The Catherine Malenoir Mystery (1895)

The Actress and the Impostor

The first time Catherine Malenoir saw the man who called himself Walter Tyrrell, he was standing beneath the awning of a shop in the Strand, sheltering from a rain that had turned the pavement black and glossy.

She was twenty-four, or thereabouts, though she had learnt that a woman’s age was often better left unmentioned. Her father, an artist, had died years before, and her mother’s second marriage had done little to improve the fortunes of the his children. Catherine Kelly  had married Samuel Malenoir at nineteen. Six children had followed, one of them dying in infancy, and the years since had been filled with the unromantic business of keeping a household afloat.

Samuel sold fish. He was not a cruel man, nor always an unkind one, but he was a man who believed that a wife’s place was beside her husband and that a husband’s judgement should rarely be questioned. Catherine, who had always possessed a lively imagination and a taste for fine clothes, found the narrowness of their life increasingly difficult to endure.

By the time she met Walter, the marriage was little more than a name. They had quarrelled, separated, and attempted reconciliation often enough to exhaust them both. Catherine had discovered that she could not bear another year of the same dreary round of meals, washing, children, debts and reproaches. She wanted, if not happiness, then at least the chance of becoming someone other than Samuel Malenoir’s wife.

Walter introduced himself as a gentleman with business interests. He had a pleasant voice, a quick smile and an air of confidence that made ordinary difficulties seem temporary. He spoke of theatres, restaurants and people who mattered. He listened when Catherine spoke, which was more than most men did.

When he asked her to meet him again, she hesitated.

“You are not married, are you?” she asked.

“Good heavens, no,” he replied.

A second man, standing nearby, heard the question. Walter turned to him with a laugh.

“Tell the lady. Am I a married man?”

The companion smiled indulgently. “Of course not.”

Catherine should have walked away. Instead, she accepted Walter’s invitation for the following afternoon.

It was the first wrong step, she would later say, and she would repeat the words so often that they became almost a prayer.

Walter’s real name was George James Shipway. He was a financial agent, a man who knew how to borrow money, advance money and persuade others that a doubtful venture might yet prove profitable. His life had already been complicated by an unhappy marriage, financial failure and a long struggle to put his affairs in order. He understood the art of presenting an agreeable face to the world.

He did not tell Catherine any of this.

At first, their meetings were harmless enough. They walked together, took refreshments and went to the theatre. Walter was acquainted with the theatrical world, and Catherine, whose father had been an artist, felt at home among its painted scenery and extravagant emotions. She loved the lights, the music, the rustle of dresses and the sense that, for a few hours, ordinary people could become extraordinary.

Walter seemed to belong to that world. He knew actors and managers, spoke confidently of performances and appeared to have friends everywhere.

Catherine fell in love with him.

She later said that she had never loved anyone as she loved Walter Tyrrell. Whether she loved the man himself, or the life she imagined beside him, even she might not have been able to say.

When she eventually discovered that he was married, she confronted him. He assured her that his domestic arrangements were unhappy and that his wife, Dora, understood more than Catherine supposed. He was, he said, as good as separated from her.

Catherine wanted to believe him. She had five living children to think of, and no easy means of supporting them. She had sold newspapers in the streets, sometimes dressing herself with more theatrical flourish than the weather required. She could attract attention when she wished, but attention did not pay rent.

Walter offered a solution.

He had a house which, he suggested, could be turned into a boarding house. Catherine would manage it. The arrangement would provide her with an income, a respectable occupation and a little independence. He would see that she had what she needed.

It seemed to Catherine that fortune had at last opened a door.

The house stood in Gower Street, in a part of London where handsome old residences were increasingly being divided into lodgings for people who needed somewhere to stay. The neighbourhood was convenient for railway stations, theatres and the busy commercial streets. A boarding house, properly run, might attract respectable visitors and provide a modest living.

Catherine threw herself into the enterprise. She imagined clean rooms, a well-laid table, guests who would appreciate her efforts and, perhaps, a future in which she would not have to ask anyone for money.

But a house was not made profitable by hope.

The furnishings required attention. There were bills to be met, provisions to be purchased and rooms to be prepared. The business attracted fewer paying guests than expected. Walter’s promises became vague, and Catherine discovered that the money she thought would be available was not so readily forthcoming.

When she complained, he reminded her that she had agreed to the arrangement.

When she asked what was to become of her, he told her not to make a scene.

The final quarrel came in early September. Catherine was to leave the house. She had no settled employment, little money and no clear understanding of what Walter intended to do for her. He had promised to visit her every day, but she knew now that promises were the cheapest currency he possessed.

On the third of September she left.

She waited for him to come to her. He did not.

She wrote letters. Some were tender, others angry. In one she begged him for a private interview of ten minutes. She wanted him to explain himself; she wanted to hear him say that she had not been merely a passing amusement. She wanted, above all, to believe that the future he had described had once been real.

He refused to see her.

Meanwhile, Dora Shipway had learnt enough to be frightened and furious. She was a theatrical woman herself (known professionally as Victoria St Lawrence), accustomed to the public gaze and to the peculiar strains of a life in which engagements, money and reputation could all disappear quickly. She knew her husband had spent time with Catherine. Indeed, she had known of his attentions to other women too. But there was a difference between an affair that could be dismissed and one that had become an open challenge to her household.

Dora had her own reasons to resent Catherine. Yet she also had reason to distrust George, who seemed to leave a trail of entanglements behind him and then complain when they became inconvenient.

The two women had never met on equal terms. Catherine believed Dora possessed the one thing she had been promised: George’s name, his home and the right to expect his return. Dora saw Catherine as a danger to her peace and possibly to her livelihood.

On the thirty-first of August, Catherine encountered Dora in the street. Words passed between them. Catherine, desperate and humiliated, spoke of a knife. Perhaps she meant to frighten her rival; perhaps, in that moment, she scarcely knew what she meant. She later insisted that her threats had been directed against herself, not the Shipways.

A few days later, she met George in the Strand. He would not stop to listen. She followed him, demanding an explanation. He walked on, leaving her speaking to his back.

By then, anger had begun to consume what remained of her judgement.

On the evening of the fourteenth of September, Catherine put on the black garments of a Sister of Mercy. She had seen such women moving quietly through London’s hospitals and charitable institutions, their dark habits giving them an air of authority and purpose. In disguise, she might gain entrance to the Shipways’ house before anyone realised who she was.

She arrived at the door and asked to see the occupants.

The servant admitted her, supposing that a religious visitor had come on some charitable errand. Catherine was shown into a room and waited.

When George entered, she pulled back her veil.

For an instant, neither spoke.

Then his face hardened.

“You must leave.”

“I have written to you,” Catherine said. “I have begged you to see me.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“You promised you would come. You promised—”

“Leave this house.”

She stepped towards him. He moved to close the door, and she pushed past him into the hall. Their voices rose. A servant appeared, then Dora. Catherine saw the woman who had become the symbol of everything she had lost: a wife with a home, a name and a place in George’s life, however miserable that life might be.

“You have ruined me,” Catherine cried.

Dora told her to go.

In the confusion, Catherine seized at the curtains and tore them down. Whether she did so deliberately or in a wild attempt to make them listen, she could not afterwards have explained. The servant and George forced her towards the door.

“I loved you!” she shouted at him. “I still love you!”

The door closed.

For the next few days, the affair belonged to the police. A warrant was issued, and Catherine was arrested while walking in Lamb’s Conduit Street with two of her children. She protested that the accusations were false. She had threatened her own life, she said, but never intended to harm George or Dora.

On the Tuesday she stood before Sir John Bridge at Bow Street.

The newspapers would later describe the hearing as a romantic story, an extraordinary case, a pitiful confusion. They had all the ingredients their readers enjoyed: a married woman, a faithless lover, a theatrical wife, a religious disguise and declarations of undying devotion.

Catherine wore her best clothes. She had no wish to appear defeated.

The prosecutor described the threats, the damaged curtains and the visit to the Shipways’ home. George gave his evidence with the composure of a man determined to put an unpleasant business behind him. He explained that Catherine had been allowed to manage a boarding house, that the arrangement had failed and that she had left.

When questioned about the agreement, he produced it.

“Yes,” he said, “the agreement was with my wife, not me.”

Catherine stared at him. Even now, he was arranging the facts so that responsibility seemed to rest elsewhere.

Then she was permitted to speak.

“Nearly every word that has been said is false,” she began.

She told the court how she had met him, how he had denied being married, how he had called himself Walter Tyrrell. She spoke of her love, her shame and her inability to support herself. She said she had left his house so that he might have peace with his wife. She had asked only for an interview, she insisted, and had threatened to harm herself because she could no longer endure the humiliation.

At last she broke down.

“I am homeless, penniless, and without a husband.”

The phrase would make a fine newspaper heading. It was also, in its way, the truth. Catherine was still legally married, but the marriage offered her little shelter. She had children, but not enough money to care for them as she wished. She had been promised a livelihood, but the venture had failed. She had loved a man who had concealed his identity and then refused to hear her.

None of this excused the threats or the damage. But the magistrate was faced with more than a simple tale of a wicked woman and two innocent victims. The evidence was tangled, the emotions raw, and the consequences of a conviction might have been severe.

He put the case back.

Catherine was brought into court again. This time, her cousin, Miss Buchanan, came forward. She had spoken with Catherine and was prepared to promise that she would not molest the Shipways again.

The magistrate considered the matter.

At last he released Catherine on her own recognisances in the sum of one hundred pounds, to keep the peace for twelve months.

There was no grand reconciliation, no final confession from George, no triumphant declaration from Dora. The court simply required Catherine to keep away.

Outside, London continued about its business. Omnibuses rattled along the streets, theatre managers prepared their bills, and newspapers were sold for a penny. Somewhere in the Strand, George Shipway returned to his financial dealings. Dora returned, one hopes, to her engagements. Catherine walked away with her cousin, carrying the knowledge that the law had released her but had not restored what she had lost.

She would not disappear from the world. In time, she would find her way into the theatre herself, taking on the roles of other women and speaking words written by someone else. Perhaps the stage offered her a kind of freedom: a place where grief could be turned into feeling, humiliation into dignity, and a woman who had been rejected could still command an audience.

Catherine had wanted a new life. She had mistaken a promise for a future and a borrowed name for an honest man.

The magistrate sent her away to keep the peace.

The newspapers sent her into legend.