A Fatal Freedom (45 page)

Ursula looked around to check that she had packed all Mrs Bruton’s possessions. ‘Does that clock belong to you or the hotel?’ Ursula pointed to a small one sitting on the bedside table.

‘That is mine. My goodness, look at the time, midday already. Now, I am feeling much better, we will not mention again the matter which I told you about this morning. But I feel in need of a diversion. Why don’t we have luncheon here and then visit the menagerie I have heard so much about. I would love to see the animals.’

Ursula was taken aback. That would mean it was unlikely she could keep her appointment with Jackman. But Mrs Bruton was her employer and she needed to keep her job. Also there was no doubt the woman had been very upset earlier. Ursula remembered the times she had been asked to accompany her on various enjoyable expeditions when she had been treated generously.

‘Why don’t you go to the dining room while I speak to the concierge and arrange for your luggage to be sent to Wilton Crescent.’

Mrs Bruton immediately looked happier.

The concierge was very helpful. ‘We hope Mrs Bruton has enjoyed herself at Brown’s Hotel, we are sorry to see her leave.’

Ursula assured him Mrs Bruton had been very satisfied with her visit and while he made the arrangements for the luggage, she took the opportunity to write a note on the hotel paper. It required a little thought. Once finished, she addressed it and asked the concierge if the postal system would manage to deliver it before three o’clock.

It appeared the late morning post had just been collected. So Ursula arranged for delivery by a messenger. She had just enough left over from the money Jackman had given her to cover the cost.

‘I wondered what was taking you so long,’ Mrs Bruton said, appearing at her side. ‘Is there any difficulty with the luggage?’

‘No, all is arranged.’

‘And I have asked for a table. Come along.’

As they sat down, Ursula caught sight of a familiar-looking piece of headgear. ‘Why, surely that is Mrs Trenchard,’ she said as the waiter unfolded her napkin and spread it on her lap. ‘I remember that hat from your tea party. I wondered how many birds had donated their feathers for its decoration. I’m glad to see her here, it must mean that her husband has recovered.’

Mrs Bruton looked round. At the same moment the woman turned and Ursula saw it was someone quite different.

‘Fancy mistaking her in that way,’ said Ursula in a light tone. ‘I must learn to look at faces before making an identification. But it was a remarkable hat, and a remarkable afternoon,’ she added.

But Mrs Bruton was securing the attention of a waiter and asking for a jug of water on their table. ‘You always have to ask for anything that is free,’ she said to Ursula as he hurried to carry out her command.

‘In America glasses of water are served even before an order is taken.’

‘I think I should like to visit there,’ Mrs Bruton said. ‘It seems a most interesting place.’ Then she grew serious. ‘I am afraid, Ursula, I shall have to ask you to give up your work at
Maison Rose
.’

Though she had been half expecting some such request, it still came as a shock. But her first loyalty must be to Mrs Bruton.

‘Of course,’ she said lightly but even as she said it, she wondered how easy it would be to find another part-time job.

The door of the police station slammed shut behind her and Rachel was left standing on Marylebone Lane. After the dark of her overnight cell, the brightness of the day was blinding. All around was mid-morning bustle but all she was conscious of was the prison smell that had soaked through to her central core, an odour of rank bodies, neglected dirt, and a despair compounded of ignorance, aggression and hate. She felt she was now marked as clearly as if she had a sign round her neck as ‘criminal’, a ‘jail bird’.

John placed his arm around her shoulders and held her tightly. ‘Let’s get you home, dearest. My motor is just down here.’ He guided her away from the police station.

Anger boiled in her. An anger so intense she was incapable of words.

She pushed away John’s arm as he tried to help her into the passenger seat and sat, her face as set as a stone buddha’s as he swung the starting handle. The vehicle backfired with a jerk and Rachel grabbed at the side door. It was the only movement she made until they pulled up outside her building. Then she jumped down and was inside before the engine was switched off.

Martha rushed to her. ‘Oh, my precious!’ she cried. ‘They have let you go.’

Rachel pushed past her outstretched arms and screamed, ‘A bath, I need a bath. I must have a bath.’ She discarded clothes as she went through to her bedroom, Martha picking them up after her. John, without his goggles, driving coat and helmet, sat uneasily in the living room, his expression worried.

Half an hour later Rachel emerged wearing a dressing gown tied tightly around her waist, and rubbing wet hair with a clean towel. She stopped as she saw John.

‘I shall never forgive you,’ she said, her voice tight with anger.

‘What for? For asking my father to help get you out of prison?’ He tried to draw her into his arms.

She pulled back. ‘Just because he’s a duke! All he has to do is snap his fingers and that vile inspector decides I should be freed. How many dukes are there in England?’

‘What does it matter?’

‘Thirty! That’s all. And how much of England do they own?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I expect a goodly slice of London is your father’s as well as acres of land elsewhere. He has power. I have none. None! I should never have been arrested. Where was the evidence?’ She struggled to keep her voice from breaking.

‘That is what my father told the Commissioner of Police. He said it was a miscarriage of justice that had to be corrected.’

She ignored this. ‘I achieved my law degree with honours. But I am not allowed to practice. Why? Because I’m a woman. Your father has done nothing but be born in the right cradle and yet what he says goes.’

‘Dearest, I know how frustrating it is for you …’

‘How dare you call it frustrating!’ Rachel threw away the towel, her half-dried hair falling about her shoulders. ‘Women have spent decades battling for the vote. Without it we will never have equality.’ She wrapped her arms around her body and paced up and down the room, an angry energy coming off her like electricity. ‘The Liberals were supposed to support our cause; now Mrs Pankhurst says they are terrified that if we get the vote, it’ll mean men’s wages will be forced down! As if we would not want to earn, job for job, the same as they do. Can you believe such twisted thinking?’ She caught hold of thick strands of her hair and pulled at them as though they could be torn from her head.

‘Mrs Pankhurst says that our suffrage battle isn’t getting us anywhere and it is time for deeds, not words. Without equality, without an equal moral code for men and women, half the human race – that’s we women – will be fair game for men to continue treating viciously. So now it is time for us to turn ourselves into an army, use intimidation and violence, force Parliament to recognise our rights.’ She flung out her arms, her voice triumphant.

John stared as though seeing her for the first time.

Rachel dropped into a chair. ‘Oh God, John, I’m just so tired and so angry I don’t know what I’m saying.’

‘Sounds to me as though you aren’t having any difficulty.’ He sounded halfway between admiration and despair.

‘I’m amazed your father didn’t refuse to have anything to do with rescuing me from that brute of an inspector. Didn’t he tell you to have nothing to do with a criminal such as I? That he couldn’t sully his name with such a sordid matter?’

He dropped down beside her and caught up her hand. ‘I told him I love you. That you are the most wonderful girl in the world.’

She looked into his eyes, their gaze fastened passionately on hers, and for the first time felt guilty. He was such an innocent. What did he understand about what drove her? What had he actually told his father, that so-powerful duke? Surely she had to be grateful to be freed from that vile cell? She couldn’t bear to think of Alice, suffering weeks and months in such conditions.

What did her own freedom mean? Was she now bound to John? Or should she make him understand they could not have a future together?

Martha entered. ‘Mail has come, late again; that postman needs a rocket put under him. Just the one letter.’

Rachel took it, didn’t recognise the writing and slipped it into her pocket. ‘Martha, why haven’t you got your coat and hat on? It’s time you left for your Sunday visit to your sister.’

‘With you only just out of that prison? I must prepare a luncheon for you both. Sister can wait.’

‘Nonsense, John and I can find something to eat without your help. Off you go now.’ Rachel rose and planted a kiss on her maid’s cheek. ‘I’m fine.’

Martha gave her a searching look, then capitulated. ‘I’ll be back around six o’clock. And what would your dear mother say to see you entertaining a young man in your dressing gown? You’re not even affianced.’

‘Oh, I think we are, Martha,’ said John. ‘At least, I hope we are.’ He looked across at Rachel. ‘I told my father that you were to be my wife.’

Irritation fought with a rising passion in Rachel. ‘Now go along, I can get dressed without your help,’ she said to Martha. ‘I’ll see you this evening.’

As the door closed behind her maid, Rachel turned to John. ‘Let’s forget about the future,’ she said, her voice now warm, intimate. Instead of me getting dressed, how about you undressing?’

A little while later she turned to him in bed. ‘How could Alice return to that brute, Joshua, after finding love with Daniel? I could never have done that.’

He smiled into her eyes and drew his hand through the shining hair spread over the pillow. ‘Then you do love me!’

She smiled back but laid a finger on his lips, ‘How could I not? Now, I’m hungry, let’s see what food’s about.’

She slipped out of bed and drew her dressing gown on again, then took out the envelope that had arrived that morning and opened it.

‘How strange; it’s from Millie, Alice’s maid. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.’ She handed the letter to him.

‘Dear Miss Fentiman,’ he read out loud. ‘I am with the menagerie circus, I have no choice. But you could give me choice. I know things. You need to see me. Millie.’ He gave Rachel back the piece of paper. ‘It’s a schoolgirl’s hand, look how carefully she forms her letters.’

‘I’m looking at what she’s saying. Does it sound like blackmail to you? “I know things”?’

‘What could she know?’ he asked.

Rachel didn’t answer; she was too busy dressing.

* * *

An hour or so later, Rachel and John were at the menagerie and asking for Millie. They were sent to the area behind the circus tent, where there were a number of travelling wagons.

Millie saw them approaching and waved. She was sitting on the steps of one of the caravans, wearing some sort of uniform; Rachel had noticed other circus and menagerie staff dressed in brown tunics and trousers or skirts, all trimmed with flashes of red.

Rachel looked at her sister’s ex-maid searchingly as the girl came towards them. Did she know something?

‘You got my note,’ said Millie.

She seemed taller than Rachel remembered and carried herself with a new confidence.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Rachel bluntly. She’d never particularly liked Millie; thought she was untrustworthy and sly. But Alice said she was loyal and was very fond of her. ‘What do you want?’

Beside her Rachel could feel John looking around, interested in everything that was going on. There was a great deal of activity. Men, dressed in workmanlike gear, were carrying items of equipment about; all seemed to be heading for the big, round tent that stood to one side of the menagerie.

‘Is Mrs Peters out of prison yet?’

The question struck Rachel almost like a physical blow. She herself was free but her poor sister was still incarcerated in Holloway gaol.

‘I am afraid she isn’t.’ Rachel dragged Millie’s note out of her pocket and held it out. ‘What do you mean, you “know things”? And why do I need to see you?’

Millie’s confidence immediately wavered. She looked down at the ground and kicked at a small pebble. ‘I dunno, really.’ Then she looked up at Rachel and seemed to gather courage. ‘I’ve learned things here. I’ve made all sorts of costumes; Ma says I’ve a real gift for design.’

‘Ma?’

‘She and Pa run this whole show. Thomas Jackman brought me here; he saved me from an awful fate worse than death,’ she said with dramatic emphasis.

‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Millie. I would like you to get to the point.’

John put his hand on Rachel’s shoulder. ‘The thing is, Millie, Miss Fentiman found it difficult to understand what it is you want from her. She even felt …’

Rachel shook herself free. ‘The thing is, Millie, the stories I hear about what went on between you and Joshua Peters after my sister left him make me reluctant to give you any help, if that is what you want.’

Millie coloured but looked straight at Rachel. ‘I could say he left me no choice. And, yes, that’s what happened. I had no choice.’

‘We women have to fight for our choices.’ Rachel looked around at the busy scene again. She had no desire to know what had happened to Millie, she only wanted to get to the bottom of the girl’s note. Was it, she wondered for the first time, that poor education had meant Millie hadn’t been able to find the right words? ‘You seem to have found something of a home here.’

‘It’s all ending. Soon they’ll be packing up and on their way to winter quarters in the north.’

‘So you want me to give you a job.’

Millie kicked at another pebble. ‘It’s not just that I can be a very good lady’s maid – Mrs Peters will say I gave every satisfaction – I can design and sew costumes now.’

‘Circus costumes!’

‘But I can make your sort of clothes, I have the skills.’ Millie clutched at the other girl’s sleeve.

Rachel felt an instant repulsion followed almost immediately by guilt. What was it that she herself was fighting for? What was the battle that lay behind every action she had taken since she had left Manchester University and particularly in the last few months? ‘We women,’ she had said to Millie only a few minutes ago, admitting her into the sisterhood.