The Ripper's Wife(89)
Gradually what Sir Charles had promised began to happen; public opinion began to swing round to my side. I was becoming a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic and the “friendless lady” was not so friendless anymore. People were actually getting into fistfights over the subject of my innocence or guilt and just how Jim had died. The papers were full of us; there was even a daily column in one of the local papers called “Maybrick Mania.”
But Judge Stephen simply could not let the matter of my adultery rest. He kept harping on it incessantly, worrying it like a bad tooth his tongue couldn’t keep away from, and it was the jury’s opinion and not the public’s that mattered. He dismissed the contradictory twaddle of complex medical opinions and repeatedly stressed that my “adulterous intrigue with Mr. Brierley” was a “very strong motive why Mrs. Maybrick should wish to get rid of her husband. It is easy enough to conceive how a horrible woman, in so terrible a position, might be assailed by some terrible temptation.”
It took the jury only thirty-eight minutes to convict me.
When they came back and the judge asked me to rise, I knew I was going to die. Not one man sitting in that jury box could look at me; they all turned their faces away.
“Guilty!” the foreman pronounced, and I tottered back as though I had been struck a physical blow.
Judge Stephen asked me if I had anything to say. This would be my first and most likely last chance to speak, since the law at that time denied accused murderers the right to take the stand in their own defense, so I forced myself to stand up straight and look him square in the eye.
“My lord,” I said, “everything has been against me. Although evidence has been given as to a great many circumstances in connection to Mr. Brierley, much has been withheld which might have influenced the jury in my favor had it been told. I am not guilty of this crime!”
Judge Stephen’s eyes were smiling as he put the black silk cap on over his white wig and sternly spoke the following words to me: “Prisoner at the bar, I am no longer able to treat you as being innocent of the dreadful crime laid to your charge. The jury has convicted you, and the Law leaves me no discretion, and I must pass this sentence upon you: The court doth order you to be taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, and that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May the Lord have mercy upon your soul!”
According to the law, since three Sundays must pass before a condemned person could mount the gallows, I had eighteen days left to live. There being no Court of Appeal in England at that time, my only hope was a royal pardon.
A great crowd had assembled outside and there was much outrage expressed about the verdict, so much so that Judge Stephen, being hissed as “Mr. Injustice,” required a police escort home and had rocks thrown through his windows.
Surrounded by a quartet of constables and a prison matron, I was taken out a side door to the prison van, the infamous Black Maria. But, of course, the crowd found me. Though many hissed, spit, shook their fists, and hurled insults at me, there were a great many who shouted, “God go with you, Mrs. Maybrick!” and in the crush and press of the crowd someone snatched my veil away, as a souvenir I suppose.
The Black Maria was like a coffin on wheels, stultifying and terrifying. The taps and knocks the populace gave to the vehicle’s sides meant, no doubt, by most, I’m sure, as a show of support, to let me know I wasn’t really alone, were like clods of earth crashing down upon my coffin’s lid, only I wasn’t dead yet. I was still alive, trapped and sealed inside, waiting tensely to draw my last breath.
As the van drew away, I saw, through the barred window, a gentleman I recognized as one of my countrymen, come from America to show his support—Mama said he had been most assiduous raising funds to aid my defense—lift his hat to me. Then, holding it over his heart, he began to sing in a fine baritone voice that brought the crowd to a sudden awed silence:
“In a cavern, in a canyon,
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner forty-niner,
And his daughter Clementine.
“Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You are lost and gone forever,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine!
“Light she was and like a fairy,
And her shoes were number nines,
Herring boxes, without topses
Sandals were for Clementine.
“Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You are lost and gone forever,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine!
“Drove she ducklings to the water,
Every morning just at nine,
Hit her foot against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine.
“Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You are lost and gone forever,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine!
“Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine,
But, alas, I was no swimmer,
So I lost my Clementine.
“Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You are lost and gone forever,