily chores rapidly. She told the cook what to buy for dinner; decided which rooms the housemaids would clean; told the groom she would not be riding today; accepted an invitation for the two of them to dine with Captain Marlborough and his wife next Wednesday; postponed an appointment with a milliner; and took delivery of twelve brassbound trunks for the voyage to Virginia.

Then she put on her disguise.

* * *

The street known as Tyburn Street or Oxford Street was thronged with people. The gallows stood at the end of the street, outside Hyde Park. Houses with a view of the scaffold were crowded with wealthy spectators who had rented rooms for the day. People stood shoulder to shoulder on the stone wall of the park. Hawkers moved through the crowds selling hot sausages and tots of gin and printed copies of what they said were the dying speeches of the condemned.

Mack held Cora’s hand and pushed through the crowd. He had no desire to watch people getting killed but Cora had insisted on going. Mack just wanted to spend all his free time with Cora. He liked holding her hand, kissing her lips whenever he wanted to, and touching her body in odd moments. He liked just to look at her. He enjoyed her devil-may-care attitude and her rough language and the wicked look in her eye. So he went with her to the hanging.

A friend of hers was going to be hanged. Her name was Dolly Macaroni, and she was a brothel keeper, but her crime was forgery. “What did she forge, anyway?” Mack said as they approached the gallows.

“A bank draft. She changed the amount from eleven pounds to eighty pounds.”

“Where did she get a draft for eleven pounds?”

“From Lord Massey, She says he owed her more.”

“She ought to have been transported, not hanged.”

“They nearly always hang forgers.”