A Time for Courage (34 page)

‘Cheers, Hannah. We must drink to the start of a difficult 1908.’ Then, pacing the floor, she told Hannah more about the meeting the deputation had had with Asquith.

Hannah said, ‘Did he give a reason?’

‘What do you think?’ Frances snapped, but as Hannah flushed she said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, my dear.’

She walked over to Hannah, looking down on her. ‘It is just so very frustrating. I can see more and more why the suffragettes are not content with polite requests but I can still not bring myself to work as they do.’

She sat heavily in the chair opposite Hannah. ‘It’s such an uphill struggle but we’ll just have to go on asking, requesting, gathering support and in the end, perhaps we’ll win.’

‘We’ll win,’ Hannah assured her, drinking her sherry and leaning back in her chair. ‘We’ll win.’ But impatience made her head ache, for still she could not join in the battle as she really wished because the Pensions Bill was not through yet. Later, when Beatrice had cleared away dinner and the fire was low in the grate, she showed Frances the letter she had received from Harry. It was short and the first he had written to her since school.

My dear Hannah,

I have just arrived and have completed a tour of the Rand and Kimberley too. It is extremely hot and there is dust everywhere and it is so very different to England. I am expected to work on the gold ridge for some while in a more direct way than I had been led to believe. I had fully expected to be out each day surveying the land for evidence of more gold-bearing ore but they have too many engineers already so I am back in the pits. I love it.

I hope to move to Kimberley in due course because the diamond mines are even better. I also hope to have a mate assigned to me soon. He will be a native or kaffir, as we call them here. I received your letter and am pleased that you are well and yes, I think that it is probably a good idea to interest Esther in your woman’s movement – she will need something if she is to find this miserable waiting bearable. But, Hannah, take care of her for me. You must promise me this.

Give my regards to Miss Fletcher. I am writing to Father in a separate letter.

With love from your brother,

Harry.

As Frances finished Hannah said, ‘You can see that he says nothing about the natives and their conditions. I must write to him about it; I must find out from him what is going on out there.’

Miss Fletcher passed it back, removing the spectacles which she now needed to read, rubbing the bridge of her nose. ‘He doesn’t give much detail of his life out there at all, does he?’ she agreed. ‘But he sounds happy. And do you think you will be able to keep Esther busy enough to wait for Harry?’

Hannah looked up at her. ‘I don’t know, but I shall have to try.’

At Easter, the King’s Speech was silent on votes for women. Joe had come to London to present some furniture designs to a customer and he walked around the streets with her while Frances attended a meeting to discuss which Members of Parliament they should try and persuade to draw up yet another Female Franchise Bill. Together they handed out letters written by Frances asking for support. He held the hessian bag and talked of the home and how Eliza came to help because it was only ten miles and the trap could do it there and back in one day. Hannah’s aunt had hung curtains at all the windows and the women who were staying had joined in. Sam had organised the men and the children and had cleared out the stables because there would be apples on the trees in the orchard and Joe wanted to store them in the old hay-loft.

As they walked the fog-shrouded and stinking streets, pressing against the dank wall as a drunk staggered past, she longed for the clear air, the fields, Aunt Eliza’s curtains, the smell of apples which made her remember Uncle Simon. But Cornwall would have to wait because there was a battle which must be fought day in and day out before there could be that sort of peace for her.

So she knocked on the next door and handed out the letter, smiling and talking and asking for support for the suffragists’ campaign for votes for women. She wanted to ask for support for the suffragette rally to be held in the Albert Hall too but she did not, for her loyalty to Frances was too strong, and she shrugged as Joe smiled and handed her another letter.

‘Wait a little longer, Hannah,’ he said and she nodded, taking his arm until they reached the next house because he made her feel as though it did not matter quite so much.

Joe left the next day, pleased with an order for six chairs and one table. He looked tanned and strong and well in contrast to the pallor of the people in the narrow streets, streets which still swam with a heavy fog and a cold dampness.

Hannah did not go with him to the station because Arthur was expecting her for dinner with his parents and besides, she did not want to see Joe leave the arched grey station to travel towards the lush, green, clear country. And so she had waved as he climbed into the hansom cab, making herself think not of the rolling hills and the apple-loft but of Arthur and the brilliant lights that would flood the dining-room tonight.

He had invited Esther too and she came to fetch her in Uncle Thomas’s carriage, wrapped in a silk shawl which could pass through her mother’s wedding ring, she told Hannah and Frances.

Hannah turned as Frances said, ‘How lovely for you, Esther.’ And though there was no laughter in her face or her voice Hannah knew that it was just below the surface.

During the evening they talked of Harry and the heat that he had spoken of. They talked of Arthur’s work in the City. They talked of the new term in Parliament and Lord Wilmot worried about the tax that would be levied to pay for the Pensions Bill.

‘Five shillings they want for everyone over seventy. It threatens the empire, you know. It’s the beginning of the end.’

They did not talk of women’s suffrage because Arthur felt his father would not understand. ‘Though I think the suffragettes show a pleasing spirit,’ he said to Hannah as he took her to see the jasmine which was growing so well in the conservatory. ‘Perhaps it gives you girls something to do that’s fun.’ He kissed her and his lips were soft and warm.

The next week Esther and Hannah travelled to the big suffragette meeting at the Albert Hall for, reasoned Hannah, to attend meetings was not militant and could not affect the principle of no militancy until the Pensions Bill was passed. Frances had nodded but had not come.

As they entered the domed building Esther whispered in Hannah’s ear, ‘I wonder what Prince Albert would have said about women using his building to discuss a campaign for votes.’ Hannah, forced along by the press of women behind and in front and to the side of her, said, ‘He’d have looked down that long nose of his and said, “I am not amused”, I should think.’

Their soft laughter sounded good to Hannah but as they entered the auditorium they both fell silent at the sight and sound of women from wall to wall; murmuring, talking, waving to one another. Hannah felt an excitement, a relief that she was here at last amongst a great mass who felt as she did. She had not known there were so many, so very many.

The suffragist meetings she had attended with Frances had been small and decorous, not crammed and vocal as this gathering was. She looked at the women in front and the large woman who stood at her side, a working woman. There was a set to her chin, a determination that the woman next to her also wore and on and on down the row. A sense of belonging took and held Hannah and there was a great peace within her because at last she was here. She wanted to be able to go home and sit by the wicker chair and tell her mother of the sights and sounds that were soaking into her with every second.

Esther took her arm. ‘Look,’ she said pointing towards the platform.

Hannah pushed thoughts of her mother away, back, not to her father’s house, but to the home in Cornwall where Joe was sorting apples and Eliza was making curtains, for it was here that she believed her mother now lived, embodied in an idea which she had made reality. Hannah pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, making her lips hurt. To think of her mother in this way was all that made the loss endurable. She breathed deeply and listened as Esther repeated herself taking Hannah’s arm and shaking it.

‘Look.’

Hannah craned her head above the crowd, following Esther’s hand and then she saw it. An empty chair set on the platform with a placard which read ‘Mrs Pankhurst’s Chair’. The speakers were entering as Hannah remembered that Emmeline Pankhurst was in prison for obstructing the police and applause filled the auditorium, wave upon wave to the very height of the dome, and it was for Mrs Pankhurst and all the other women who were deprived of their liberty because they had dared to demand their rights.

Hannah’s hands ached from clapping, her throat was tight from cheering but all the time she wondered whether when the time came she would have their courage. Would she be able to carry on walking when the police called on her to stop? And would her voice be as loud when it was her turn to heckle at a meeting? She was still clapping, everyone was clapping. But could she keep on demanding until the stewards came as they always did, hurting and pushing until the police took her to the cells? Could she do it, she wondered, and her palms were damp and the noise of the women all around her could not drown the question she asked herself, one that she could not yet answer. Had she been waiting because she was afraid? It was a question which was too uncomfortable to consider.

It was the sudden hush that brought her back to Esther and to the large woman, but not before she realised that, at this moment, she was glad that the Pensions Bill still had not been passed so perhaps after all her question was answered. Fear was her enemy. A woman was standing on the platform and as she spoke Hannah rose as all the others did when they were told that the Government had released the prisoners and Mrs Pankhurst would take the chair tonight after all.

That night, when the meeting was ended, Hannah did not take a hansom cab from outside the hall but walked and walked because she was charged with energy, with excitement, with a sense of belonging and Esther was with her, her eyes alight, her cheeks flushed.

‘It’s all so very exciting, Hannah. Oh, to think of those women suffering imprisonment. What heroines. How glamorous.’ She gripped Hannah’s arm. ‘It’s the excitement which appeals, isn’t it? Flouting the law, being seen to be brave. I must write and tell Harry what a wonderful idea it was of mine.’

Hannah’s laughter was tinged with irritation at such remarks which could only have come from her cousin, but she would not allow Esther to impinge on her own elation, her own enthusiasm, and her fear was forgotten as she felt again the atmosphere and comradeship of the past few hours. It was like nothing else she had known. She would not be fighting alone and that knowledge made her feel that anything was possible, that her fear could be conquered.

The following week Hannah talked to Frances as they drank thick warm cocoa before the fire. Asquith wanted proof that there was support for women’s suffrage, though, as Frances had said, what had he been seeing all these years? Her tone had been bitter. None the less the suffragists were arranging a procession to the Albert Hall and the suffragettes were marching to Hyde Park.

Frances looked at her and nodded. ‘So at last you have a decision to make, Hannah. Under which banner will you march?’ She stirred her cocoa and tapped the spoon twice before putting it in her saucer.

Hannah nodded, looking into the fire which leapt and spun over the dried logs which she had brought from the cellar today.

Frances continued. ‘But before you do decide, just let me say that I should be hurt if you left the schoolhouse just because you chose a different path to me. I enjoy your company and want you to remain here with me.’

Hannah looked up from the fire to Frances now and felt a lightness growing within her because she had felt that to declare for the suffragettes would mean the end of all this. She looked about the room to the books, the desk, the dog, which was yelping in its sleep.

‘It’s just that I still feel this anger, this need to make the Government listen. They’re not listening. We have to shout, to grip their collars and make them look at us while we speak the words which they must one day listen to.’ She had risen and begun to pace the floor. ‘They should not need proof. There are all the years of suffrage work to be seen, all the petitions, the lobbying. It is an insult.’

‘Do sit down, Hannah.’ Frances was laughing.

But Hannah felt restless, full of an energy that could not be released. It was as though there was something pushing and roaring against a barrier which she could not yet move aside; a barrier of waiting. She crossed her arms, her hands gripping tightly, and she made herself turn and sit in the chair, made herself take her mug between her hands, bringing it to her lips and sipping, feeling the steam on her face.

‘I must choose the suffragettes,’ she said, watching the face of her Headmistress, her friend.

There was a pause and she could hear the clock, and the fire as it hissed and spat.

‘Of course you must. You are just confirming what we have both known for a long time,’ Frances said at last, her face still calm and her voice level as it always was. There was a further pause and then Frances spoke again, her voice slow as she sought words carefully.

‘But, Hannah, do be careful. It is not an easy path. The suffragettes are frequently imprisoned and that is not pleasant even in the first division which is for political prisoners. Usually it is the second division or at worst the third and that, my dear, is a true punishment.’

Frances placed her mug on the table and bent forward, using the brass poker to push a log further on to the fire. Sparks rose and some clung to the soot that coated the back of the hearth. She could not know what the women had suffered during their imprisonments but she had seen them on their release and she feared for Hannah, whom she had grown to love. This girl who was her friend and almost her child but how could one protect another? Frances shook her head. She knew it was impossible, and there would be anguish and pain for Hannah as she fought the coming battle and that would be her pain too. All she could do for now was to continue to delay the hardship for her in the hope that soon the vote would be given and Hannah need not face those things that Frances feared would break her.