‘Dangerous Domestic Secrets’ on Trial in The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins

Abstract

Spaces of transit are commonly associated with travel and movement and with being on one’s way between two points, having departed but not yet arrived, as if in a liminal state of suspense or anticipation. Spaces of transit may also be fixed public spaces through which we pass, or in which we pause or remain for a while. One characteristic of both these kinds of spaces is the blurred distinction between the privacy of the domestic sphere and the publicity of the public sphere, which creates shared, in-between spaces providing the opportunity for transitory and, indeed, transformative encounters as a result of social interaction involving varying degrees of privacy and publicity. Airport terminals, railway stations, train carriages, hotel foyers, parks and squares are generally considered typical spaces of transit; however, this chapter focuses on a more exceptional liminal space of transit — the criminal court. Like a passenger or a traveller in transit, a defendant may have a sense of being suspended between two points; for a criminal trial, like a journey, is a transitory process of uncertain duration, commencing with an arraignment and terminating with a verdict and sentence. Moreover, a defendant is suspended i n-between two verdicts — ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not Guilty’ — and between the possibilities of acquittal and the freedom to go home and conviction, in which prison, or even death, could be the final destination. The trial is a classic rite of passage in van Gennep’s terms, involving separation from everyday life, a liminal space of testing and negotiation followed by reassimilation, or otherwise, in what would certainly have been a transformative experience for a woman in Victorian England.