The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing

our eyes again but not too much because Ma was still ruffling. Ma loved Sundays in our parlour with our port and our newspapers just as much as we did, and always a lovely stew afterwards and we hadn’t even had it today yet. Mrs P was an old character actress Ma had known at Drury Lane and she was about a hundred years old and three omnibus rides away in a sad room in Stockwell.
    Me and Billy ate our stew politely. And finally Billy made Ma laugh about something at the Parliament and finally she shook her head and looked at us in a sort of rueful way which was her way of apologising for ruffling up.
    And then we played cards, like we always did on Sundays.

5

    On that first Sunday, the Reynolds Newspaper had given salacious details. But it was the paragraphs in The Times that had struck fear into the hearts of certain gentlemen of the Establishment. The Times opined that the two men now held in the case were part of an association of ‘at least thirty’ similar-minded young men who roamed freely, loose-moraled, about London. (Some of those members of the Establishment reading The Times in alarm were not young either.) In gentlemen’s clubs all over London, gentlemen huddled on leather chairs under royal portraits and spoke together in low voices.
    Some persons thought it expedient to take an early holiday on the Continent. Mr Amos Gibbings was one who made this decision urgently, quietly farewelled that Sunday by Mr Porterbury of Porterbury’s Hotel by the Strand.
    ‘I was going anyway. I had already arranged to meet friends in Calais. Just for a few weeks.’ Mr Gibbings entered a carriage quickly. ‘Keep me informed of course.’

    An evening meeting of another group of gentlemen was hastily convened that Sunday. The venue was perhaps an unlikely one for the subject under discussion: a church vestry across the River Thames from the Houses of Parliament. From that church, lamplight could be seen in the Victoria Tower, which rose at one end of the Palace of Westminster; odd lights flickered also in other parts of the seat of government. All of the gentlemen present at the church meeting wore clerical collars; some of them had been conducting evensong; many were members of the House of Lords. The organist was rehearsing Handel; chords wafted in and out of the locked vestry, notes echoing on the air.
    That air inside the vestry was full of smoke and many of the gentlemen held glasses of amber liquid; the meeting had been proceeding for some time, the same ground covered more than once: there was an air of odd unease in the room.
    ‘The arrests have already caused outrageous attention in the cheap newspapers, and have not been ignored by The Times ,as they should have been.’
    ‘We can hardly order that the matter be banned from being reported, and close the Magistrates’ Court!’
    ‘Very well, but too much is at stake for Lord Arthur to appear.’
    This statement (which perhaps contained various layers of meaning) was not contested.
    ‘His name has not been mentioned as yet.’
    ‘Where is he?’
    ‘We have not been able to ascertain.’
    ‘We may be being overcautious. The whole matter may be over in the next few days.’
    ‘Very well but I reiterate: there is too much at stake – for the country, I mean – for Lord Arthur Clinton’s name to be mentioned or for him to appear. He was briefly a Member of Parliament: the honour of the House etc…’
    A more pragmatic member of the group put it more bluntly: ‘Lord Arthur is notoriously unreliable and impecunious. He cannot be relied upon to behave with the discretion that is expected from members of the nobility. Frankly, other names may come out if he is not prevented from appearing.’
    Throats were cleared in the nervous, embarrassed silence that followed. Finally a very senior bishop spoke.
    ‘Gentlemen. Lord Arthur may be unreliable but he is the son of the late lamented fifth Duke of Newcastle who was once Colonial Secretary, and Secretary of War