Young Writers Society

The Hanging

November 21, 1849 – The Borough

On the day of Susan Merrick’s hanging, Emily rented out our attic. Observers were willing to pay for an excellent view of the murderess’ execution and Emily, eyeing all the coins thrust into her palm, assured the onlookers their position was perfect.

I was ten at the time and remember pushing past the people gathered at the two large windows, both open with no curtains to keep them covered. We were rather high up, the crowd below bustled and screamed with delight. The height was enough to terrify me. Some people had brought food, as if they were at the theatre, to throw at Susan—hot pies were eaten but rotting fruits and vegetables slipped, impatiently, from one hand to the other, anxiously awaiting the woman’s arrival.

The air smelled horrible like squashed cabbages and decaying flesh. It was terribly cold and the overcrowded attic began to fill with raucous laughter. Someone was smoking, the lurid blue wisps curled around me and I coughed.

A man behind me tossed the remains of his apple core out the window. I watched it, with wide eyes, fascinated by its tumbling descent as it disappeared in amongst the sea of people who dipped and swayed—like waves, I recall thinking.

“All right, Bonnie?” Emily whispered into my ears. She was like that, sneaking up behind a person when they least expected it. Emily rested her large hands on my shoulders, squeezing them, firmly keeping me in place.

I cocked my head to gaze up at her. She was one of those flat types with a bulky figure and fair hair in a tight bun, even then she had looked far older than she really was—I believe she had been eight-and-twenty at that time.

“Ain’t she comin’ yet?” I asked. In those days I had kept my hair long and uncombed, often it resembled stringy knots and Emily once passed me for a wild child at a cheap fair. I didn’t get a share of the money I had earned.

“You jus’ wait. She’ll be along soon.”

I turned away from her to the scene of Horsemonger Lane Goal. I had never witnessed a hanging before. I suppose I was scared. Who wouldn’t be? Crowds such as these caused trouble and injuries well before the execution even begun. I leaned forward, pushing Emily’s hands away and perching, with meticulous care, on the cracked window beam.

In the crowd, amid the spectators, thieves were at work. Bets were made and gentlemen criticised the poor yet they sidestepped the beggars in order to keep their money safely in their pockets. The worst lot were the women, already swooning and having to be carried away by the Bobbies—these men were pelted by annoyed street children as sport.

Emily was speaking to a young man. He was ignoring her teasing, his hands gripped the timber of the window, his eyes were surveying the people and appeared to memorise the scene before him. The man caught my eye and looked away instantly. I know now that he had been Susan’s husband.

A piercing whistle stirred the people in the attic with an excited hubbub and I tore my eyes from the man to glance at the gallows. Susan, her hands bound behind her back, was led up the wooden steps. I imagined the planks groaning under her feet but shook it away, she couldn’t have weighed much as she was very thin and wrath-like.

Susan Merrick was hanging for the murder of her baby. On the previous night Emily had said she ought to have done the same with me. Instead she had been a baby farmer, nursing me until I was the only orphan left at her house and soon I would be kicked out.

From the crowd a boy shouted something foul. Few hooted with laughter, an old man had joined in too late and Susan found him with her eyes. The young man shifted, nervously, in his position.

“Susan Merrick,” I whispered, burning her into my mind and branding the name on my tongue.

And there she was, in a grey serge dress—crumpled like an old rag—pale about the face and dark hair in a mess. Her face was turned towards the crowd, she was unmoved as they repetitively sang the lines of a crude song—it was a new one then but has faded away, just as Susan is now a ghost of the past.

“It were like this with the Manning’s. Remember them?” Emily said.

I don’t know whether she had spoken to me or Susan’s husband, maybe it was both of us but I knew she was up to something as a grin plastered on her face each time she looked at the man. Nevertheless, I nodded glumly just in case she hit me.

Though I had not seen the hanging of Mr and Mrs Manning, the murdering couple, I had heard what was shouted and sung by the public from the kitchen. I was made to clean up after the people who had slept on the kitchen floor—this was a punishment for being too afraid to watch.

That was over a week ago. Later I heard Charles Dickens had been present. Imagine that, Dickens in the house next to ours and I had never known!

A sack was pulled over Susan’s head. Before her face vanished I thought I had seen her gaze up at my window, she was younger than Emily by a few years and quite handsome. Then her face was covered and the noose went about her neck. I gave a short cry.

“I ought not to seen this,”

Emily stooped and held me, almost in a motherly way. “You watch,” she simply said.

My face was hot and Emily’s large frame was crushing me. I shut my eyes. I began reciting the bits of a prayer that I had learnt from a lodger and heard a soft chuckle from Emily.

“You and them prayers,” she snorted and released me. I hated her then and I still do.

I wheezed and took a deep breath, opening my eyes again. For a short time I thought there was silence, the quietness that comes before death strikes and still the crowd waved with a steady pace. I only saw the trap-door release and Susan, like a cloth-doll, hung limp. Her neck broke before she was strangled, that was the point of the gallows: a quick death.

A shrill scream escaped before I could stop it. Below me was more, some from the troubled people and others of heartless thrill.

“Just a-bit o’ rope and a drop, then she ain’t no more,” a boy commented.

I backed away from the window. With tears flowing, I ran out of the attic shoving the spectators out of the way. I didn’t wait to hear the cheers or swearing, I didn’t see the fighting below and more women faint. I tumbled down the stairs and lay where I fell, sobbing until my eyes were quite red and my hair covered my stained face.

Someone tapped me gently on the shoulder. A clean handkerchief lay beside me. It was the man from the window on his way out, white in the face and not meeting my eyes as he set off down the dark passage.

“Sir?” He wasn’t listening. “Thanks,” I mumbled to myself.

Before I left Emily’s house, a few years later, I went to the attic once more. I was alone, silence surrounded me like a blanket and I looked out the window. The memories etched easily before me, bringing back the young man, Susan’s haunting appearance and Emily tormenting me. In another time and space that scene played back on itself in an endless loop. I only hoped I would never have to see it again.

.: ₪ :.

Flat - Stupid or a fool

Bobbies - Police

Baby Farmer - A woman who was paid to look after babies