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Photography in the Great War
 Facialities: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Human Face
Series Editors:
Suzannah Biernoff
Mark Bradley
David H. Jones
David Turner
Patricia Skinner
Garthine Walker
In this series, historians of all periods, experts in visual culture and
literary scholars explore the many ways in which faces have been
represented in the past and present, and in particular the issue of
facial difference, disfigurement, beauty and ‘ugliness’. Faces are
central to all human social interactions, yet have been neglected as a
subject of study in themselves outside of the cognitive sciences and
some work on aesthetics of the body. Titles in the series will range
across themes such as approaching the difficult history of
disfigurement, how facial difference and disability intersect, the
changing norms of appearance relating to the face and other
features such as the hair (facial and otherwise), violence targeted at
the face, and the reception and representation of the face in art and
literature.
Published:
Approaching Facial Difference: Past and Present, edited by Patricia
Skinner and Emily Cock (2018)
Concerning Beards, Alun Withey (2021)
Forthcoming:
Facial Disfigurement in Ancient Greece and Rome, Jane Draycott
 Photography in the Great War
The Ethics of Emerging Medical Collections from the Great War
Jason Bate
 Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The wards with no mirrors: RAMC photography and the new era
of medical communications
2 Glass soldiers in the lantern. The Royal Society of Medicine,
1914–19
3 Mobilizing the camera as therapy: The amateur photographers at
work: organization, equipment and business
4 Family-led care and the shortcomings in state provision
5 The ‘medical collections’ and ‘family collections’ of the archival
ecosystem
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 Illustrations
I.1 Butcher family christening, 1949, photographer unknown.
Reproduced by kind permission of the Dewhurst family
1.1 Glass photographic plate from the Albéric Pont Collection,
1915–18, 90 × 120 mm, photographer unknown. Reproduced
by kind permission of the Archives of the Bibliothèque
Interuniversitaire de Santé, Paris
1.2 Glass photographic plate from the Albéric Pont Collection,
1915–18, 90 × 120 mm, photographer unknown. Reproduced
by kind permission of the Archives of the Bibliothèque
Interuniversitaire de Santé, Paris
1.3 Glass photographic plate from the Albéric Pont Collection,
1915–18, 90 × 120 mm, photographer unknown. Reproduced
by kind permission of the Archives of the Bibliothèque
Interuniversitaire de Santé, Paris
1.4 Title page of the thirty-sixth volume of the Journal of the Royal
Microscopical Society (1916). Reproduced with kind permission
of University Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, and the
Royal Microscopical Society Archives
1.5 Privates Westwood, 1918–19, and Harper, 1916–19,
photographs by Dr Albert Norman, 1915–19. RAMC album 2,
RAMC 760. Wellcome Library. Reproduced by kind permission of
the trustees of the Museum of Military Medicine
1.6 Thornton-Pickard Cameras, advertised in Amateur
Photographer and Photographic News 61. 1579 (3 May 1915):
vi. N. 1709 d. 2. Reproduced by kind permission of the Bodleian
Library, University of Oxford
1.7 Half plate glass negative of Private Bob Davidson, 30 March
1917, ‘R.J. Davidson. 7’, written along the top edge of the plate
in black marker pen, photographed by Sydney Walbridge. Gillies
Archive, the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and
Aesthetic Surgeons, BAPRAS/Sidcup/6/4, from the Archive of
the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London
2.1 Frontispiece of the tenth volume of the Proceedings of the
Royal Society of Medicine (1916–17). Reproduced by kind
 permission of the Royal Society of Medicine, London, and Sage
Publishing
2.2 Photograph of the Robert Barnes Hall, The Royal Society of
Medicine: Opening of the New Building by His Majesty the King
Accompanied by Her Majesty the Queen (1912): 4. Cat no. WZ
1 (ROY). Reproduced by kind permission of the Royal Society of
Medicine
2.3 ‘Wrench’ series lanterns, cinematographs and accessories
(1908): 167. EXEBD 36621/3. Reproduced by permission of the
Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter
2.4 Page from ‘Optical Lanterns’ advertisement, The Amateur
Photographer 45 (1907): iii. N. 1709 d. 2. Reproduced by kind
permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
2.5 Page from The Art of Projection and Complete Magic Lantern
Manual (1893): 130, of incandescent lamp for electric light
lanterns. EXEBD 29785. Reproduced by permission of the Bill
Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter
2.6 Page of photographs for J. L. Payne in A. E. Rowlett, Case of
Facial Restoration by Means of Mechanical Appliance,
‘Odontological Section. Discussion on War Injuries of the Jaw
and Face’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 12. 3
(1916–17): 40. Reproduced by kind permission of the Royal
Society of Medicine and Sage Publishing
2.7 Page from G. Northcroft, ‘A Short Account of a Year’s Work at
One of the Jaw Injuries Centres of the London Command’,
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 11. 3 (1918): 19.
Reproduced by kind permission of the Royal Society of Medicine
and Sage Publishing
2.8 Photographic lantern slide of Private Slater, circa 1918.
Photographed and reproduced by Sydney Walbridge. Gillies
collection, the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and
Aesthetic Surgeons, BAPRAS/G/31/5/Box 3, from the archive of
the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London
3.1 The Newman and Guardia ‘Sibyl’ Camera (Advertisement), The
Photographic Industry of Great Britain (London: The British
Photographic Manufacturers Association, 1920): 256. LBY
 85/3294. Reproduced by kind permission of the Imperial War
Museum, London
3.2 ‘Pictorial History’, Boots Photographic Section (Advertisement),
Amateur Photographer and Photography, 46. 1545 (7 August
1918): 2. N. 1709 d. 2. Reproduced by kind permission of the
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
3.3 ‘Service’, Boots Photographic Section (Advertisement),
Amateur Photographer and Photography, 46. 1545 (4
September 1918): 2. N. 1709 d. 2. Reproduced by kind
permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
3.4 Photograph Albums by William Johnson & Son
(Advertisement), The Photographic Industry of Great Britain
(London: The British Photographic Manufacturers Association,
1920): 175. LBY 85/3294. Reproduced by kind permission of the
Imperial War Museum
3.5 Two nurses processing X-ray plates in the developing room,
from photograph album of the King George V Military Hospital,
1915–19, photograph by Benjamin Disreali Margerison, RARE
B[0] ac no. 16685. Reproduced by kind permission of the
Imperial War Museum
4.1 George Butcher on holiday at Cliftonville, Margate, 1932,
photograph by Emily Butcher. Dewhurst family collection.
Reproduced by kind permission of the Dewhurst family
4.2 George Butcher on holiday at Cliftonville, Margate, 1932,
photograph by Emily Butcher. Dewhurst family collection.
Reproduced by kind permission of the Dewhurst family
4.3 George and Emily Butcher on a day’s outing, 1968,
photographer unknown. Dewhurst family collection. Reproduced
by kind permission of the Dewhurst family
4.4 Studio photograph of Twinn family, c. 1917. Reproduced by
kind permission of the family of Sidney Twinn
4.5 Twinn family picnic, 1959, photographer unknown. Reproduced
by kind permission of the family of Sidney Twinn
4.6 Sidney Twinn and his wife Minnie, with their granddaughter
Anita and Sid’s nephew John, c. early 1940s, photographer
 unknown. Reproduced by kind permission of the family of
Sidney Twinn
4.7 Hugh (centre), his nephew-in-law John Phillips (left), and
another family member (right), Suffolk, c. late 1930s.
Reproduced by kind permission of the family of Hugh Goddard
4.8 George Butcher decorating at home, c. 1938–9, photograph by
Emily Butcher. Dewhurst family collection. Reproduced by kind
permission of the Dewhurst family
5.1 Storage boxes of photographs from the Gillies Collection.
Reproduced by kind permission of the archive of the British
Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons
5.2 Photographic postcard of Arnold Wayte and his Ward 5 friends
at Queen’s Hospital, Sidcup, sent to his mother on 6 November
1917. Reproduced by kind permission of the Gedye family
5.3 Photographic postcard of Arnold Wayte and his Ward 5 friends
at Queen’s Hospital, Sidcup, sent to his mother on 6 November
1917. Reproduced by kind permission of the Gedye family
5.4 Page of photographs of Private George Edwards, 1917–19,
photographs by Dr Albert Norman. RAMC album 2, RAMC 760.
Wellcome Library. Reproduced by kind permission of the
trustees of the Museum of Military Medicine
5.5 George Edwards with his granddaughter Kathy on her wedding
day, July 1975, photographer unknown. Reproduced by kind
permission of the family of George Edwards
5.6 Broken half plate glass negative of Private Bob Davidson, 30
March 1917, photographed by Sydney Walbridge. Gillies Archive,
the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic
Surgeons, BAPRAS/Sidcup/6/2, from the Archive of the Royal
College of Surgeons of England, London
 Acknowledgements
This book has been shaped and reshaped over a number of years
and through the guidance and support of many people. The bulk of
the research was developed while I was a PhD student at Falmouth
University where I had the great fortune of being supervised by
Nancy Roth, Fiona Hackney and James Ryan. Without their
generosity and spirit of giving time, dedication and support for my
work this book would have looked very different. Both Falmouth
University and the University of Exeter provided highly supportive
and stimulating academic environments that have shaped my
thinking in profound ways.
As with any research project, my work was made infinitely easier
by the support of many archivists and research professionals,
including those at the Royal College of Surgeons of England,
London; the Imperial War Museum, London; the Wellcome Library,
London; the Museum of Military Medicine, Aldershot; the London
Metropolitan Archives; the British Library, London; the Bodleian
Library, Oxford; the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Exeter; the
Archives of the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé, Paris; and
the Royal Society of Medicine, London. I am particularly grateful to
David Wiggins from the Museum of Military Medicine, Robert
Greenwood and Lilian Ryan from the library of the Royal Society of
Medicine, Ruth Neave, formerly of the British Association of Plastic,
Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons at the Royal College of
Surgeons, and Andrew Bamji, honorary archivist of the Gillies
Archive, for generously sharing expertise and allowing unfettered
access to the collections.
I am indebted to many friends and colleagues at the University of
Exeter and elsewhere for their help, encouragement, as well as
critical feedback over the years, that have shaped the work in many
ways, including David Jones, Joe Kember, John Plunkett, Phil
Wickham, Suzannah Biernoff, Wendy Gagen, Jessica Meyer, Sara
Dominici, Beatriz Pichel and Kat Rawling. I would also like to
acknowledge my myriad debts to the scholars whose names
populate the endnotes of this book; their work has provided the
inspiration and the foundation for this study.
 Throughout this project I have benefited enormously from a
number of instances of academic collegiality which have improved
my writing. I appreciate the thoughtful feedback on chapters
provided by the students and staff of The History and Theory of
Photography Research Centre in a seminar at Birkbeck. Presenting at
Birkbeck has additionally led to a number of important conversations
which have shaped this book. Chapter 2 is based on another article
published in the Science Museum Group Journal in 2020; I am
grateful to the journal’s editor for his permission to rework the
material. Gil Pasternak kindly shared his thoughts on ethics and the
challenges of engaging medical photograph collections before
publication, and Michael Roper, Jennifer Tucker and Elizabeth
Edwards all provided encouragement and insight in discussions of
my work. They have made this a better book than it would otherwise
have been.
I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the family descendants of
the small group of facially injured ex-servicemen from the Great War
discussed in this book, who provided me not only with invaluable
personal information but also large numbers of family photographs
of their ancestors relating to postwar domestic life.
I have had the good fortune to present many of the ideas
contained in this book at a number of conferences and workshops as
they have developed. I am particularly appreciative of the
opportunity to present my work at a series of workshops on the
cultural legacy of les gueules cassées offered by the international
research project 1914 Faces 2014 funded by the EU scheme Interreg
at the University of Exeter, led by David Jones for the UK team
between 2013 and 2015, a French team was led by Professor
Bernard Devauchelle, Institut Faire Faces, Amiens; and the
AboutFace workshop ‘Emotions and Ethics: the Use and Abuse of
Historical Images’, organized by Fay Bound Alberti at the University
of York and held online in June 2020, for the chance not only to
present but also to refine the central thesis of this book.
I would like to thank Bloomsbury for the publishing of this book,
with particular gratitude to the series editors for their attentive
editing and Abigail Lane and Viswasirasini Govindarajan for their
calm guidance throughout the process. I also thank the two
anonymous peer reviewers of this book for their thorough and
constructive reader reports. This book has also been made possible
by and benefited greatly from a generous grant provided by the
Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical
Research.
I would also like to thank my friends for their support and
patience during the writing of this book. Unwittingly, they have been
required to listen to the stories of the ex-servicemen and the
photograph collections for the past twelve years. And finally, my
deepest thanks to my parents, for their support. Their passion and
compassion have been, throughout my life, a source of inspiration
and encouragement.
 Introduction
In August 1916, the Ministry of Pensions wrote a short article in the
British Journal of Photography, calling upon local employers to take
on soldiers who had been disabled during their war service. Among
the obvious postwar problems was that of finding employment for
many ex-soldiers who had been injured more or less seriously but
were still capable of doing certain classes of work:
There are many ways in which a man may be incapacitated
from returning to his own trade or occupation without rendering
him unfit for a lighter business. A railway guard who had lost a
leg could hardly take up his old job, but as a photographic
printer or darkroom assistant he would feel the handicap very
slightly. A man who had lost both legs might, if he possessed
the necessary delicacy of touch, develop into a successful
retoucher or take up the finishing of prints and enlargements.1
For the British government and state authorities, the photographic
industry seemed to offer suitable openings for disabled ex-service
workers to earn a living, and they assured employers of subsidies to
support any training, ‘so that the photographer need not be at a loss
during the period of tuition’.2 The Ministry’s plea to the photographic
industry, to retrain in the shadows of darkrooms or printing
departments, serves as a reminder of how the government sought to
reintegrate disabled and disfigured ex-servicemen back into society.
By 1921, 1,182,000 First World War ex-servicemen in Britain were
receiving a disability pension paid for by the Ministry of Pensions.3
The severity of an ex-serviceman’s disablement and pension rate
was calculated by percentages. Severe facial disfigurement, for
example, qualified as 100 per cent disability.4 Local War Pensions
Committees were responsible for organizing training and medical
treatment after discharge.5 In addition, benefits extended to ex-
servicemen’s wives and children, and were provided using a
complicated set of rules.6 Awarding disability pensions was
controversial, as government wanted to minimize costs. Although the
state assumed responsibility for provision for its war disabled,
regional committees undertook administration. The government did
not stifle individual enterprise. One handbook noted: ‘It means that
a department of governance with a Cabinet Minister is charged with
seeing that the state’s responsibility is carried out, but that this
department is expected to fulfil its function largely by stimulating
local and private effort.’7 The hitherto unprecedented scale of
pension infrastructure was the result of the intense and lethal reality
of the First World War involving mass citizen armies experiencing
static trench warfare, poisonous gasses, advanced heavy artillery
and machine-gun fire. ‘The science and technology of the First World
War simultaneously destroyed and recreated the male body.’8
The British government presented a return to industry and the
workforce as a symbol of physical and moral recovery, and the
means by which the disfigured would regain their place in society
and reassert their hegemonic masculinity. The rehabilitation and
policy of disabled ex-servicemen’s rights as workers in which the
Ministry of Pensions immersed itself was shaped by the national
economy and the availability of finances, with a large emphasis on
social exchanges and emotional bonds and philanthropic bodies to
help reintegrate British veterans back into civil and domestic life.
One prominent scheme was the King’s National Roll, a state
programme that encouraged employers to ensure at least 5 per cent
of their workforce were ex-servicemen in receipt of a disability
pension. Launched in Britain in September 1919, employers who
participated were included on a national ‘Roll of Honour’ and able to
use the King’s Seal in correspondence. Previous research into the
scheme highlights its worthiness as almost 24,000 employers
participated in helping 259,000 disabled ex-servicemen attain
employment in 1921. Such effort helped to create a national sense
of duty and appreciation to the disabled ex-service community and
emphasized the significance of the sacrifices they had made for their
country.9
This book aims to address the British government’s task of
returning facially injured soldiers to industry by questioning medical
photography’s place in the broader history of the economic and
cultural concerns of their domestic reintegration. Focusing on the
context of the photographic departments and services of
maxillofacial war hospitals, I aim to unveil how photography
participated in the domestic reintegration and professional
rehabilitation of disfigured ex-servicemen and how attempts were
made to place these men back into employment and even to give
them pensions enabling them to live as well as they might have had
they not been disabled.
On 1 May 1915, James Dundas-Grant formally recognized the
importance of photography to the British scheme of care for the
facially injured in a Lancet article. Dundas-Grant was a laryngologist
and had visited French war hospitals with the British Army, to gain a
better understanding of facial injuries and obtain information on
their treatment. Dundas-Grant quickly realized the lack of sufficient
documentation and material on this new type of war injury held by
the British Medical Services. The author described his observations
to British colleagues in the hope that ‘the same kind of work may be
carried out in our home military hospitals’.10 Over the course of the
Great War the British Army and the Ministry of Pensions had to
contend with 60,500 British servicemen wounded in the head or
eyes.11 Whilst exact numbers are unknown, over 4,000 servicemen
from the British and imperial armies were treated at Sidcup alone
between 1917 and 1925,12 often for many months or years, with 1
per cent of pensioned ex-servicemen in the National Archives cited
as suffers of a facial condition or injury.13 The facial injuries
produced by the conflict were unprecedented in their numbers and
severity.
The state was a key player in the business of war hospitals, both
as a regulator and as a market for labour and services, which
inevitably applied to photography. Scholars of both medical history
and photographic history have so far not suggested that the military,
as a business industry, was a client for photographic services.
Indeed, the photographic departments in the various facial centres
can be characterized by the polymorphic nature of their industrial
organization and small and medium-sized production units.14 The
British Army’s production of photography in the facial wards, which
include before and after images of soldiers undergoing surgical
reconstruction, encouraged previous scholars to closely link these
disfiguring wounds to loss of social function such as the difficulties of
feeding and speech and returning to work in the postwar era. I
widen the focus to conjoin the British Army and Ministry of
Pensions’s surgery and aftercare activities and Army Medical Services
photographic production in order to reveal how the event of
photography as a caregiving process attended to ex-servicemen’s
‘future employment’ so that ‘they might become good citizens’.15
The social exchanges and the practicalities and logistics of working
in busy facial wards and the introduction of easy-to-use portable
cameras, improved light-sensitive plates and the smells and stains of
the chemicals and the toxins of the darkroom define this
photography.
With this social and economic restoration of ex-servicemen’s faces
in mind, the Medical Photographic Services production yields an
additional and different narrative that integrates this ideological
devotion to reintegration aims – for example, the rights of workers,
and group recognition from governments and state authorities, with
these photographic processes and practices, reassessing them in
light of these reform-minded views. I argue for an appreciation of
the Royal Army Medical Corps’ (hereafter RAMC) photographic
production as a broad network of actors, organizations and
institutions relevant to military-medical photography – a cooperation
network encompassing not only the military and the state but also a
hierarchy of professional and commercial photographers,
photographic manufacturers, local camera clubs, individual darkroom
workers and assistants, small companies and micro-businesses. This
infrastructure for managing patients, labour, capital and information
produced for the Army Medical Services a photographic field that
could engage with the complexity of facial injuries and fix the image
of healing after surgery – as an invaluable apparatus that gave
doctors a newfound visual, portable and experimental independence
to tackle the fast pace of thousands of patient admissions to
hospital.
The image-making processes in the war hospitals index the
environments in many interesting ways, allowing us to see the
transition from amateur or commercial practice to professional
engagement, how photographers extended their activities to hospital
services, dealt with medical photography and tried to master the
techniques, its durational qualities, its state of expectancy, as well as
its translations and distributions and the signs of production and
decision-making which medical staff were keen to repress, with all
the workings hidden under perfectly engineered scientific images. By
focusing on the fluid material events to the production and
transmission of medical information, the chapters in the first part of
this book deal with the emergence and evolution of wartime medical
communications as a particular matter that helps to develop
adequate alternatives to the discursive objectification and hardening
of materials.
This book encourages us to see the complex ways in which
surgical innovation, business, commerce and industry in
photography, and military welfare and rehabilitation configured one
another. In particular, this book represents the military complex
underlining medical photography of the Great War as a cluster of
workers and a series of events servicing the wards. Technology
adoption can be seen not as oppressive but as an important part of
the duties of caregiving – despite a lack of informed consent by
patients to have their pictures taken – whereby surgeons,
photographers, nurses, darkroom workers and local camera clubs
creatively and pragmatically transformed a promising technology into
a workable and working process within a new military market. The
patients in the facial wards never consented to have their pictures
taken. If they did, it is impossible to know because there is no
evidence to suggest exactly what happened when the pictures were
taken. However, because the treatment of British facially injured ex-
servicemen was coordinated and brought under military and
government jurisdiction and subject to the Ministry of Pensions for
aftercare for civil life, a patient was legally bound to undergo
rehabilitation and ‘to their control in all matters relating to their
pension’, with penalties being imposed upon them ‘if they failed to
avail themselves of the surgical course prescribed’.16 By granting
consent to perform surgery, a soldier-patient was automatically
authorizing the surgical team to take photographs of any surgical
outcomes as photographic practice was defined as part of this
treatment.
At the same time, once photography’s feats were captured and
contained (to document, preserve, and reproduce cases of facial
injury), surgeons well understood what educational purpose the
camera would serve, and how it would integrate into the wards,
societal practices, and social uses. That would become clear in the
institutional clarifications of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM).
Everything in the meetings of the RSM points to ‘formalizing’ and
‘institutionalizing’. Not only are the terms of photographic production
in the various specialisms of surgery brought together to treat facial
injuries in the Society used, but its practicality is specified, mastered
and fixed to the name of the departments of knowledge. If there is a
Section of the Society that is because the institutionalization of
photography is under way. The new era of medical communications
was also the new era of photography in the ward.
In the lives of facially injured ex-servicemen, from the moment of
their wounding, and in many cases for the remainder of their lives,
these men were regulated by societal judgements about the visibility
of facial difference and its appropriateness. Disfigurements could be,
and should be, as Marjorie Gehrhardt notes, culturally visible
(through literature, newspaper reports etc.), but were not supposed
to be literally visible and were largely absent from the visual culture
of the war, despite being extensively photographed for medical
purposes.17 Newspapers during the war played a pivotal role in
shaping the real and imagined destinies of facially injured ex-
servicemen, and helped motivate concerns to police their visibility.
There was a significant spatial dimension to the visibility of facially
injured Great War ex-servicemen. The boundaries of what was
considered appropriate were dictated by the space in which one was
being seen and who was witnessing/observing. At the Queen’s
Hospital in Sidcup, for example, patients were encouraged to ‘take
the air’ along the road which ran between the hospital and the town
of Sidcup. Specific benches were designated for patients’ use,
identifiable by the blue paint which served to warn passers-by of
their facial wounds.18 The benches embody the complexities
surrounding the visibility of facial injuries and attempts to curb it.
Drawing attention to facially wounded patients so that civilians might
avoid looking at them reinforced (and arguably legitimized) the
relationship between disfigurement and social isolation. This also
highlights, however, the imagined difference between civilian society
and the hospital, as the benches only existed outside its grounds;
they were not considered necessary within the hospital itself. In this
institutional environment, as opposed to in ‘polite society’, seeing
and observing disfigurement was permitted. This conceptualization
of disfigurement was also underpinned by an assumption that
soldiers with facial differences would, or should, want to hide,
reinforcing the concept of an innate passivity ensuing from their
injuries. Whilst this could mediate potentially negative social
treatment, this demonstrates how men’s interaction with the outside
world was regulated and controlled owing to ideas about the
(in)appropriateness of their visibility. The key aspect in this
interaction is the agency of the observer – the choice over whether
or not to look at the facially wounded individual.
The cultural norms and conventions in Britain, during and after the
war, acted to disenfranchise facially injured ex-servicemen over the
years. Against this background, presenting them as ‘the most tragic’,
and therefore, the ‘most worthy’ recipients of support, paradoxically
acted to emasculate disfigured veterans and render them passive.19
But the ex-servicemen showed an awareness of the passivity and
socioeconomic impotence, both in how they were framed and
contained. Facially injured veterans not only conceptualized their
disfigurements as part of the contingent of war-disabled veterans,
and conforming to the behavioural expectations placed upon ex-
servicemen such as amputees; they also ameliorated (to an extent)
the potential impact of their injuries, thus altering their appearance
as ‘injury to honour’. By framing their disfigurements within the
context of the Great War, and the rhetoric of heroic sacrifice, they
reclaimed their entitlement to visibility. But a real shift in the
relationship between photography and long-term caregiving required
something different.
The camera as therapy
By 1914, changes in industry had made photographic apparatus,
plates, films and chemicals readily available, and new businesses
were in operation to service the population of amateur and novice
photographers with developing and printing. The arrival and mass-
production of roll film also made possible new designs of camera
that a waiting market was keen to buy. For both sensitized goods
and camera manufacture the introduction of standardization to the
manufacturing process and techniques of mass-production ensured
that prices fell in the early 1900s and this supported new markets for
photography. For families who photographed, the combination of a
hand camera and daylight loading film was crucial in boosting
demand as they started to use these cameras to process and print
their domestic films. While the separation of picture taking from the
processing and printing of the photograph was a significant step in
supporting a mass market, the relative cost of photography meant
that even after the war, the only groups who could realistically afford
the technology was the growing body of middle-class photographers,
who enthusiastically embraced the hobby as it facilitated individual
expression and leisure activity. Many households could not afford
cameras, or to have photographs taken. Class becomes a significant
factor within the complexities of understanding this kind of study
and the difficulties inherent in this topic, for it is fundamental not
only in relation to who had access and means to photograph others
in the hospital but also in the home.
I argue the need for an expanded conception of the aftercare of
facially injured Great War ex-servicemen which encompasses
photography by families as a psychological tool for recovery and the
presentation of healing made by photographic companies when
embracing the reform ideas emerging in a postwar era. I argue for
an appreciation of the family archives and the acts of caregiving in
the domestic setting that have otherwise been elided by
photographic histories. Because many of these disfigured men
underwent a difficult renegotiation of their own male identity,
recovery cannot be fully understood without addressing how
veterans conformed (and were seen to conform) to the stoic ideal,
commonly thought to be unattainable to disfigured ex-servicemen20
and we cannot adequately understand the function and position of
photography in the postwar era if we do not consider that a facially
injured ex-serviceman’s masculinity depended upon conformity to
certain ‘goals’, such as ensuring economic independence, displaying
gendered traits such as stoicism or physical strength and
establishing marital and sexual relations.
The site of the face is ascribed a cultural and personal value and
sudden facial injuries had the power to undermine and alter ex-
servicemen’s self-perception as well as his socioeconomic position.
Disfigured veterans could be objects of disgust, as Suzannah
Biernoff shows,21 and were commonly conceptualized in terms of
what Heather Laine Talley argues ‘the specter of disfigurement’, the
belief that disfigurement, coupled with the importance accrued to
physiological functions of the face, signifies an exceptional ‘social
disability’.22 Thus, the claim of facially wounded veterans to the
heroically wounded masculine ideal was contested. The role of the
photographic within disfigured ex-servicemen’s conformity to
idealized expectations of the economic provider and family man, as
well as masculine stoicism, allow us to better understand how they
reestablished themselves in domestic life and interacted directly with
the real and imagined destinies of disfigurement, situating
themselves as family men, corporeally altered but nonetheless
maintaining an intact masculine status and identity.
Although forms of facial impairment might have been visibly
present even in the remote towns and villages of Britain at that time,
ex-servicemen would likely consider themselves a burden for their
own family and community, destined to function simply as an object
of pity and a recipient of charity. Yet, these men roundly rejected the
idea of losing the social ability that facilitated their preferred
performance of masculinity as a successful provider and a physical
labourer. Thus, using family photography to validate the idea of a
conventional association between masculinity and economic
productivity started to thoroughly change how family members
interacted with their ex-service partners and learnt ‘how to care’. The
Great War marked a watershed in the public perception of disability,
as well as in the words used to refer to physical ‘defects’. The sheer
numbers of permanently injured soldiers who returned from the
front line during and after the conflict made bodily impairment much
more visible in society. Importantly, these bodies also carried a
widely recognized patriotic prestige, which distinguished them from
the disabled civilian.23 They were, in a sense, an ‘other’ that
nonetheless wore a badge of honor.24 Their wartime service entitled
them to forms of healthcare and social welfare that would otherwise
be unavailable at that time in Britain, such as state-sponsored
medical aid, rehabilitation, vocational retraining and war pensions.
Driven by the idea that they deserved the gratitude and support of
the nation for what they had experienced and what they had
sacrificed during the conflict, disabled and disfigured veterans
depended on a material and moral obligation for compensation as
well as rights, assistance, and group recognition from governments
and state authorities.25
In particular, the second part of this book seeks to disentangle the
intersection between masculinity and facial difference by focusing on
a series of contacts and encounters between the wounded soldiers
and family members from the moment of their discharge from
hospital. Through an analysis of these interactions, it is possible to
grasp the complexity of the experience of adjusting to a violently
altered facial injury, while it also allows us to reveal a range of
reactions that those males evoked. Among others, this book draws
on post-injury relationships to examine the type of emotions and
desires that fuelled the dealings between wounded ex-servicemen
and women. In addition, it will illustrate how and to what extent
facially disfigured veterans negotiated and shaped their gendered
identities. It will do so by paying attention to the interactions that
took place in veterans’ households or communities of origin. We will
thus observe a variety of intimate and social exchanges and
emotional bonds that animated the individual and collective lives of
those who had been disfigured, often severely, as a result of military
service.
The photography complex
The case of medical photographic services indicates that
photography’s intersection with state-sponsored healthcare in
wartime did not simply make it easier for surgeons and
photographers working in the facial wards to communicate with each
other, but, most importantly, it also transformed the form of their
communication in a way that impacted on photographers’ perception
of their own role within this process. As Shannon Mattern argues,
‘People have not been mere beneficiaries of infrastructure; they have
actually served as integral links within those infrastructural
networks’26 in ways that ‘create another role for individual and
collective human agency’.27 In this sense, to be transformed was not
simply what and how RAMC personnel of the Army Medical Services
could communicate, but also the role of individual agency within
such a modern infrastructural system. In order to explore this
transformation, this book considers medical photographic services in
the facial wards as sociotechnical networks that emerged from the
confluence of everyday practices of surgeons, photographers and
nurses, surgical and caregiving strategies and rehabilitation
programmes and photographic materials. This means, in the context
of my analysis, that the intertwining of people and modern medical
communication and caregiving systems created the conditions for
RAMC personnel of the facial wards to assert themselves as modern
actors.28 Redefining medical photography makes thinkable the many
ways in which visual technologies, processes, chemicals, materials
and their production and interpretation – what can be referred to as
‘visual and material practices’ – connect to the experience of state-
sponsored healthcare in wartime. I suggest it is helpful to
conceptualize photography in the facial wards as a complex of
interactions entwining the fields of culture, commerce, medicine,
philanthropy, government and the military. This complex
encompasses not simply photographs and photographers but also
technologies, processes, chemicals and materials, markets,
companies and institutions, as well as surgeons, nurses, military
personnel, charities, families, publishers and politicians, all of whom
are engaged with negotiating caregiving strategies and rehabilitation
programmes for the disabled ex-service community. Historian James
Hevia offers a further useful conception for approaching the complex
interactions of diverse agents, institutions and technologies. In his
consideration of the Boxer Uprising of 1900–1 and imperialism in
relation to China at the turn of the twentieth century, Hevia draws
from Bruno Latour to define the photography complex as ‘a network
of actants made up of human and non-human parts’.29 For Latour,
networks enable a different story of photography, one that avoids
the problem of teleology, or the ‘asymmetry between the realizable
and the unrealizable’, that plagues traditional photographic
histories.30 Since photography was never simply one thing, it could
not be realized as an original, unified conception. The crucial insight
of Latour’s actor-network theory is that technology makes users as
much as users make technology; in making this assertion, actor-
network theory grants objects (including photographic ones) a
degree of agency.
Within this mutual entanglement of ‘humans and non-humans’,
Hevia suggests, is comprised the camera and related equipment;
negatives and chemicals, including gelatin emulsions and dry plates;
the photographer and the subject that is photographed; transport,
communications and distribution networks that deliver the image to
the end-user; and finally the system of storage and preservation that
enables redistribution of, and subsequent encounters with, the
image.31 What is clear from his early-twentieth-century example is
that ‘When put in these terms, photography seems to be more like a
heading under which a range of agencies, animate and inanimate,
visible and invisible are clustered’.32 The infrastructure of the Army
Medical Services had created a new way for photographers to come
together. This book thus investigates the influence that the RAMC
had on photographic practices and, consequently, on the cultural
production of what, I will argue, were emergent photographic
networks.
Whilst there are many aspects of the photography complex that
might be examined, among the most pressing and fruitful is its
caregiving dimension. In terms suggested by Hevia, we might,
therefore, see the Medical Photographic Services in the war hospitals
as a web of relations established between the RAMC, the
government, the disabled ex-service community, surgeons,
caregivers, policymakers, publishers, workers, families and even
archivists, and sustained by the various practices and materials
flowing across them. The intertwined relationship between war and
medical care encompasses the working environment of the wards,
photographic and X-ray departments, operating theatres, the
medically trained, commercial, and amateur photographers,
photographic manufacturing and the Ministry of Pensions’s
rehabilitation programmes and the economy of family households
and the workplace. These diverse performative practices are easily
brought under the same rubric; they represent the material events
and the currents of interrelated photographic practices and
processes entangled in the caregiving for British facially injured
Great War ex-servicemen.
War, medicine, photography and industry
Business and industry shape the progress of conflict and the
innovations of medicine, so too does war shape the development
and direction of specific businesses and industries. Wars, as business
historian Patrick Fridenson observes, are ‘major episodes in the
learning of people and organisations, in the modifications of their
representations, in the change of their products, markets, and
performances, and in networks and trade associations’.33 The
intertwined relationship between war, medicine and activity of the
photographic industry encompasses numerous aspects: raw
materials and chemical development and manufacturing; the
adoption of pioneering war technologies to civilian markets (and vice
versa); the connections between firms and government agencies;
and the adaptation of civilian firms to business conditions in
wartime, amongst others. However, both business and photography
historians have largely overlooked the business of photography in
the context of military hospitals of the Great War.
Indeed, the conception of the materials of photographic industry
as fluid events entangled in the production and performance of
matter and the transmission of information need to be considered
carefully in photographic history. As photo-historian Kaja Silverman
observes, the conception of photography as a liquid intelligence,
taken from Jeff Wall’s essay ‘Photography and Liquid Intelligence’
1989,34 in which the production of images as well as the active role
various liquid materials play in the respective photographic
processes, is linked to the controlling power of technology and the
modern attempt to master and oppress nature.35 Silverman argues
that it is possible to develop a ‘wetter’ ethos by acknowledging the
recurrent practical involvements with photography’s ‘liquid
intelligence’, and invites us to interpret the concept both literally and
metaphorically: ‘as a quality that liquids have and also as the fluidity
of what we imagine to be solid forms’.36 As she points out, the liquid
intelligence of photography is associated with lability and
incalculability, in spite of its mechanical ability to bring different
kinds of movement to a halt in front of the lens. Here, practitioners’
interactions with the chemicals, emulsions, developing-solutions and
photographic fixers during the process of photographic image-
making raise questions of the bounds and dictates of technological
constraint.
The notion of photography’s intelligence as liquid and performing
a fluidity in the world rather than being dry and static offers a potent
means of recovering the histories, participation and viewpoints of
marginalized groups in the facial wards. This liquidity not only
reveals a form of visual encounter in which military power is not yet
fixed but also uncovers how the economics of wartime presented
opportunities for the expansion of markets and product
development. At the outbreak of the war, Britain’s photographic
processes were destabilized by industrial chemistry, and
manufacturers were not in a strong competitive position with respect
to European and American companies, being assailed on the one
side by American mass production technology and sophisticated
marketing and, on the other, by German scientific innovation.37 In
the first two years of the war, photographic manufacturing in Britain
was greatly affected by the disruption of imports from Germany,
France and Belgium, which impacted on the supply chain of raw
photographic materials for military needs. Before 1914, German,
Belgian and French firms dominated the world market in gelatin
photographic emulsions and raw photographic paper, both complex
and specialized products.38 In Britain, small firms, most of them
private, characterized the industry. Thus British firms were unable to
produce a wide range of cameras, chemicals or most of the raw
materials bound up with the supply of light sensitive products. These
firms were a very long way from providing the cheap cameras and
complete processing service, which accounted for much of Kodak’s
success.39 These diverse instances demonstrate how state and
military clients, consumer demand, market forces and innovation in
the war hospitals help to shape photographic materials, objects,
technologies and practices produced in the context of conflict.
Whether the imperial strategy of the British Army; the collective
drive of the RAMC; or the day-to-day pressures of the individual
surgeon, photographer and nurse caught up in the extraordinary
conditions of wartime, ‘the business of military-medical photography’
must be considered as a decisive factor in motivating action and
medical intervention.
The mobility of raw materials, chemicals, or plates, prints and
slides in the photographic departments and their unpredictable
properties are an expression of infinitesimal metamorphoses of
quality. Marcel Finke and Friedrich Weltzien argue that the fluids of
such photographic practices possess characteristics and behaviours
which necessitate particular ways of handling and precautions.40
Whilst most of the mutable and fugitive photographic materials come
to a standstill in the course of production, drying and reifying into
photographs, fixed and contained in order to stay in place and keep
a preconceived shape, Finke and Weltzien remind us that these
materials are always ready to overflow or break through their
external boundaries.41 It is from photography’s ongoing processes
and ‘generative fluxes’, they suggest, that forms and things emerge
or arise, and since the productivity of these ‘currents of materials’
never really stop, forms and things are sustained only temporarily.42
But the camera also mediated the practitioner’s encounter with the
patients and the wards. These medical personnel were consequently
still at the mercy of the device’s liquid intelligence, and with the
industrialization of chemical photography.43
Social, psychological and professional reintegration
While Sophie Delaporte’s acclaimed study narrates facially injured
soldiers’ experiences of surgery in France,44 Suzannah Biernoff’s
landmark account Shame, Disgust and the Historiography of War
further buttressed facial injuries as an essential cultural reference
point in ex-servicemen’s memory of the First World War.45 Attention
in these works, however, is exclusive to the rapid changes in medical
practices and impact of facial injuries and surgery while the working-
class private’s individual hardship is comparatively concealed. While
the single-person experience of veterans of conflict has been
described as neglected figures in histories of war and medicine, the
historical disregard of British Army veterans of the Great War has
been manifested for those who had facial injuries and who were
members of the non-officer class.46 Photography historians of the
First World War accept a similarly overarching notion for its entire
Great War veteran population. Only Biernoff, Marjorie Gehrhardt and
Beatriz Pichel have engaged with the public visibility of facial
mutilation and addressed questions of the social function of the
face.47 This book expands these narratives with an analysis of eight
facially injured ex-servicemen who returned to Britain and one to
Canada.
Biernoff’s work has paved the way for analysing personal
understanding of facial injury photography of the Great War, with the
politics, ethics and emotions raised by historical medical collections
of disfigurement being a prevalent case study for thinking through
some of the responsibilities of care for the wider community who
came into contact with badly wounded soldiers and their traumatized
bodies and their views and projections on the soldiers’ present and
future. Despite the significance of facial injuries as a cultural symbol
of Britain’s involvement in the First World War, Gehrhardt offered the
first in-depth and exclusive analysis of the French and British
soldier’s experience of disfigurement in 2015 to reveal the traumatic
struggles of facially wounded Great War servicemen. While the
importance of Gehrhardt’s work is undeniable, the under-
appreciation of the postwar lives of facially injured veterans remains
within the historiography. Only one other academic has subsequently
engaged with a postwar analysis. Andrew Bamji’s work largely
focuses on the postwar experiences of English veterans of Queen’s
Hospital.48 This book is able to show how facially injured Great War
veterans reclaimed visibility and masculine status, and exercised an
agency which was denied them within wider understandings and
cultural representations of disfigurement.
In addition to perceived methodological shortcomings, the
politicization of the memory of disabled veterans in Britain has
influenced the absence of a postwar analysis of facially disfigured
Great War veterans. With the heightened cultural attention and value
ascribed to the male body, its destruction and reconstruction during
and after the war, disabled ex-servicemen were represented as a
symbol of patriotism and masculine heroism in the immediate
postwar world.49 Injuries to the face, whilst part of this wider
ideological framework, were also represented and interpreted in
unique ways. The face is, at once, an important site of personal
identity and social interactions, dictating how one is perceived by
others and how an individual understands their own identity.50
Disfigured veterans could signify an exceptional and absolute
removal from ‘ordinary’ human existence, but were at the same time
exploited and perpetuated for the individual agenda of writers and
journalists propagating a particular perception of the war, selling
memoirs, in celebration of the medical advances of plastic surgery,
or by institutions or philanthropic donors for fund-raising purposes.51
Presenting facially injured veterans as worthy victims was part of a
postwar method of inciting pity for financial gain and charitable
donations. The greater his independence an injured British veteran
was deemed to have lost during his war service, the more deserving
he was seen to be of social, financial and emotional support.
Although despondent pity was presented as the natural and
appropriate response to facial injuries, an especially awful
experience rather than as a variation of human life,52 this discourse
was complicated by explicitly gendered understandings of
rehabilitation and the imagined need for masculine autonomy.53
Representing disfigured veterans as objects of pity worked to
exclude sufferers from the narrative of heroic wounding and framed
these individuals within the lens of passive disability. This
representation was, instead, imprinted upon these men by observers
of their injuries who failed to incorporate examples of ex-
servicemen’s non-conformity or resistance to this narrative, and
whose observations and musings, since wartime, have dominated
the discourse of disfigurement. The voices of facially wounded
veterans are conspicuously absent from this historiography.
These wounded veterans were not offered generous or liberal
compensation packages in Britain. Panels of the Ministry’s physicians
carried out pension assessments based solely on the degree of
physical disfigurement or illness and did not take account of a man’s
capacity to return to work. Even the seriously disabled received
pensions below the minimum needed for survival. Insufficient
provisions for the disabled ex-serviceman provided a rallying cry for
veterans’ organizations in the immediate postwar years. Despite
meagre financial compensation and government failure to meet their
needs, British veterans remained loyal to the King and state and did
little to complain or lobby to secure their own rights. Throughout the
1920s and 1930s, political decision making in Britain shifted from
legislatures incapacitated by the burdens of total war and inflation to
powerful interest groups of industry and labour bargaining directly
through new and influential state ministries.54 Charged with the task
of arbitrating between industry and labour, officials in government
ministries in Britain gained unprecedented authority.
Although coming home was stabilized for wounded soldiers by the
achievements of the state and powerful interest groups, the reality
of the return was attained and maintained by the public. The
Ministry of Pensions, ‘pleading fiscal stringency and adherence to the
principles of sound governance’, sought to restrict the state’s liability
for disabled soldiers.55 The reintegration of veterans into nonmilitary
society also presented other challenges: difficulties in reconnecting
with family members, in relating to people who did not understand
what military personnel had experienced, in returning to a job and in
adjusting to a different pace of life and work. The reentry,
challenging for any serviceperson, was made all the harder when the
veteran has suffered permanent physical or psychological trauma.
The return to their households often exposed veterans to the
distress of coming to terms with their own transformed body and
functionality, as well as to the material and psychological
uncertainties such transformations would probably cause them and
their families.
Ethics and the archive
Sophie Delaporte has observed that in contrast with veterans in
general, the disabled left far fewer personal accounts of their
traumatic experience and that ‘mutism rather prevailed’ among those
who had been physically traumatized at the front.56 While war
represented an exceptional period in terms of letter and postcard
writing, times of injury, hospitalization and coping with permanent
impairment are rarely, if ever, referred to in written testimonies. In
the case of the facially disfigured, shame, fear, anger or difficulties in
coping with the sudden disability may have played an additional role
in their silence. Indeed, coping strategies in response to trauma
varied from action-oriented to reflective, and from emotionally
expressive to reticent. In contrast, members of the medical services
not only kept records of their professional responsibilities but also
annotated and photographed their activities, encounters and
thoughts in daily diary entries, photographs or, later, in memoirs and
albums. Red Cross nurses, who worked in close contact with badly
wounded soldiers, produced some of the most revealing and
instructive materials that shed light on wartime facial injury.
Although imbued with assertive patriotism, thousands of medical
photographs and bureaucratic reports assembled into official
collections, preserved and catalogued in army museums, betray a
horrified realization of the destructive nature of industrialized war as
observed in the damaged bodies of male combatants, and placed at
the disposal of medical officers as historical and educational sources
for future study. A family descendant of the Great War pensioner
Sidney Twinn recently stressed the importance for her grandfather in
restraining from talking to anyone about his recurring problems:
‘With his mouth and nose in later life and his hearing… significantly
impaired and his one remaining eye constantly weeping’. Despite the
profound effect on the Twinn family, any pain and distress was kept
hidden and not talked about.57
The dearth of relevant historical family source material further
obscures British facially injured veterans. Approximately 4,414,202
enlisted in the British Army during the First World War in England,
Wales, Scotland and Ireland. This number equated to around
twenty-three percent of the male population. These recruitments
statistics impacted upon subsequent veteran communities including
the facially injured community. This case study of facial injuries
utilizes a range of British sources to overcome these limitations. This
book draws upon the Gillies Archive and the Army Medical War
(AMW) collections currently held in the archives of the Royal College
of Surgeons of England and the Museum of Military Medicine in
Aldershot; the extensive collections of medical journals and
textbooks held in the Wellcome collection and the RSM in London,
and the Ministry of Pensions’s archival collection held at the National
Archives of England and Wales in London. The British Army and the
Ministry of Pensions established a system of national, regional and
local war hospitals and administrative centres across the United
Kingdom. In conjunction with medical societies and associations,
private agencies, charities and employers, they administered
pensions and medical care to the disabled pensioner.58 These
institutional archival records provide a wealth of data dedicated to
the disabled pensioners in Britain including those in receipt of
aftercare and a pension for facial disfigurement.
There has been opposition to using institutional sources as they
have an inherent source-bias being written from the viewpoint of the
non-disabled official interacting with the disabled person. As a result,
they have been claimed to be inevitably one-sided in their account of
the disabled, presenting them as depersonalized objects of
institutional care. This book reinforces the thesis of Penny Richards
and Susan Burch, who stress the importance of thinking ethically
about historical preservation of sources, particularly in places outside
of authority, in the relationship between disability and the archive.59
While recognizing the immense historical value of the institutional
collections, consistently portraying an image of progress and
professionalization regarding in-patient and out-patient care, and the
treatment of facially injured pensioners and bureaucracy between
local, regional and national medical and pension staff, the family
source material and popular periodicals like the Amateur
Photographer reach into the personal and everyday details of
domestic life in ways that distilled, official sources cannot. It is also
possible to grasp the complexity of the experience of adjusting to a
violently altered face through an analysis of local newspaper articles
to integrate the records of the British Army and the Ministry of
Pensions, including its policymakers, welfare officials, medical
practitioners and pensioners, alongside charity records, patient case
file records and family archives. These materials give the facially
injured veteran community the chance to show their struggles in
relation to postwar recovery, and can even, often, contradict
institutional archives in important ways.
Private photograph collections present a particularly valuable, but
generally underutilized, source base for medical historians. Their
identification and access can be problematic. Nevertheless, I have
been able to locate and correspond with surviving relatives of many
facially injured ex-servicemen thanks to the support of the honorary
archivist of the Gillies Archive, Andrew Bamji, who kindly passed on
the details of several family members who have made contact with
the archive over the past two decades in search of their ancestors’
wartime experiences. Through intimate dialogues with eighteen
families associated with the Gillies Archive, I chose to follow eight
families in particular because of their compelling postwar stories of
strength and resilience and whose ancestors’ lives were left
thoroughly upturned as a result of their wartime injuries. These
families present the impact of the Great War on the bodies and
minds of the men who fought but also the difficult return to family
life and the struggles some families relatives experienced when
readjusting to living and raising their children together.
In the narratives of these intriguing histories, family materials
show how particular meanings of scientific possibility and postwar
recovery became naturalized, and as such can be linked to issues
surrounding the pressures imposed on these families to return to
established gender and economic ideals and norms of bodily
functionality. To understand the emotional toll of first-generation war
victims on medical staff, friends, siblings and later generations, it is
crucial to understand the way in which they and other family
members coped with their condition, and how descendants became
attuned to the emotional state of their elders and developed a
heightened awareness of their needs and dependence. This is
especially so when those experiences were more present in historical
subjects’ everyday lives than in a medical file or journal page. For
example, the photograph featured in Figure I.1 illustrates the
Butcher family in Oxfordshire celebrating Jill Dewhurst’s christening
in 1949. While this work in retrieving personal stories of facial
difference may stir questions of privacy and ownership and an
alertness to the materials that have been lost, hidden or destroyed,
they also challenge dominant and oppressive narratives of facially
injured servicemen and takes a step towards recognizing the ways
this community lived outside medical collections and admissions
records. ‘The family ties that bind these materials are characterised
by a constant confrontation with suffering, questions of ownership or
(a lack of) control thereof.’60 Nevertheless, one of the possible
limitations and bias is that soldiers whose reintegration was less
‘successful’ are less likely to have left family photographs or personal
papers. As a consequence, the surviving family sources add to an
over-reliance on affluent disfigured servicemen who had a
‘successful’ family life and whose relatives wanted to not only take
photographs, but also preserve them.

Figure I.1 Butcher family christening, 1949, photographer

unknown. Reproduced by kind permission of the Dewhurst family.
The family sources sometimes also contain pension receipts of
individuals who were assisted by the Ministry department. Family
sources include a host of relevant information including on men’s
employment, domestic arrangement and conduct in civilian society.
Of course, each pensioner’s life and understanding of facial injury
would have been a subjective and individual experience.
Recontextualizing the collections of pensioners like Butcher with
those of the wider population in periodicals helps to portray
successful and unsuccessful attempts of postwar recovery, the
propensity to struggle in times of financial and personal adversity,
the importance of domestic caregiving, the stigma often associated
with facial difference and the veteran’s acceptance or exclusion from
society. The family records provide rare insight into the experience of
facially injured veterans who returned to civil society.
By the mid 1920s, British disabled veterans witnessed the
bureaucracy of the Ministry of Pensions, widespread unemployment,
a lack of treatment facilities, long waiting lists and stigma. This study
thus compares how facial injuries impacted on men’s civilian life and
how the state attempted to rehabilitate and compensate them for
their disabilities. In addition to facially injured ex-servicemen in
Britain sharing experiences, a consideration of personal and intimate
accounts of war-induced facial disfigurement also helps to
foreground differences in their reintegration and recovery depending
on their family networks and employment opportunities. This study
extrapolates a fuller picture of postwar life via an analysis of the
underlying anxieties of medical care including information regarding
the slow and difficult recoveries veterans and families endured, how
relatives adjusted to the specific challenges posed for veterans
returning to the home and workplace, and at times vital clues to
whether they supported or complicated men’s reintegration. This
information helps to provide ex-service biographies and a voice to
the previously marginalized.
This methodology is not without its challenges. An awareness of
how and why certain sources and collections exist, whether and
where they are preserved, and making transparent the ethical issues
involved in engaging medical photography in archival and research
practices bear witness to a present day self-reflexive attitude and
sensitivity towards privacy rights, confidentiality and data protection
laws, as well as to the public and relatives of deceased patients.
Historical medical photograph collections are sensitive materials.61
When such images travel from private to the so-called public sphere,
there is a violation of privacy at play and so we have a duty to stage
these stories responsibly and be mindful of the risks that publicly
available medical images may entail towards the patients’
descendants. These privacy concerns play a vital role in the public
display of the historical medical photography. Ultimately, to decide
how to engage the medical photograph collections in the archive and
museum is to make a moral judgement that in itself requires care –
care in the form of reflection and critique. The limited engagement
with the experience of war-related facial injury echoes the
troublesome nature of medical images and the consequences of
public access.
With respect to ethical obligation towards the ex-servicemen and
in a time of growing interest in privacy concerns towards the use
and abuse of personal data, discussions about medical and family
collections should be seen as mutually historically situated and can
deepen our understanding of privacy rights and medical ethics.
There must be an awareness of these sensitive materials as complex
yet similarly worthwhile and valuable to be shown outside of their
medical culture. This book is therefore concerned with the ethical
‘whys’ of historical research, not only with the pragmatic ‘hows’. It is
not enough to explain how to locate and engage the private and
intimate accounts of facially injured British veterans. There is also
the question of why – why is it difficult or easy to find certain kinds
of materials; why are we reading the medical records of disabled
veterans?
While the family collections and the stories passed down through
the generations may not be catalogued objects, have not been
considered as recorded interviews as part of an oral history project
and are not first-hand written accounts backed up with archival
credibility, they challenge us to think about the ways in which
institutions define the boundaries of what is recognizable as part of
a collection. Elizabeth Edwards and Sigrid Lien acknowledge just
how blurred these boundaries really are.62 Although informal family
archives are outside and not of the institution ecologically, the
dynamics must be perceived as significant. Indeed, they are
invisible. Edwards and Lien’s concept of ‘the photographic
ecosystem’ can be used to think about the perceived
interconnections and relational actions across practices and
collections, as it extends externally out from the institution to others
outside the museum or archive, as photographs are distributed and
shared. The families of facially injured veterans are part of this
ecology. Due to the nature of a museum or archive’s ecosystem, and
the valuing of photographs, the boundaries between ‘official’ medical
collections and ‘informal’ family collections are often porous and
difficult to defend. If we are to write our institutional ethnographies,
our histories of material practice, our biographies of objects, this
ecosystem is central – the relations between medical collections and
family collections have historiographical impact. Despite the family
practices being outside the patterns of institutional collection,
according to their attributes, provenance and archival undervalue, as
‘informal archives’ accrued through day-to-day domestic life, they
make crucial the continuation of care ‘across a multiplicity of
agencies and materials’ to support ‘a thick mesh of relational
obligation’.63
Adopting this methodology validates Biernoff’s argument that the
historiography of the working-class facially injured serviceman
carries ‘a burden of care’ and should be handled with
responsibility.64 This re-evaluation applies equally to those who
returned to civil society in a fragile state of health and to the
sensitivity of their family archives. This study does not profess to tell
the complete story of these men’s lives. In many ways, the everyday
reality of facial disfigurement remains hidden history with
descendants of ex-servicemen continuing to struggle in the private
domestic sphere. This study instead demonstrates that it has been a
mistake to assume the facially injured British Great War veteran
remains silent and untraceable.
Chapter 1 establishes the emergence and early history of facial
injury photography of the Great War as embedded in broader
changes concerning medical communication to keep pace with
thousands of wounded soldiers being admitted for rehabilitation.
How photography governed the behaviour and actions of surgical
teams in these departments, however, was unique. This chapter
determines that the advent of French facial centres and the
introduction into the wards of easy-to-use portable cameras and
improved light-sensitive plates marked an expansion of
communication in surgical practice. Hand cameras brought with
them a newly mobile way to visualize a patient’s ever-extending
treatment and allowed wound care teams to track and manage
progression over time. The opening chapter also explains how the
divergent but latterly overlapping skills of medical, commercial and
amateur photographic practices, and industrialism and imperialism
more broadly, with respect to speed and technical processes, raised
new concerns and questions about the ethical protocols surgeons
were duty-bound to implement. The workflow of photographic
activity in the wards was far less exclusive than historians have
previously recognized and accomplished by very diverse
practitioners. Commercially trained photographers and even
amateurs, subsidiary hospital workers and darkroom assistants
effectively excluded from the inner sanctum of Royal Societies could
produce photographic work for these departments as long as it was
constrained by the more formal confidentiality and privacy laws of
the medical societies for ethical rigour.
This chapter sets the groundwork for the proceeding four chapters
as the government’s denial of facially injured ex-servicemen’s right to
visibility and proper compensation continued to permeate the
relationships between disfigurement and social isolation in postwar
Britain. Simultaneous to the continuation of such societal
judgements, this chapter also recognizes the establishment of the
Ministry of Pensions and its subsequent rehabilitative attempts on
behalf of disabled soldiers in Britain from 1916. Exclusive in-patient
and out-patient reconstructive treatment was offered in a small
number of specialist facial hospitals throughout Britain. This network
of experimental surgery, photography and new forms of aftercare
and therapies were progressive and innovative.
 Chapter 2 demonstrates the relationship of that infrastructure in
the wards to the meeting rooms of the RSM. The RSM, as a hub of
research and education in England and with its multidisciplinary
membership, became active in lantern projection, circulation and
popularization as a scientific teaching practice in First World War
Britain. From the interactions it fostered between groups of surgeons
during dialogue to its mobilizing of their visual experiences of facial
reconstructive surgery and related photographic practices in the
wards, the projection services that were made available at the RSM
between 1914 and 1919 enabled collaborative and contested
debates in immediate exchanges of information and coordinated
research from the facial departments and thus a flourishing scientific
knowledge community. A study of the RSM library and archival
collections demonstrates the lantern and the camera being referred
to in conjunction with each other during this historical moment.
Further medical journals from the Wellcome collection also reveals
that during the war the lantern was received as an extension of
photography and toward successful simulation of the spatial and
temporal contingency of medical vision. The second chapter
examines the care undertaken by the RSM to organize groups of
photographers at national level. Ultimately, the RSM was a major
institutional catalyst for the development and operation of lantern
technology in surgical communities during the Great War, producing
modern medical thinking and a cohesive imagined collective that
wished to use the camera apparatus in the wards in new ways.
The book’s perspective then shifts to domestic practices of
recovery of facially injured ex-servicemen. Chapter 3 has a dual
geographical focus and examines the nuances and contradictions
with Italy to emphasize the impact of underfunding on the
economies of labour in the photographic departments of facial
centres. The system of care for the facially injured in Italy was, in
comparison with the other countries, still in its rudimentary stage.65
The treatment of facial surgery in Italy was much different to Britain;
their subsequent experience of rehabilitation and government policy
infrastructure was less of a shared one. On her entry into the war in
1915, Italy had almost no hospital facilities for rehabilitating its
wounded servicemen and very few social organizations competent to
undertake the work. This chapter asks what we can learn about the
alternative health care therapies of amateur photography that were
practiced in British and Italian wards by nurses, to recuperate young
soldiers during convalescence. Drawing in particular on the
photographic press and the private photography of hospital workers
tasked with caring for the facially injured between 1915 and 1919,
this chapter examines the significant but overlooked personal
contributions to patients’ health and wellbeing. British and Italian
Red Cross nurses experimented with amateur photography as coping
strategies to deal with depression and the psychological illnesses
resulting from facial wounds. Despite the scope, complexity and
novelty of the war hospital networks established during the First
World War, the function of the camera to rekindle men condemned
to lie in their beds week after week, smothered in bandages, unable
to talk, taste or sleep and maintain their health and wellbeing during
long convalescence has escaped scholarly attention.
Chapter 4 focuses on the psychological impact their homecoming
would have had on returning British Great War veterans. The
opportunity to work and provide for oneself was a fundamental
component in the Ministry’s rehabilitation of disabled pensioners.
However, in addition to the stigma regarding facial difference
veterans and their families refused to be rendered invisible and thus
approached family photography under the rights and entitlement of
a ‘honourable war’ fought by a civilian army. The results achieved in
this manner are of surprising acts of care. These aspiring family
photographers practiced acts of care engaged in much more than a
moral stance. Insofar as the affective and hands-on agencies of
these practices can be discerned, they express a continuation of care
and emphasize an interconnection and interdependency in spite of
the aversion to ‘dependency’. This section addresses an omission in
the historiography with few facial injury studies extending beyond
the initial postwar years. These family practices coincided with the
infamous ‘Geddes’ Axe’ enforcing a host of tax increases and
economic cutbacks in the British public sector. The austere
management of public economies included the Ministry of Pensions’s
domestic policy; from 1922 onwards, there was a dramatic
restriction in pension outlay and a reduction in exclusive Ministry-run
medical facilities including the provision of progressive and
innovative surgical treatment. Facially injured veterans were largely
‘pensioned off’ with meagre state intervention in their recovery and
reemployment. Utilizing contemporary photographic periodicals and
welfare publications, this work situates the family amateur
photography alongside the other therapeutic practices established
for solace and recovery. Utilizing the family archives of ex-
servicemen, alongside the texts on amateur photography and
pension support for the broader ex-service community, the daily
family activities celebrated and photographed emotional relationships
to give a visual and material body to abstract concepts such as
postwar healing. The ex-servicemen’s family status would,
nevertheless, prove crucial. The years after 1918 were witness to an
aspiration for healthy futures and regenerative hobbies as well as
reforming kinship bonds and self-identity in an uncertain postwar
era. Their photography of the era, grounded in their moral beliefs,
and the long-term needs of veterans and how it was managed,
envisioned men and their families working on behalf of a new
society. They engaged these practices at the time when the labour
community was struggling to re-emerge in Britain, and they depict
families and community connections in formation, in a project that
insistently seeks to refute the market forces that were dismantling
such relationships and communities.
Chapter 5 offers an analysis of the thousands of medical
photographs of facial wounds suffered by men on active service and
assembled into AMW collections by the RAMC and bequeathed to
national medical and army museums and archives from the 1920s
onwards. With facial disfigurement classified attributable to war
service, soldier-patients were identified as sensitive with the added
protection of legal and ethical obligations to restrict such material to
their working context because of patient rights and data protection.
This chapter argues that being legally recognized as facially
disfigured as a result of war service was the most influential force in
dictating the institutional practices of collecting and the complexities
and implications of these medical collections. In the late 1980s and
early 1990s, partly in response to safeguarding in the public interest,
the British collections were transferred from army museums to
better-resourced institutions, travelling from closed holdings within a
military-medical context and becoming more widely accessible.
There were, nevertheless, notable management challenges of public
access and sharing constituted through what might be described as
‘secondary level’ ethics of care. The ecosystem extends externally
out from the military-medical institution to others outside the
archive, as multiple originals or duplicates of a photograph can be
found in several collections, weaving and travelling through the
social, cultural and commercial entanglements that shape and are
shaped by photographic practices. A study of the dense genealogy of
‘caring for’ and ‘protecting’ the privacy, consent, confidentiality and
anonymity of these ex-servicemen after their service provides crucial
insight into how surgical teams, pension officials, archivists, curators,
historians and family members helped to shape the daily lives of
disfigured ex-servicemen.
Ultimately, there was not a collective understanding of facial
injuries amongst medical and family communities of the First World
War. To better comprehend the postwar experiences of these
forgotten men of British history, this study considers how facial
difference was culturally, politically and socially designed. It seeks to
understand how British society understood facial difference amongst
their service populations, and how medical and pension officials
comprehended and interacted with facially injured veterans in Britain
in comparison to family members and the wider community. An
objective bureaucracy did not always shape practices of recovery.
Instead, facial injury and postwar reintegration was a social and
cultural experience which was significantly underpinned by political,
ethical and moral concerns.
The stereotype that the facially injured were predisposed to
psychological trauma and socioeconomic hardship continued to
permeate in the rehabilitation of ex-servicemen in Britain throughout
the inter-war period. This narrative impacted upon the reintegration
of wounded pensioners in civil society. An analysis of this lingering
narrative foregrounds the crucial variable in family and workplace
that has remained overlooked in previous studies into facially injured
Great War veterans in relation to selfhood and socialization. This
consideration echoes a recent trend within the medical humanities
considering the ways in which claims to full social personhood can
be, and have been, damaged by looking different in history (through
birth ‘defects’, disease, deliberate mutilation or injury).66
Connecting the histories of the British Army, RSM, Ministry of
Pensions, individual pensioners and families and the photographic
industry, this study delivers a new perspective on photographic
history and the medical humanities with an analysis of a previously
unaccounted for community. This book reclaims the facially injured
Great War veterans and gives them a voice often denied in their own
lives. In addition to recovering these forgotten men of British history,
this work situates itself within broader photographic and collecting
histories centred on new propositions for museums or archives to
extend an ecosystem out from the institution to other communities
outside.67 Amidst this, the status of the First World War medical
photograph collections of facially injured soldiers is seen as
precarious and collections management systems must respect the
sensitivity of the wider communities who are linked to these specific
photographs. With public access to these medical collections,
relatives of the injured and disfigured ex-servicemen that were
photographed by the Army Medical Services have been taken up in
the business of memorialization and reclamation.68 These family
practices, and the resulting remediation of museum and archive
space within community members’ personal connections, historical
knowledge and medical heritage, lead to a further challenge of
dominant public histories and to criticism of the often limiting
context of the institution. Released of contemporary medical
relations, these practices contribute to the wider concerns and
questions of visibility and occlusion, consent and complicity, of not
showing, and about what is publicly present, and to fundamental
questions about ‘how to care’ and ‘who has the right to re-present’
in the aftermath of the First World War.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
up his violin, and with Jennie he spent long hours going over his old
music and experimenting on new.

Meanwhile, Ruth naturally found the house extremely dull without

Geoffrey; so she spent as much time as possible in long walks, in
riding her bicycle, and in paying visits. One day she recollected her
promise to call and see her Aunt Inez. Mr. Marshall had gone for a
change to Brighton, where, no doubt, he was enjoying himself after
his usual selfish fashion. His wife had declined to accompany him,
giving as her reason that she had more to do than waste her time
among a pack of fools--as she was wont to designate the rest of the
world. So she remained at home and attended to her duties in rather
a joyless way. She still retained a mild love for her husband; she
despised his weaknesses; she hated his lack of principle; but some
sentiment of love remained at the bottom of her soul.
Companionship had begotten toleration; and, on the whole, she
thought, she was not worse off than other women. She, at least,
could govern her husband's weaker nature, and could curb his
follies. And this somewhat unsatisfactory employment gave her
plenty to do; so she succeeded in passing her life in an endurable
fashion. Fortunately for her, she was not a woman who had the
capacity for being bored. Nine out of ten women would have killed
themselves out of sheer weariness of the flesh; but Mrs. Marshall
continued to live on--grimly.

Ruth had often wondered in her secret soul if her aunt were doing
penance for some hidden sin; it was the only way in which she could
account for the asceticism of her life. She lived in an ugly house, in
which all the rooms were hideous both in colour and design--all,
save those which were occupied by the master of the house. His
apartments, furnished by himself, were charming in every way.

As she stood now in the stone-hued drawing-room, the melancholy

of the place struck Ruth more than ever; and, moreover, glancing
round the room, she caught sight of a copy of Thomas a Kempis.
"She's taking to religion," she thought, turning over the leaves. "I
really wonder if there is a secret in her past life to account for----"
But at this moment a grim maid-servant entered I to interrupt her
conjectures.

"If you please, Miss," she said, "mistress is in the garret storing
things, and she wants to know if you will go up to her there?"

"Oh, certainly," said Ruth, wondering if her aunt were mad that she
should invite a visitor to go poking about among old lumber--even
though that visitor were her niece. But she meekly followed the maid
up to the top of the house, and was introduced into a long, low,
wide attic, immediately under the roof. Here Aunt Inez, in a stone-
coloured dress, with a severe face, gave her an icy greeting. In spite
of the summer warmth the garret was chilly, and this, joined to her
reception, made the girl shiver.

"I am glad you have remembered me at last, Ruth," said Mrs.

Marshall, in her most metallic tones. "I was beginning to think you
had forgotten me."

"I found it difficult to leave the house, aunt; Neil Webster is there,
and, of course, I have had to attend to him."

"I heard the young man was back again," she said, in a muffled
voice, "and truly, I wonder that my brother should have him in the
house!"

"Why shouldn't he? Neil is a good fellow!"

"But his mother is not a good woman. She belongs to the criminal
classes."

"My dear aunt," cried Ruth, "I am sure the poor woman is more
sinned against than sinning."

"What do you know of her?" asked the good lady, turning a terrible
eye on her niece. "Has your father----"
"Yes, he has; and I found out a great deal for myself. I am sure Mrs.
Jenner did not kill her husband."

"You know nothing at all about it. Mrs. Jenner was a minx; I knew
her well when she lived at Hollyoaks and taught Amy. I lived there
myself, and managed the house, too, for your poor mother never did
have any idea of how to conduct an establishment. Mrs. Jenner--a
bold, bad woman! She came down to Westham after the arrest of
her abominable husband, and lived at the Turnpike House----"

"And there her husband called to see her on the night he was
murdered."

"On the night she murdered him," corrected Mrs. Marshall,

vehemently. "Will you be wiser, than the law, Ruth? I tell you it was
she who struck the blow. I do not say that she had not good cause,
for the man was a brute. But she had no right to take his life!"

"She didn't--she didn't," asseverated Ruth, with quite as much

vehemence as her aunt had shewn. "The blow was struck through
the window for the sake of getting a red---- Why, whatever is the
matter, aunt?"

"Nothing--nothing!" gasped Mrs. Marshall. She had seated herself

suddenly on a convenient box, and with her hand to her side, was
gazing at her niece with an ashen face. "A stitch in the side--that's
all, child! Why did your father tell you all this--and what does he
know about the red pocket-book?"

"I have heard scraps of information at times," said Ruth, trying to

get out of the unpleasant position in which her tongue had placed
her. "But I know very little; I don't want to have anything to do with
the matter. Please don't ask me anything more about it aunt."

"You have said so much that I must know all," said Mrs. Marshall, so
fiercely that the girl was frightened. "If you refuse to tell me, I shall
speak to your father."
"He is the very best person to whom you could speak," replied Miss
Cass, with some defiance in her voice, for her temper was rising at
her aunt's tone. "But please don't bring me into it."

"I shall act as I think best. If this case has been reopened--as I
judge from your words, it has been--why was I not informed?

"I refer you to papa," said Ruth, coldly. "And, after all," she added,
"I do not see what you have to do with it, Aunt Inez."

"More than you think," replied Mrs. Marshall, tightening her thin lips.

Then Ruth did a very foolish thing--a thing she repented of for many
a long day after. "What about Job?" she asked. "Does he also take
an interest in the case?"

Mrs. Marshall sprang forward in the most dramatic fashion, and

seized her niece by the arm. "You have been asking him questions,"
she said.

"And what if I have?" cried the girl, twisting herself away. "Anyone
has a right to ask questions, I suppose? But he told me nothing."

"He had nothing to tell."

"In that case you need not look so fiercely at me, aunt."

Mrs. Marshall realised how indiscreet was her demeanour.

"Don't trouble about me, child," she said, with a forced laugh. "I
have done nothing to be ashamed of."

"I never thought you had, aunt!"

"Mrs. Jenner," continued Aunt Inez, exactly as though she were

repeating a lesson, "was a flirt. When she married a brute, she only
got her just punishment. I did my best to be kind to her; but I
always hated her. It is no use my denying the fact--I did hate her! If
you are a woman, Ruth, if you have your grandmother's blood in
your veins, you will understand."

"Oh, yes," said the girl, proudly conscious of her own tiger blood, "I
can quite understand. I should like to see any woman take Geoffrey
from me! Aha!" And she growled like a playful cat.

"I believe Mrs. Jenner killed her husband," continued Aunt Inez,
taking no notice of this speech, "and she is being punished for it. As
to Job--I merely assist him out of charity; he knows nothing about
the murder; it had happened before he came to these parts. Now,
are you satisfied?"

"My dear aunt, I never wanted to be satisfied," replied the girl. "I
never thought you knew anything about the murder."

"I don't--I don't! I swear I don't!" cried Mrs. Marshall. "But this red
pocket-book--it was not mentioned at the trial."

"I know nothing about it," said Ruth, promptly; she was not going to
be drawn into the discussion. "Ask papa about it."

Mrs. Marshall, seeing she would get nothing further out of her niece,
returned to the examination of the lumber which was scattered over
the floor of the garret. "Then we will go down shortly and have
some tea, my dear," she said, in her most amiable tone. She was
evidently desirous of effacing the impression of her former
fierceness.

Ruth wondered but little at her aunt's strange demeanour.

In a meditative way she watched Mrs. Marshall moving about on the

other side of the garret, so close under the slope of the roof that her
head touched it. There were two windows--one at each end, but
these were so dirty that the place was enveloped in a kind of brown
twilight which had, at first, prevented the girl from seeing plainly. As
her eyes grew more accustomed to the semi-gloom, she examined
the lumber that was piled up on all sides. All the scum of the house
had risen to the top and been left in this isolated attic. It was filled
with the wreckage which will accumulate even in the most orderly
houses. There were, also, ancient books, piles of newspapers, and
suchlike things huddled together pell-mell, and over all lay a thick,
grey dust.

Suddenly as Ruth, growing tired of waiting, shifted her position, the

light from the window behind struck out a patch of red. Her eyes
wandered mechanically towards the colour. It was the red morocco
binding of a narrow book which protruded from the heap. Hardly
thinking what she was doing, the girl picked it up, and with the light
from behind her strong upon it she examined it minutely. Then her
heart seemed to stand still, for it was a pocket-book--perhaps the
very red pocket-book which had been stolen by Jenner's murderer,
and of which they had been speaking only a few minutes before.

Anxious to make quite certain as to this, Ruth slipped off the elastic
strap and examined the discoloured leaves. For the most part they
were blank, but written on the front page was a name, and the
name was Jenner!

At the sight Ruth uttered a cry. Mrs. Marshall turned sharply.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RED POCKET-BOOK.

"What is the matter, child?" asked Mrs. Marshall, sharply.

But Ruth could not answer. She sat with the red pocket-book in her
lap, gazing upon it as though it were a viper. Aunt Inez repeated her
question impatiently then, surprised at her niece's silence, she
crossed the garret. Her eyes fell at once on the red book, and for a
few seconds no word was spoken. Then at last Ruth made a remark,
and made it in a hushed voice, as though she feared it might be
heard by others than the frozen woman before her.

"It was not produced at the trial," was what she said, looking at her
aunt.

Mrs. Marshall might have been a granite image for all the movement
she made. Her face was like snow, her eyes fixed as though she
were in a cataleptic state. And so she was--for the moment. Only
when Ruth, who was the first to recover herself, made a motion to
rise did she shew any signs of life. She sighed deeply and removed
her eyes from the book.

"I will shew it to my father," said the girl; whereat her aunt changed
suddenly into a creature of fire. She snatched at the pocket-book
and had it in her grasp before Ruth could close her fingers upon it.

"You will shew it to no one," she said, thrusting it into her pocket. "I
forbid you to say a word."

"Tell me how it came to be here, and I will consider if it is right for

me to be silent."

"I will explain nothing. Girl, what demon brought you here and
shewed you that book? I came up here to look for it; I have been
searching for over an hour. You came in and found it in a few
minutes. It is fate--fate."

"Aunt Inez," Ruth drew back until she was standing up against the
wall, "you--oh, no!--you did not--did not--kill the man!"
Mrs. Marshall shrugged her shoulders, her colour and her courage
coming back to her almost as she spoke. "You are at liberty to think
so if you like. I will not contradict you. No, indeed. I have other
things to do."

"Will you contradict my father?"

"I forbid you to tell your father of this."

"I must! I will know the truth of this matter. There is an innocent
woman in gaol for----"

"An innocent woman!" interrupted her aunt, with contempt. "Oh,

yes, very innocent!" She paused and looked at Ruth. "Come
downstairs," she said. "As you have found what I wanted, we need
not remain here."

"You knew that this book was hidden here?"

"Yes; I have known it for years."

"Why did you not produce it at the trial?"

"That is my business."

"How did it come into your possession?"

"Ah! that I refuse to tell you. Think me guilty if you like. It is evident
you want to smirch our family name. But I have had enough of this
nonsense. You must hold your tongue."

"To all persons save my father. I must tell him, and I will."

"I forbid you."

"It is no use your forbidding me. I tell my father. He has the honour
of the family quite as at heart as you have; and he is the man to
decide what should be done."
"You will tell?"

"Yes; I am going straight home to tell all."

The eyes of the two women met, and for a moment there was a
duel of wills. Then Ruth, with her more youthful fire, got the upper
hand; her aunt turned away.

"You are bringing me into great danger," she said; "but have it your
own way. Tell your father."

"Aunt! You did not kill the man?"

"Think so if you like."

Mrs. Marshall passed out of the garret. Ruth remained a moment to

recover her self-control which had been sorely shaken by this
extraordinary conversation. Then she also went down the stairs to
the inhabited portion of the house. Mrs. Marshall was not to be
seen; and on inquiring of the servant, Ruth learnt that she had
locked herself in her bedroom and refused to see anyone. In this
dilemma there was nothing left for the girl but to go home, which
she proceeded to do feeling sick at heart.

On the way to Hollyoaks a sudden thought struck her. Suppose her

aunt were guilty--suppose she had shut herself in her room to
commit suicide! If she had not been almost at the gates of the park
when this occurred to her she would have run back. But the best
thing she could do now was to see her father and implore him to go
to Aunt Inez at once. She felt there was no time to be lost, and ran
up the avenue as quickly as she could. The window of the library
which opened on to the terrace was ajar, so taking this as a short
cut she ran up the steps on to the terrace and flung herself into the
room with a white and haggard face.

"Ruth! What is the matter? Ruth!" cried Mr. Cass, and sprang
forward just in time to catch her in his arms. For a minute or so she
could not speak, but when speech did come the words poured out in
a torrent.

"Aunt Inez," she cried. "I went to see her. She was in the garret;
there I found the red pocket-book--Jenner's book--which was stolen!
She will not say if she killed him; yet she knew that the book was in
the garret. Oh, see her at once, father--at once! She has locked
herself in her bedroom. I believe that she will kill herself!" and the
excited girl burst into tears of exhaustion and terror.

Mr. Cass said nothing, but put her into a chair. Indeed, he did not
know what to say, or even what to think, for he felt completely
stunned. He had suspected Marshall, but never Inez. Even now he
did not believe that she could ever have brought herself to commit
such a crime.

"Go! Go!" cried Ruth, wringing her hands. "Aunt Inez--you may be
too late! She will kill herself, I know she will!"

"No fear of that," said her father, recovering himself somewhat. "She
is not the woman to give up the fight in that way, Inez. No, she
never killed that beast--never!"

"But, father, the red pocket-book----"

"She will be able to explain how she came by it. She has a temper,
and is fierce enough when she is roused; but she would not go so
far as that. As to committing suicide, she has no reason for doing
that, if she is innocent."

"I hope she is. Oh, I hope she is" wailed Ruth, distracted with terror.

Her father saw that the girl was thoroughly overwrought. In her
present state of mind everything would be exaggerated. He intended
to go at once and learn the truth from his sister, but he could not
leave Ruth in this plight. Before he went he must soothe her. So,
pulling himself together--no easy task, at his age, for he had
received a severe shock--he sat down beside the terrified girl and
took her hand firmly in his own. "See here, child," he said, "however
that book got into Marshall's hands your aunt had nothing to do with
it. She did not--she could not have killed Jenner. I know it because
she was in this house on the night and at the time of the murder."

"Then if she is innocent why didn't she tell me so?"

"Well, you know what she is. No doubt she was angry to think you
should conceive her capable of such a crime. She will tell me all she
knows, if she has any knowledge, which I am inclined to doubt. But
I want you to understand, Ruth, that your aunt is innocent, and that
her innocence can be proved by me. Under these circumstances, she
will not commit suicide, as you appear to think. I will go over and
see her at once, and I shall doubtless have a reassuring report to
give you when I return. But you must promise not to worry while I
am away; and above all things, Ruth, do not tell anyone of this.
There may be trouble."

"I will say nothing--nothing," panted the girl, pressing her hands
against her beating heart. "And, indeed, father, I did not meddle
with the matter again. The discovery was thrust upon me. You can
trust me, indeed you can."

"And you will not make yourself ill with expecting the worst?"

"No, no; I promise I will go to my room and lie down."

"That's a good girl; and I will walk over at once."

"Ride--ride! You don't know what may happen."

"Nothing bad, at all events. Yes, I will ride. Now go to your room,
dear, and leave me to attend to this."

"Yes, father," she said, faintly. She had the utmost belief in his
capability of arranging the situation. "But kiss me before you go. I
am--I am rather frightened."

"Believe me, there is no need for that," said Mr. Cass, with an
attempt at a smile. "There is your kiss, now go."

Mr. Cass reviewed the whole situation as he rode over to his sister's
house. He reflected that Marshall must have told his wife about the
bill, for that and the book were, so to speak, inseparable.

"In a word," thought Mr. Cass, as he dismounted at the door and

gave his horse to a groom, "Marshall did not kill the man himself, but
he knows who did. But I'll make Inez tell truth in some way. This is
no time to consider her feelings."

Following the servant, he went into the stone-coloured drawing-

room, and found his sister waiting to receive him. She was dressed
in black, without a scrap of white to relieve her funereal aspect.

"I did not expect you to come so soon, Sebastian," she said, in her
rich, low voice. "But I knew you would come sooner or later."

"I could hardly help coming after what Ruth told me." Her brother
was surprised at her composure.

"What did she tell you?"

"That the red pocket-book belonging to Jenner had been found by

her in this house."

"To be particular, the garret," said Mrs. Marshall, pointing to the

table. "There it is."

He looked at it with repugnance, and touched it gingerly. Then he

opened it, glanced at the name, and laid it down with a sigh. There
was no doubt it had been Jenner's property, the name was clear
enough. "How did it come into your possession?" he asked, sharply.
"That is not an easy question for me to answer."

"Yet it can be answered, and must be, answered."

"How do you know that I will comply with your 'must'?" she asked,
with scorn.

"Oh, I know you are hard to drive, but in this case you must speak
out. I have the means to make you, that is if you have any regard
for your husband."

"You know how I love him, little as he deserves it. You are talking of
the bill. Oh, don't look so astonished. Frank told me of his
conversation with you. It was by my advice that he went away."

"Inez, is it possible you can love so base a creature?"

Mrs. Marshall sighed. "To you, Sebastian, I will say things I would
not say to any other person. Little as we love one another, still we
are brother and sister. I know you would do much for me."

"I would do anything for you, Inez; blood is stronger than water,
after all. And you can speak freely to me, your honour is my honour.
I can hold my tongue. Speak out freely," he repeated.

"I will," she said, and gave him the kindest look that had been in her
eyes for many a long year.

"You know how madly in love I was with Frank when I married him.
It was not love, it was infatuation I believed him to be the most
perfect and the most misunderstood man in the whole world. I
blamed you for getting him out of the business, and I thought to
repair your wrong by marrying him. Well, I did; and then what
happened?"

"I can guess. The scales fell from your eyes."

"They did, within six months. For even then he deceived me. Yes,
after all I had done for him. I had made him rich. I had--but that
comes later on in the story. Suffice it to say, that I soon found out
that I had married a faithless brute."

"Why did you not get rid of him? I would have helped you."

She cast a look around the dismal room and smiled strangely.
"Because I had committed a sin. I came to look upon Frank as the
cross laid upon me for the expiation of that sin."

"Good Heavens, Inez! You don't mean to say you killed Jenner? No!
What nonsense am I talking? You were in bed on that night."

"I did not kill Jenner," she said, calmly. "Nevertheless I had
committed a sin; you shall hear all in good time. Well, I took Frank
as my cross, and put up all these years with his infidelities, and
drunkenness, and wickedness. I behaved to him as though I still
loved him. I have deceived everyone."

"You certainly deceived me for one," said Mr. Cass, bluntly. "I
thought you still loved the creature."

"Loved him! Why, I hated him with all my soul. It was only my
religious principles, and my desire to expiate my sin, that made me
tolerate him."

"In Heaven's name, what is your sin?"

"I'll tell you soon enough," she said. "But do not be afraid. I have
not dipped my hands in blood. Let me tell my story in my own way.
It is not easy for me to tell it at all. I only do so now in order to
avert, worse trouble."

Knowing her obstinacy, her brother saw that it was useless to

protest. "Go on," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Have your own
way."
"I often wish we had kept to our mother's faith," continued Mrs.
Marshall. "She was of the true Church, and Catholicism is such a
comforting religion. One has a confessor; that would have done me
good. I have often longed to confess and relieve my mind."

"Why did you not confess to me?"

"I had no reason for making you my confidant, Sebastian," she said,
icily. "Well, I was of the Protestant faith, and could not confess, so I
had to bear my own sorrow as best I could. Frank tried me at times
with his dreadful ways, but I had a whip to manage him."

"What was the whip?" asked Mr. Cass, struck by the fact that she
used almost the same phrase that he had used to her husband.

"I will tell you shortly; but I mortified my flesh in every way. Look at
this house. You know how I love pretty things, and yet I spend my
life in the midst of these horrors. I am fond of----"

"See here, Inez," broke in her brother, "I want I to know about this
pocket-book. You can tell me your feelings later."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PENANCE OF INEZ.

Sebastian's abrupt interruption of his sister's enthusiastic confession

was as a douche of cold water on glowing iron. The iron forthwith
cooled; that is to say, Mrs. Marshall, from flesh and blood, became
stone again.

"Of course I will tell you all you wish to know," she said, in even
tones, with about as much feeling as might have been expected
from a cuckoo. "But since you will not let me tell my story in my own
way, I think it is best that you should put your own questions, then I
shall know precisely what you do want."

"Don't be angry!" entreated her brother; "but tell me all for the sake
of the family. Where did you learn that Frank had committed
forgery?"

"At the Waggoner's Pond."

Mr. Cass started from his seat and stared down at his sister in
surprise. He remembered what Marshall had told him about that
appointment at the Waggoner's Pond. "What!" he cried. "Were you
out on the night of the murder? Did you overhear the conversation
between Marshall and Jenner?"

"Oh, it was Jenner, was it?" she said, quite composedly. "Well, I
guessed as much, though I could never be quite sure."

"Didn't your husband tell you that he had met him by the
Waggoner's Pond?"

She looked up with scorn and contempt.

"Frank never told me anything but what was wrung out of him by
fear. Besides, we did not speak of these things. Like him, I preferred
to let sleeping dogs lie."

Her brother had taken his seat again, and, deep in thought, paid
little attention to what she was saying. "I thought you were in bed
on that night with a headache?"
"A woman's excuse," she said, coolly. "I had no headache; but I had
a very keen desire to find out why Frank had an appointment on that
night, and with whom. I suspected another woman--you can guess
her name."

"Mrs. Jenner? Ah, but he did not go out to meet her!" cried Mr. Cass,
impatiently. "He had an appointment with her husband."

"I found that out later. But I heard him asking one of the servants
where the Waggoner's Pond was, and if he could find it in the dark. I
knew then that he intended to go there that night for some purpose.
The name of Mrs. Jenner was not mentioned; but as she was in the
neighbourhood--well, you know what a woman's feelings are!"

"You jumped to conclusions?"

"Yes; they were wrong, but that did not matter. At all events, I was
satisfied that he did not meet the woman. I slipped out of a side
door unknown to everyone; my headache was a pretext that I might
be at the meeting-place. Had he done so, I would have broken off
the engagement--yes, much as I loved him, or rather, much as I was
infatuated--I would have broken it off at the eleventh hour had he
put such an insult on me!"

"And yet you married him?"

"Oh, what is the use of that parrot-cry?" she said, impatiently. "You
have already said that five or six times."

"Because I am so amazed that your pride did not come to your aid
when you knew the use to which he intended to put your money. To
him you were not the woman he loved--but the banker upon whom
he intended to draw."

"And yet I married him," she said, with a cold smile. "Women are
strange creatures, I confess. Yet you always considered me proud.
See how mistaken you were! I had more weakness than you thought
me capable of possessing. I was wildly--madly in love with him. At
all events, I intended to marry him, and what is more, I intended to
get back that incriminating bill from Jenner without the expenditure
of a penny. I saw that he had replaced it in his red pocket-book;
well, I made up my mind that I would get that pocket-book."

"Yet you never guessed the man was Jenner!" remarked her brother,
ironically.

"I was suspicious, but not certain. However, I did not go after Jenner
at once, for I knew where to find him. I wanted Frank to be out of
the way before I left my hiding-place--I was behind a hedge--and
not alone."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Cass, startled.

"I mean what I say. Several times, while I was crouching in the wet
grass, I heard the breathing of someone no great distance off. Well,
I found that other person."

"When--some time afterwards?"

"On the contrary, the person threw himself in my way within half-an-
hour after I was on my way to the Turnpike House."

"Wait a moment!" cried Mr. Cass, with suppressed excitement. "I

know who it was--the gypsy, Job."

"Ah!" replied Mrs. Marshall, without betraying much surprise. "Ruth

told you something!"

"Geoffrey did: Ruth had told him."

Mrs. Marshall rose with a bound. "And pray what has Mr. Heron to
do with this matter?"
"A good deal," rejoined her brother, drily. "You may as well sit down,
Inez. Geoffrey is perfectly discreet. He is going to marry Ruth, you
know: it will be as much to his interest as mine to keep this affair
secret. Well, so you met this gypsy blackguard?"

"Yes, half-way on the road to the Turnpike House. In spite of the

darkness and the mist, he knew me in a moment--instinct, I
suppose."

"How could he have met you? Had you met him before?"

"Lots of times. I knew the Romany dialect, and used to talk to Job."

"I realty wonder at you, Inez, taking up with such scum! As for Ruth,
I'll talk to her! She shall have nothing more to do with him."

"Oh, as to that," remarked his sister, shrugging her shoulders, "the

creature is dying; he is consumptive, and is drinking himself to
death. I have placed him in the Turnpike House--without Mr. Heron's
permission, by the way--and I allow him a small sum a week so that
he may die in peace."

"So that you may keep your secret, you mean."

"It will soon be a secret no longer. Job, as I say, knew me. He told
me that he had been sleeping behind the hedge--near me, I
suppose--and had been aroused by the sound of voices. He
recognised Frank's voice, for he had often spoken to him; but Jenner
he did not know, any more than I did."

"Naturally. Jenner was a comparative stranger in these parts. Go

on."

"Well, Job had heard all about, the red pocket-book and the bill. I
saw in a twinkling that here was the instrument I required; I
promised him twenty pounds if he would get me that red pocket-
book."
"Inez! Did you send the man to murder Jenner?"

"No, I did not. I never thought he would goo so far as that. And, as
a matter of fact. Job has always denied to me that he struck the
blow."

"He certainly would tell you that to save his neck!"

"Well, after I had made this arrangement with him and had told him
that Jenner was at the Turnpike House, I returned home. I entered
by the side door and slipped up to my room without anyone being
the wiser."

"I certainly was not," said her brother. "You are quite a diplomatist,
Inez. What about Job's murdering mission?"

"He did not commit the murder," insisted Mrs. Marshall. "He came
next day and brought me the pocket-book. I opened it, but could not
find the bill; then I accused Job of having taken it. He grinned, but
would say nothing. You understand, Sebastian, he had not got the
bill; but he wanted to have me in his power."

"I see; but you could have turned the tables on him by having him
arrested for the crime."

"No, he knew of the bill--of Frank's disgrace. I thought, if he were

arrested, he would tell all, which he certainly would have done; then
Frank would have been prosecuted. Remember, I thought Job had
the bill! All these years I have believed he had it in his possession;
you do not know the blackmail I have paid that man! He was always
worrying me for money. At last, seeing he was ill, I put him into the
Turnpike House, and--well, I have told you all that. But now you
know why I assisted him."

"Assisted a murderer?"

"Job denied that he had killed the man."

"Then how did he get the pocket-book?"

"He said that he had met Jenner before he got to the Turnpike
House, and robbed him of the book."

"That is a lie!" cried Mr. Cass; "and a feeble lie to boot. Jenner had
the book when he was in that room--before he was killed Mrs.
Jenner said that the book was on the table near the window; and my
own opinion is that the blow must have been struck through the
window and the book stolen."

"But why believe Mrs. Jenner more than Job?"

"I will tell you all. The bill was in the pocket-book; you yourself saw
Jenner put it there. Well, he thought Marshall might steal that bill, so
he sewed it up in the body of a toy horse with which his child was
playing. Neil kept the horse, and a short time ago he sent it to
George, who cut the animal open. The bill was found, and is now in
my possession. So, you see, Job could not have taken the pocket-
book which contained the bill before Jenner got to the house. He
must have murdered the man and stolen the book after the bill had
been placed inside the horse.

"But nothing of all this came out at the trial."

"No one knew anything about it--least of all Mrs. Jenner. But now
you are satisfied that Job committed that murder?"

"I suppose so; it looks like it. Oh, the wretch, to let me think all
these years that he had the bill, and that he was innocent of killing
the man!"

"Had you no suspicion of his guilt?"

She thought for a moment. "I confess I had," she said, after a
pause, "but, you see, I had to put all such suspicions behind my
back. If I had denounced Job, I thought he would have produced
the bill and ruined Frank."

"I see. Well, here is the bill. No one knows of it but Heron, and he
will say nothing. I thought of keeping it as a useful whip for your
husband, should he treat you cruelly. But now that I find you do not
care for him, I think it had better be destroyed."

"No," she said, putting it into her pocket, "I will keep it, to hold over
Frank myself. I hate him, and would gladly divorce him--which I
could easily do. But I am as proud of the family name as you are,
and I do not want a scandal. So I shall not separate from him; but
now I shall know how to make him behave himself." She tapped her
pocket with a grim smile.

"Did you ever speak to him about the red pocket-book?"

"No, he never knew I had it. I put it away, and afterwards sent it up
to the garret, where I thought it would be safe. Hardly anyone ever
goes there but myself. Besides, if I had told Frank, he would have
worried Job about giving him the bill, and Heaven only knows what
would have happened then. No, I was wrong, I suppose, but I acted
for the best. When Frank told me that he had seen you, and that the
bill was in your possession, I went up to the garret, intending to find
the pocket-book and destroy it. Then I was foolish enough to ask
Ruth; she found it by chance--and--well, you know the rest."

"Yes, I know the rest," said Mr. Cass, grimly; "and, among other
things. I know that Job Lovell killed Jenner, and that the dead man's
unhappy wife has been punished all these years. Inez, I know you
always hated her, but would you have let her lose her life?"

"No; if she had been in danger of that, I would have come forward
and told all I knew, even at the cost of disgrace; I would not have
had the blood of a fellow-creature on my soul. But, to tell you the
truth, Sebastian, as Mrs. Jenner did not defend herself, I really
believed she was guilty, and Job innocent. He confessed to having
robbed Jenner; she would say nothing; so of the two, I thought Job
the innocent one. Can you blame me?"

"Partly. I blame you for not having told me this long ago. I always
suspected your husband. Now I know that he is innocent; and I
should have known it all along, seeing that he was in the house--in
my house--when the crime was committed. If you had spoken out, I
would have managed to get Mrs. Jenner off in some way without
exposing the whole of this dreadful story. Job should be punished."

"Think what that would mean to us all," said his sister, warningly.

"I will contrive to evade the worst. But I must have that poor woman
released!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

A DOUBTFUL WITNESS.

His sister's attitude puzzled Mr. Cass less than might have been
expected.

On leaving her he went straight to the Turnpike House to interview

the gypsy.

The first thing was to get the truth out of Job; then he would try to
arrive at some settlement of the question which would be
satisfactory to the world, to justice, and to his conscience.
The door of the house was closed when he rode up. He dismounted,
gave his horse to his groom, and told the man to take him home.

"I have to see this gypsy," he explained. "I find he is here without
Mr. Heron's permission. I shall probably remain some time, and I
don't want Sultan to get cold. Go home."

"Yes, sir," said the man, and then ventured to add a few words on
his own account. "Shan't I wait, sir? Joe Lovel is a rough customer."

"I know," Mr. Cass said, calmly. "I am prepared for that. I shall
return in an hour, more or less. If Mr. Heron should come to
Hollyoaks, ask him to wait for me."

The man rode off, leading his master's horse. Mr. Cass waited until
they were out of sight, then knocked vigorously at the door. There
was no response.

A third knock, or, rather, a perfect battery of knocks, proved that Job
was at home. From within came the growl of a waking beast--a
beast angry at being disturbed; and shortly afterwards the door was
wrenched open by no very gentle hand. The gypsy, with his red-
rimmed eyes blinking from under a thatch of disordered hair, stood
on the threshold. Mr. Cass took in his condition at a glance.

"Are you not ashamed to be drunk at this time of day?" he asked.

"What do you mean by it?"

"It is none of your business," growled Job, who had slept off the
worst effects of his debauch.

"It is my business. I am Mr. Cass."

"I know you are," retorted the man, still blocking the doorway. "But
that doesn't give you the right to come knocking at my door. 'Tisn't
your house."
"It is Mr. Heron's house." Mr. Cass said, sharply; "and I have
sufficient influence with Mr. Heron to have you kicked out into the
cold if you do not behave yourself."

"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said the ruffian, with a sinister
smile. "Others may find themselves out in the cold too. Aye, my
gorgeous Gentile--bigger folk nor the poor Romany."

This was plainly a threat levelled at Mrs. Marshall, as her brother

clearly saw. However, it was not his intention to quarrel with the
man until he had got the truth out of him. "You speak in riddles," he
said, "but perhaps you will stand aside and let me enter."

"What for?" asked Job, suspiciously.

"You shall hear my business when I am within."

The gypsy began to cough, and the paroxysm was so violent that he
had to hold on to the door-post.

"Well, sir," said Job, at length, somewhat sobered by a fit of

coughing; "come in. I ain't the one to keep a Romany Rye out of my
tent."

Mr. Cass entered, and followed the man into the sitting-room in
which Jenner had been murdered by--so far as Mr. Cass knew--its
present occupant. As he entered he became conscious of a strong
smell of petroleum, and, making a sudden pause, "Have you upset
your lamp?" he asked.

"No, I ain't upset anything," said Job, sulkily. "The smell, is it? Oh,
that's my business. I've got an idea that ain't nothing to do with you.
Sit down and tell me what's the row. I know, though. It's your young
lady. Well, I haven't done her no harm; she's a sister to me, because
she patters the black lingo. Has she been setting your back up,
Rye?"
"My visit has nothing to do with Miss Cass," said her father, sharply.
"Leave her name out of the question. I know all about her visit to
you and how you behaved. I am not blaming you. But my business
here has to do with a very serious matter. Perhaps you can guess my
errand when I tell you that I come from Mrs. Marshall."

The mere mention of that name drove the remaining fumes of drink
from the gypsy's head, and he cast a sharp glance at his visitor. Mr.
Cass sustained this scrutiny with the greatest calmness, and, finding
the smell of the petroleum quite unbearable, threw open the window
and placed his chair close beside it so that he could breathe freely.
Then he turned round and looked again at the man. Job, open-
mouthed at these liberties taken with his domestic arrangements,
stared insolently at Mr. Cass; but at length he found his tongue.
"You'll give me my death," he grumbled. "I want that window shut."

"You shall not have it shut, then," said Mr. Cass, coolly. "The air here
is horrible with the smell of that petroleum, whatever you are doing
with it. Sit down over there, and you will be out of the draught. I
have something serious to say to you."

"So you said before," growled Job, surrendering the point of the
window and pitching himself on to a broken-backed chair. "What's
she up to now?"

"If you are speaking of Mrs. Marshall, be more respectful," Mr. Cass
said, angrily. "However you may have intimidated her, you ruffian,
you cannot deal with me in the same way. I'll make an example of
you!"

"Ha! ha! You touch me at your peril!" retorted Job, who was getting
exasperated.

"At your peril, you mean! Now, then, my man, no equivocation, but
a plain confession. Out with it!"

"Confession? What have I to confess, my Gentile cove?"

"Be respectful, I tell you, or I'll lay my whip across your shoulders!
'What have you to confess about,' you ask? If the walls of this
shambles could speak they might tell you, not but what you know
well enough what I mean."

"Ah!" cried the man, his eyes glittering. "She's blown the gaff."

"Precisely. And it should have been blown long ago. You blackmailing
beast! Now, then, I'm here to learn the truth."

"Oh, she's not told it to you, then?"

"Yes, she has. But I want it confirmed by you."

"What am I to confirm?" asked the gypsy, with a savage oath.

"The story of how you murdered Jenner in this room!"

He started from his seat with a howl, and flung himself towards Mr.
Cass. But the merchant was ready for this, and pushing back his
chair sprang to his feet. Job found himself recoiling before the barrel
of a revolver. "You get back to your seat, or I'll blow your brains
out!" said Mr. Cass, and said it with such ferocity that the ruffian
crawled back like a whipped dog. But, then, Mr. Cass had the blood
of many a slave-owning Spaniard in his veins, and was much more
savage than an ordinary Anglo-Saxon. "Do you think I would trust
myself here without protection, you wretch?" he asked, resuming his
seat. "No; you move, and I shoot. I am less English than Spanish, let
me tell you; and perhaps I do not consider my actions so carefully as
the people of this country."

"You re a fierce one, you are, anyway," grumbled the man, climbing
up to his seat with an uneasy eye on the weapon which still covered
him. "My sister is just like you, plucky as a bantam, she is."

"Which sister do you mean, Mrs. Marshall or Miss Cass? You have
two, you know, adopted sisters?"
"Oh, she told you that, did she?" said Job, rubbing his head, and
evidently perplexed at the extent of his visitor's knowledge. "Well, it
seems you know a lot, you do!"

"Enough to hang you," was the curt reply.

"That's a lie!" shouted Job. "I didn't lay a finger on him."

"Then how did you become possessed of the red pocket-book?"

The gypsy started, and gave Mr. Cass another of his keen glances.
He did not reply immediately, but seemed to be reflecting. At length,
"How do I know you are not laying a trap for me? The business I
had with the high-born Gentile lady concerns her only. She has not
told me to speak of hidden things to you."

"If you don't tell me--and tell me quickly too--you will have to reply
to a magistrate."

"What magistrate, rye?"

"The one before whom I will bring you," was a the quiet answer.
"Understand that I have sufficient evidence in my possession to have
you arrested on suspicion of having murdered the man Jenner. For
reasons which you will doubtless appreciate, I am willing to deal
gently with you. But," he raised a threatening finger, "only on
condition that you make a clean breast of all to me--and at once."

"Anything you do to me, rye, will harm your sister. I hold something
which can break her heart."

"The bill of exchange you heard Marshall talking about to Jenner?"

Job fell back in amazement. "You do know all! Yes; I hold the bill--
the forged bill--which can put in prison----"
"No one. That is quite enough; you need tell no more lies. You got
possession of the pocket-book----"

"Yes; and I took the bill out before I gave it to the lady."

"I see," said Mr. Cass tranquilly, although he marvelled at the daring
of the man. "And you made use of your assertion that you had
possession of the bill to blackmail Mrs. Marshall?"

"I only got a little money out of her, my Gentile. She has been kind
to me, and she has given me this house to die in."

"Then the sooner you die the better. You are no good to anyone, so
far as I can see. You scoundrel!--to blackmail a lady! She believed
you--I do not.

"You don't believe I have the bill?" asked Job, incredulously.

"No; for if you had you would shew it to me."

"I will not. Why should I?"

"You cannot shew it to me! I thought as much."

"Hey! You think so, rye! Then if I haven't the bill, who has?"

"Mrs. Marshall; for I gave it to her to-day."

"It is--a lie! a lie!" Job was quite pale now; he saw that his last card
was played, and that he had now very little hold--but still some--over
Mrs. Marshall.

"It the truth. The bill was taken out of that pocket-book by Jenner in
this room, and placed in hiding. I need not explain where. It is
sufficient for you to know that the bill came into my possession, and
that I gave it to my sister. Your teeth are drawn, tiger!"
The gypsy saw--that he was beaten, and began to whine. Although
he already bore the impress of death, he did not want to be turned
out to die in the open fields. "What do you want to know,
honourable rye?" he asked, in fawning tones, for he wanted to
propitiate the man who could make a tramp of him. "I will tell you
all--all. You know so much that--"

"Now, then," interrupted Mr. Cass, impatiently, "where did you get
the red pocket-book? Did you snatch it through this window at which
I am sitting and kill Jenner to get it?"

"No, rye, I swear I did not. I was not near this house; I got the
pocket-book from Jenner."

"You liar! The bill was in the book when Jenner came to this house,
and if you had stolen it, the bill would have remained there. Jenner
did not leave the house again; he died here."

Job scratched his head; he was puzzled. "Well, I thought it was

Jenner, rye; if it wasn't him, then who was it?"

"Marshall--you attacked Marshall on that night. Oh, I know! You tore

his cuff and stole his sleeve-links; and one was found under this very
window. You dropped it there, you murderer!"

"I ain't a murderer, I tell you," growled the man, getting angry. "I did
try to get some tin out of that Marshall cove; but that was afore I
met Mrs. Marshall. I was sleeping behind a hedge, and I heard
Marshall and Jenner jawing; I listened, and heard all. When they
parted I thought I'd drop on Marshall, rye, and get some money. I
was poor and he was rich. He put out his arms to fight, and I did
grab his wrist; but I didn't steal his links, I swear! Then I heard
someone coming, and I ran away, while he went home. I came back
to the Waggoner's Pond and then followed the lady. I knew she was
hiding not far from me in the hedge."

"How could you tell that, in the mist and darkness?"

"I've eyes like a cat, and can see through stones," said Job, in a
sulky tone. "Black don't make no difference to me. I knew her, I tell
you rye and thought she go after Jenner and get that bill for
Marshall's sake."

"Why for Marshall's sake?" asked Mr. Cass, coldly.

"'Cause I heard she was going to be his rani--marry him, as you

Gentiles call it. I went after her, and caught her up. I offered to do
the job for money. She said she'd give me lots if I got her the
pocket-book. I said I'd give it her next day. Then I came to this
house where we are now and waited in the hedge on the other side
of the road. I saw the winder was open, but nothing more. There
was a cry and a yell, and a cove comes dashing down the road, I
after him and caught him up, though he run like the wind. I fell on
him, and I said: 'Give us the red pocket-book!' He fought, but said
nothing. I thought he was Jenner."

"Oh, but you could see in the dark!" remarked Mr. Cass, sarcastically.

"What did that matter?" Job said, surlily. "I didn't know Jenner when
I saw him; he was a stranger to me."

"True enough," said Mr. Cass. "Go on."

"Well, he fought and twisted, and I grabbed on to his throat then he

half gave in, and pushed the pocket-book further into his pocket. I
held him down and got it out. I didn't know he'd been knifing Jenner.
I took the pocket-book to an old barn where I was going to sleep for
the night, and looked through it; I couldn't find no bill, and thought
I'd had all my trouble for nothing. So thinking she'd give me no
money, I made up my mind as I'd tell her I'd got the bill and would
keep it till she paid up; she believed the yarn, and I saw she was
afraid. She asked me to shew her the bill; but I said I wouldn't, as
she might put it in the burning fire. In one way or another I made
her think I could do her husband harm with the bill, so she paid up