Today in the Pace case: 12 August 1928

Eighty-five years ago on this date, the last instalment of Beatrice Pace's six-part 'life story' appeared in the Sunday Express, the newspaper to which the rights to her autobiography had been sold (on the day after her acquittal for her husband's arsenic murder) for somewhat more than £3,000, which was then a substantial sum.

In the final episode, 'The Beginning of a New Life', Beatrice offered both some final comments on her marriage and a few insights into what--as the title suggested--her life had become.

Sunday Express, 12 Aug 1928, p. 12.

I realise better now that I have to talk about my life on paper, what my feelings towards my husband really were. They were those of a mother with a bad, unruly child much stronger than herself.
I see now that after a very few months I stopped feeling like a wife and began to feel like a mother.

Harry made me feel like that. His carelessness, his dumbness—even his meanness.

Like the meanness of a child who hoards cheep sweets and will neither give them away nor enjoy them himself—all forced me to feel that unless I mothered him he would be quite helpless.

I pitied Harry, I can see that now, and it occurs to me that perhaps he felt it at the bottom of his mind, and resented it.

It may be that I was mistaken to pity him, and that his man’s pride was hurt. It may be that he thought to himself, “Pity me, does she? I’ll show her who’s the best man here!” and perhaps, when his fury was on him, those thought made him more cruel.

**

You can imagine that with such a life my mind did not move much. We had no pleasures and no outings. As I have already said, I was never allowed to go to the cinema or the theatre, and, in any case, I was too shabby to have gone to either.

I had little time to myself, and all I could think about was my home and my children. They were part of my work, and a big part, but they were also my holiday. Worried and troubled as I was with them, seeing that they were so delicate owing to the way Harry treated me, and the lack of proper food, I don't know what I should have done without them. Theirs were the only smiles I saw at home.

I went to the seaside the other day. It was the first time in my life that I had ever seen the sea. The air was wonderful, and I felt better as soon as I began to breathe it in.

**

Since then the world has become a new place for me, and I have been living a life that I have sometimes found it difficult to believe real.

But now I know it is real, and I want once more to thank all those who have shown me sympathy, who have helped me with money or gifts or advice when I was in danger of losing my life.

Though I can never repay you all, I shall never forget any of you.

(Sunday Express, 12 August 1928, p. 12)

(For the other instalments in the series, click here.)

Today in the Pace case: 5 August 1928

Eighty-five years ago today, the fifth instalment of Beatrice Pace's 'life-story' appeared in the Sunday Express, which had bought the rights to her autobiography on the day after her acquittal for the arsenic murder of her husband, Harry Pace.

Like the previous week's instalment, this one combined elements of autobiography with something of an 'advice column'.

It was titled, 'A Talk To Those About To Marry'.

It focused a great deal on the violence in the Pace household and Beatrice's efforts to deal with it.

The Sunday Express, 5 August 1928, p. 15

Sometimes, when I would see him coming over the fields with that walk that I knew meant a thrashing for me, I would go to meet him, and tell him of something special that I had got for his supper.

It used to happen, now and again, that by doing that I escaped a beating, and it used to happen that sometimes I did not. […]

Pancakes were the great things to put him in a good temper, and whatever were my housekeeping difficulties, I nearly always contrived to have in the house materials for making them. If I felt trouble in the air (like our dog, Rover, I often sensed Harry’s moods beforehand), I would hurry to get some pancakes ready, and then run to meet Harry so soon as I saw him coming across the fields.’ […]

I have read about “strong, silent men” in stories, and how women are supposed to love them, but let me tell you that whenever I hear about that kind of man I think of Harry, and I wonder why people write such nonsense. Poor Harry was strong and silent enough, and I do not advise any women to marry such a type. […]

I have said it before, and I say it again—I loved Harry, and I would have stood by him whatever he did, and for another eighteen years, if he had lived. But I say frankly that if I had my life over again I would not marry a man of his type for all the money in the world. It was a deadening existence, one that I could not have believed possible, if I had not experienced it. […]

But this I will say—I don’t advise any girl to marry, whether she is rich or poor, until she knows—and is sure she knows—something about the bad qualities of the man who wants to be her husband.

Today in the Pace case: 29 July 1928

85 years ago today, the fourth instalment of Beatrice Pace's post-acquittal series in the Sunday Express was published, combining a continuation of her 'life-story' with elements of what could be seen as an 'advice column'.

Titled 'A Talk to Wives, by Mrs. Pace', the article is presented in part as a reaction to the letters that Beatrice has been sent by the public. (One chapter in the book deals with the fascinating and often poignant letters received by Beatrice Pace from her admirers.)

There are suggestions that some of these letters might have made some criticisms about the decisions she had made. 

Because it deals so extensively with the issue of domestic violence -- accusations of which featured prominently in the case -- and Beatrice's reactions to it, it is worth quoting a section of the article at length.

‘Since I began my story in the “Sunday Express” I have had hundreds of letters from women, all of them kind, but many of them saying what amounts to this:
You have had a terrible time in your married life: you have suffered terrible pain and anxiety in being accused of a murder you did not commit.
    Your husband treated you worse than an animal, and yet expected you to mother his children and keep his home.
    Why were you such a fool as to put up with it? We would not have done so for a week, let alone eighteen years. We would have run away.
That is the question I have been asked, and I think I can answer it.

I do not believe that the women who say they would have run away would really have done so.

There are things in married life which unmarried women cannot understand and which even married women who have kind husbands cannot understand. There are things deep down in us that only experiences like mine can make use realise—feelings and ideas that a happy life doesn’t bring out.
    It is easy to talk of running away when there is nothing to run from, when you are free, and have no responsibilities and no ties.
    A woman thinks then that she is going to be the master—that the can do as she likes, and that if anything goes wrong she has only to walk out like a cook giving notice.’

‘When you are poor and married and trouble comes, you begin to realise that you have got to light the world together, even if you are fighting each other at the same time. It is difficult for me to explain what I mean—I’m not a writer—but it seems to me like this:
    You feel that you mustn’t just turn your back and run away from things like a coward.
    You feel that you’ve got to fight for what you’ve got, to keep it and to make it better.
    And whatever love there is in your life you feel you want to keep it alive.
I felt I was keeping my love for Harry alive by sticking to him and putting up as best I could with the things he did.
Then there were the children […]
    Anyway, I felt that because I had suffered for them, it was a proof that I had something to love and to work for. Another thing was that they made me feel closer to Harry—not the Harry who beat me, but the Harry I thought of as my husband.
    They seemed to be the better part of him, and I often used to think as I held them in my arms, “Here I hold all that Harry might have been to me.”’

('A Talk to Wives, by Mrs. Pace', Sunday Express, 28 July 1928, p. 14. Emphasis in original.)

Today in the Pace Case, 22 July 1928

Sunday, 22 July 1928: the second instalment of Beatrice Pace's life story appears in the Sunday Express.

Sunday Express, 22 July 1928, p. 11 (Click for larger image)

Beatrice wrote about some of her new experiences...

Now, I realise that what takes my breath away is only ordinary to other people.

The other day, while I was at Windsor, one of my new friends said to me after dinner, “Mrs. Pace, will you have some coffee?” I thought, “Well, now, I’ve never tasted it,” and I said so. Everybody at table laughed and looked surprised.

I felt quite silly as they watched me drinking it smiling at me. … I thought about it afterwards and I decided to tell about it here, so that you will understand how different everything is for me now.

...her late husband's strange behaviour....

When the mood was on him he didn’t care what he did.

I have already said that all the years we were together he never once looked me straight in the eyes or called me by a soft name. I think that was one of the worst things in my life with him. To be treated like a machine, and to bear his children, and to feel all the time that he only thought about me as something that was his, and that he never cared about me in myself—that did make me feel horrible.

...

Often after thrashing me he would throw down his stick and start whistling and singing.

What Harry sang after beating me was always the same song: “I’m Henery the Eighth, I am,” Henery the Eighth I am, I am,” and the rest of it.

I can see it sounds funny now, and it makes me laugh, but it didn’t at the time.

...and her inability to leave him:

I am sure you will all say that if Harry was mad, I must have been madder to stay by him and put up with it, but as I said at the beginning, Harry was my man, and I had to stick to him. I had loved no other man, and he was all I had. I was not then as sad and bitter as I grew to be as time went on, and I had hope.

Today in the Pace Case: 15 July

Sunday, 15 July 1928: The second part of Beatrice’s serialised memoir appears in the Sunday Express.

Beatrice had many things to say in this lengthy, front-page article...

...about some of her new experiences:

‘I have been to a cinema for the first time in my life—for that matter it is the first time in life that I have been to any place of amusement.'

...about her new 'shingle' hair-style and fashionable late-1920s wardrobe :

‘It has made me feel so much younger and lighter, almost as if a lot of dark memories had fallen off with each snip of the scissors. I have also given up my black clothes—I hope no one will think the worse of me for it.’ ‘It is as if I ad taken off an old, dingy self and put on a new one—as if I had changed the old clothes of myself.’

...about her childhood:

‘We were poor, but not too poor to have plenty for everybody.’

...and about her late husband, Harry:

‘I began to love him—I cannot explain why or how—and once having begun I never left off, not even through all those years when he was terrible to me. He was my man, whatever he did. He had taken me as a girl, and I grew to be a woman with him. I suppose I was a great fool.’