A Woman's Place (14 page)

‘We intend to make this a notable event,’ they were told. ‘You’ve both been on a previous demonstration so you will be there, won’t you?’

Eveline looked at Connie as if to say, what do you think? Connie regarded the ten or so women and nodded her agreement without hesitation.

With their chairwoman consulting HQ, it was quickly organised in a proper manner. ‘We cannot have our ladies going about causing havoc willy-nilly. It raises all sorts of complications. We must make sure it is all approved and the name of the WSPU not besmirched.’

It gets besmirched whatever we do, Eveline thought facetiously.

‘I do hope we’re doing the right thing,’ Connie said. ‘If we were to get arrested, the police will inform our parents. My father will never forgive me.’

But Eveline was feeling rebellious. Still there was no sign of Larry; she was hurt and angry. He could at least have written again. Was it a case of out of sight, out of mind, because he was having such a good time wherever he was abroad? But he had written that once to say he loved her – what if something had stopped him writing? What if he’d fallen ill, or worse? How would she know? On the other hand, what if he’d found someone else? Surely he would have had the decency to write and tell her? All these questions were making her confused and miserable.

‘I don’t care!’ she said to Connie, lifting her chin in a gesture of defiance. ‘You can do what you like, Connie, but I’m going!’

It would be exciting, would take her mind off him. She turned her thoughts to herself and others parading in a tight circle outside the meeting hall, holding placards and chanting as loud as they could while the eminent Member of Parliament was inside giving his speech.

Of course they would move on as soon as the police told them to. They had been cautioned by headquarters not to cause any undue disruption or to obstruct the police in their duty. There’d be none of the arrests that Connie feared.

Eveline’s heart was racing. Her stomach was curling as if someone in there was folding dough. It was just after eight o’clock. In the hall the MP was rising to make his speech.

Quietly the dozen women, their placards held low, their green, white and purple sashes hidden under their coats on this rather unseasonably chilly evening, gathered at the end of the road.

People passing looked at them; some who recognised them for what they were slowed their step, anticipating a spectacle, maybe a scuffle if the police came down on them, otherwise all was quiet. The women formed up in twos and began marching purposefully down the road, in the gutter in the accepted manner so that passing traffic would not be disrupted and pedestrians not obliged to step aside and look on them with disfavour, to stop outside the imposing portico of the meeting hall.

With the speed of magicians producing a rabbit out of a hat, a dozen placards appeared, then sashes were whipped out and quickly donned, their wearers careful not to dislodge their large hats.

Eveline’s little pastry cooks ceased folding their dough and her heart calmed; her nervousness was replaced by a feeling of triumph and worth. She glanced at Connie as they began their chanting:
‘Votes for women! Enfranchisement is our right!’
Connie’s pretty face was set, her lips tight, her eyes focused front.

Ten minutes into the protest, a person came through the portico, waving them off.

‘No good you lot marching about out here – no one can hear you.’

‘Then why are you out here?’ one of the demonstrators called back.

‘Because we won’t have you disturbing the peace. You’re making a spectacle of yourselves.’ He glanced at the gathering spectators, their day’s work over, pausing to watch this little diversion on their way home, then turned his gaze on the marchers. ‘Go on home where you belong and cook your men’s tea, as all decent women should be doing.’

‘Is that a fact?’ came a cry from the last woman in the line. ‘I’ll tell you what we should be doing. If you can’t hear us, then this might help.’

There came a sudden crash and a shattering of glass.

No one had seen her pick up a loose cobblestone and aim it, but in seconds it became infectious. Whatever came to hand was being thrown against the tall windows of the meeting hall, none of it planned. What had been intended as a sedate and controlled protest had suddenly got out of hand.

Excited by physical action, Eveline too began hunting around for a suitable missile and saw Connie doing the same.

People were coming to the door. The doorman swept out a hand to prevent anyone running out into the fray. He reached into his pocket and drew out a whistle, blowing a protracted series of short, piercing blasts without stopping. They shrilled down the street and into every other street around. Within moments policemen were on the scene, police whistles between their lips summoning extra assistance.

Eveline felt her arms pinioned to her sides. Connie too had been apprehended, two constables on either side of her. She was screaming. Eveline wanted to scream but somehow felt such dismay that her throat had dried up. In her mind she saw her father glaring at her, pointing her to the door, telling her never to return. What would happen to her? The vision flashed through her head, the fact that she was about to be carted off to prison not entering into it at all.

Five women had escaped, but seven were being held as a police wagon rattled into the street from around a corner to come to a stop in readiness to accommodate the apprehended. The entire meeting was lined up outside the hall, the MP along with them. He had a self-satisfied look on his face that showed no sympathy for suffragettes. With people like that in parliament, how could they ever win?

‘We must stand fast,’ Bessie McLeod, a middle-aged widow of some standing who’d been their leader, told them as they were borne away, sitting facing each other in the police wagon. ‘We must uphold our cause and make them proud of us, those who have gone before us.’

It was like a speech, all drama and style. Connie smiled across at Eveline who smiled back, though neither felt in the mood for smiles. Eveline was thinking of her father and she knew that Connie was thinking of hers. But the woman had more to say.

‘We must all of us go on hunger strike the instant we are sentenced. They will have to let us out or see us die!’

Whether or not she was let out that very same day, she would be taken to court and her parents informed under the usual police procedure – all because one in their group had resorted to violence. Eveline knew she should have bolted at the first sign of trouble but, caught in the excitement, she hadn’t. That earlier curling in her stomach had now become a bunched knot with no prospect of unravelling itself in the foreseeable future.

It was still there when they finally filed into court, each refusing to pay her fine, hearing the sentence of one month in Holloway. Most seemed proud of the fact that they were going to prison – it provided an advertisement for their cause. Eveline wished she felt as calm, but all she could think was that she would lose her job over this and as an ex-prisoner would have no prospect of another. What about the repercussions at home?

The ride, all of them cooped up in the van, seemed to take ages. Entering through the huge gates set in a high wall screening the castle-like edifice from the road, they got out to be escorted into the frowning, grey building.

Inside it was dim, cold, stark, a place of bolts and bars, doors that clanged hollowly and voices that echoed, all pressing down on her as she filed into a bare room along with the others.

Seeing her comrades, their heads up, defiance clearly written on every face, she knew that same defiance was written on hers too. Gone for good was that old sense of adventure she remembered on first joining these women, the vague uncertainty she’d once had. From out of the blue came at last a sense of purpose, a need to see this thing through to the end when this growing army of courageous women would triumph for the good of all women. It would happen. All that was needed was to stand fast; and this was why she was here.

Yet bitterness was pounding in her chest like a fist. Her and Connie’s parents had been notified of their arrest according to police procedure. Connie’s father had hastened to court and when Connie had spoken out refusing to pay her fine, he’d stepped forward, a tall, lean and dignified figure, to say that he was paying his daughter’s fine. Eveline had watched her finally leave, protesting, unable to meet the eyes of those resolved to go to prison for their beliefs. She had actually felt sorry for Connie, a girl openly betrayed before her comrades in arms, and by her own father.

She had feared her own father might have presented himself on her behalf and was relieved when he didn’t. So why was she so bitter? It had been the message he had sent back with the constable who’d informed him of his daughter’s arrest: that a taste of hardship in prison would do her good, cure her of all that nonsense and bring her to her senses.

She felt she could never forgive him for that, nor Mum for not having the will for once to dissuade him. Perhaps she’d even agreed with him.

This very thought helped get her through the deeply humiliating process of having to strip before hard-faced wardresses whose cold eyes seemed to her to take in every contour of her nakedness.

From out of bitterness defiance was beginning to grow. If her parents felt this way about her, then she would endure this incarceration with all the dignity and forbearance she could muster.

Slowly pride began to blot out all else as she was made to put on the dark green prison dress with its white arrows marking her out as a convict. She was a suffragette. She would show the world that she could take the bad times as much as the good.

Head up, she followed the wardress to the cell where she was required to remain for thirty days. It wasn’t all that long a time and now that she knew where she stood with her family, it felt as though a weight had been lifted from her. Why had she been so worried about them finding out?

Almost with a sense of relief she sat down on the narrow, hard bed with its two scratchy blankets and thin pillow as the door slammed, the key rattling and grating in the lock. With a clinical eye she gazed around the cell measuring just five feet by seven in which she would spend the next month, noting the bucket that was to be her toilet, the tiny, cracked washbasin, then glancing up at the glimmer of daylight filtering through the high-set five bars.

Without warning loneliness flowed over her like a small tide; a little of that brave resolve began to crumble, its veneer thinner than she’d thought, and she felt tears begin to prick the edge of her eyelids. Detecting weakening resolve, she took in a deep breath, straightened her back. Gone the previous sense of adventure. She knew now, being a suffragette was serious business.

She was not going to cry. She was not alone. She could hear voices coming spasmodically from other cells, but not communicating, since prisoners were forbidden to speak to one another. The resolve returned, leaving a feeling of strength she’d never have believed she could possess. She would not fail her friends.

She’d been told there’d be no visitors or letters for the first four weeks, which meant no contact with the outside the whole time she’d be in here. This was just as well – she wouldn’t have to face censure from her parents or frustration from Larry, who she tried not to admit to herself that she was already missing. There’d be plenty of time ahead to think of him. Confined to a cell twenty-three hours a day with half an hour in chapel and half an hour silent exercise in the yard, she’d be given knitting and sewing and a book on housekeeping to pass the time. She’d be all right.

‘It isn’t for ever!’ she called out loudly, as much so the others would hear her as to convince herself that everything passes.

‘Quiet!’ a woman’s voice bellowed through the door.

Down the line of cells a women started defiantly to sing. In no time at all the other inmates had joined in. Eveline heard a cell door open, the sound of a sharp slap and a small cry followed by a fiercely whispered warning whose words she couldn’t catch. The singing stopped.

Suddenly another voice rang out. ‘Ladies – we go on hunger strike!’

‘Be silent!’ thundered a wardress. ‘Any more calling out and you’ll get no supper.’

To which came the retort: ‘Good!’

After that all went quiet, leaving her to her thoughts, to which was now added this new one. How long did refusal to eat take before it became unbearable? One thing was certain: she’d find out soon enough.

Connie had never felt so mortified. Sitting beside her father in his fine Austin York landaulette, she remained stubbornly silent. Nor had he spoken one word to her. His lips remained compressed into a thin line above his trim beard, his distinguished countenance was inscrutable. His back stiff as a ramrod, he stared straight ahead during the entire journey home.

William, his chauffeur, looked equally uncomfortable, his posture taut where at other times he’d be quite relaxed at the wheel. Though she could see only his back through the glass partition, she felt she had his sympathy, but it would have been more than his job was worth to air an opinion.

Reaching home, he swung the huge motor car smoothly into the drive to glide to a stop. Connie sat very still as he got out and smartly opened the door for her father, then came round to her side to help her down with a gentle hand. She watched him get back into his driving seat and the car moved off to the garage and stables at the back of the house. Her father passed her without speaking or looking at her, mounting the few steps to the front door immediately opened to him by Bentick, who had no doubt been waiting for the moment the car appeared, aware of the mood in which his employer had left home earlier.

Connie followed at a distance and only when she had stepped inside, handing her coat and hat to Agnes, standing meek and unobtrusive behind their butler, did her father address her in his deep, measured voice. ‘I wish to see you in my study, Constance, immediately you have made yourself presentable.’

It was in a state of defiance that she entered at his response to her polite tap on the study door. She was not going to defend her suffragette activities. She felt almost relieved that he was at last aware of it, that she wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of telling him herself. She stood before him, tall and straight-backed, her head up, her expression calm.