A Woman's Place (17 page)

‘I’d better be off to bed then,’ she said brightly, pausing just long enough to plant a brief goodnight peck on her grandmother’s cheek.

A letter finally arrived from Connie just as Eveline was about to leave for her Saturday afternoon meeting at George Street. It had been sent early that morning, the eleventh of September; with three or four posts daily, mail was guaranteed to reach its destination by lunchtime. Though not as fast, the letter was so short as to be as brief as any telegram.

Sorry not to have replied before, but a lot has happened. I will see you at this afternoon’s meeting. Connie.

This formal communication did not even respond to her own news that she was now living with Gran, although the letter had come to Gran’s address rather than her parents’, so Connie must have taken note of what she’d written.

Intrigued and concerned, Eveline arrived at the meeting ahead of most of the women. She watched one after the other hurry in from the dreary afternoon, shaking their brollies before entering and going downstairs to the cloakroom to take off their wet outdoor things, but could see no sign of Connie.

She grew ever more anxious, having been one of the first to go down to the cloakroom, hardly lingering to hang up her coat, stack her brolly in the umbrella stand and adjust her hat before coming up to begin her wait; she couldn’t have missed her.

She’d peeped into the meeting room earlier. Now it was filling rapidly, the chatter beginning to swell. She turned away, disappointed, to join the others, giving the main door one last glance. Connie was coming slowly and wearily up the short flight of steps from the street, struggling with an umbrella while hanging on to a large and cumbersome travelling bag. Eveline was out of the door and taking hold of the receptacle.

‘Connie, what are you doing?’ she burst out. ‘I’ve really missed you. Where have you been?’

Connie gave her a wan smile, glad to be relieved of the heavy bag. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said as they came into the dry.

‘Take off your coat,’ Eveline ordered with a need to be in charge with Connie looking so sorrowful and worn out. ‘I’ll pop it down to the cloakroom with your umbrella and your bag.’ She tested its weight. ‘My goodness, it’s heavy. You go on in.’

Sudden panic spread across Connie’s face. ‘No, I’ll wait here for you.’

‘We’re late.’ She made for the narrow spiral staircase. ‘See if you can find chairs together for us. The place won’t be full, a wet afternoon like this.’

‘I can’t. I – I don’t want to be left in there on my own.’

Pausing to look at her, Eveline instantly knew why. In there could be some of those who had been in court and who’d witnessed her walking away with a father having arranged to pay her fine, while they, electing not to be defeated, had gone to prison. Even though they understood that one might flout the cold authority of the law but not so easily the well-meaning authority of an overprotective parent, Connie could not face them alone.

‘Stay there,’ Eveline said briskly. ‘I won’t be two ticks.’

It was just as well Connie did wait. Instead of the chairs being in rows ready for a speaker so that Connie would have only a view of the backs of those in front of her, they’d been arranged in small circles and she, with shame still etched on her face, would have been in full sight of others. This afternoon, as often happened, they were helping to make small banners – normally the sort of afternoon they both loved, doing something practical for the cause, everyone chatting as they sewed or embroidered, exchanging news and views. Eveline always felt a certain pride, making something with her own hands, but this afternoon Connie was her main concern.

Something serious must have happened to keep her away from what she so loved, but she hadn’t reckoned on the shock of what Connie had to tell her after they’d come away from the meeting.

As they went to get tea and cake, supplied by volunteers, she asked Connie what the trouble was. Connie looked quickly around her at those clustering by the refreshment table.

‘Not here.’

‘Why not? What happened?’

Connie’s voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘Can we can go somewhere for a cup of tea? Somewhere we can talk in private? It’s just that I’m not going back home. I need to find a hotel for the time being.’

In a nearby cafe she told Eveline how her father had been surprisingly more lenient than she’d expected in regard to her suffragette interests, but had nevertheless advised her not to attend any more meetings, which she had felt obliged to honour for the time being, hoping to placate him for a while. But then something came to his notice that to him was far worse than a daughter associating with what he termed demented females.

Her voice threatening to let her down, Connie didn’t go into too much detail about her father’s wrath but said enough to reveal someone had informed him that she had been seen on the arm of a young man. The young man was, of course, George Towers. The informant, it seemed, couldn’t wait to tell her parents and by the power of his formidable presence, her father had wormed the truth from her, forbidding her to see George Towers ever again.

‘But I couldn’t do that,’ she whispered. ‘I’m far too in love with George. I can’t …’ This time she broke down completely and had to stop for quite a while to gain control of her emotions. When she began again, her voice had steadied.

‘I think I’ve told you that George is only a bank clerk. He lives in a rented house with his mother. She’s widowed. She is quite a sick woman.’

Connie was stirring her tea, slowly, distractedly, the spoon moving round and round, its metallic clinking against the cup rim blending with all the other sounds of afternoon tea in this cosy little place. So far she’d not taken a single sip.

‘He looks after her, so we can’t go out very much. We can only meet on Saturday evenings and sometimes Sunday afternoons, and go for small walks. So it is quite ironic we should have been seen together.’ She set down the spoon down in the saucer only to pick it up moments later to resume stirring.

‘Naturally, knowing my father,’ she went on, bitterly sarcastic, ‘he set about making enquiries straight away – who George Towers was, where did his people stand in society, did he have a tidy inheritance, certainly enough to support a wife in the style to which she was accustomed, or better, that being in my father’s book an income of at least nine or ten thousand a year?’

In a monotone she related that when he’d found George to be a mere bank clerk with no real prospects at all, he had stamped down on her, saying she had allowed herself to be blinded by some young and scheming leech looking only to feather his nest and had allowed herself to sink to the level of a common hussy whose head could be turned by the first attractive face to come her way, with not the slightest consideration for the duty a young woman of her upbringing owed her family. This meant to marry well, become wife to a person of high standing, thus furthering her family’s status in society. That was her role as a daughter. It was what her education had been about. Why else educate a woman if not to groom her for marriage to the right man?

She quoted this last part with an acrimony that took away Eveline’s breath, her eyes wide and blazing as Eveline had never seen them before, her pretty face contorted with rage and cynicism.

‘People like you think women like me sleep on beds of roses. But we are treated as chattels, property, expected to be genteel and obedient.
You
have more freedom than I. It’s different for my sister – she is the obedient sort. She cannot wait to find a wealthy husband.’

She was calming a little. ‘I told him George wasn’t a schemer. I said he was kind and honest and hardworking, but it made no impression at all. He refused to listen. In truth I didn’t expect him to, which is why I hid it from him all this time. But George and I love each other. I could never give him up!’

She choked back a hiccuping sob, her anger turning to utter dejection.

Eveline sat in silence watching the tears slide slowly down Connie’s cheeks as she spoke of her mother taking her father’s side against her, telling her to give up her foolish notion, saying she had been given endless opportunities to find a husband of good standing and secure means yet had chosen to insult them by settling on a nobody and that she must be quite insane.

‘I
am
insane,’ Connie said vehemently. ‘Insanely in love. I told them I would never give George up. They were incensed. Finally my father said that if I persisted with my foolishness, he’d have nothing more to do with me and it would be best I leave. So I did. I shall never go back. Nor will I be allowed to unless I come to my senses, as my father so aptly put it.’

As if to emphasise her decision, Connie dropped the spoon down into the saucer and picked up her cup, draining the half-cold liquid in several large gulps as if her life depended on it, then slamming the cup back down on to the saucer enough to have cracked it across.

She was weeping openly now, tears falling into the empty cup. ‘I don’t know what to do. Even after all that’s happened, I miss being at home. I’ve never been on my own before.’

Eveline came to herself with a start. ‘First thing in the morning,’ she said, now in control, ‘you must find George and tell him what’s happened.’

She saw Connie look up with near terror in her hazel eyes. ‘What if it frightens him, off, telling him what I’ve done, all that worry I’m putting on him? I can’t go back home after what’s happened.’

‘He’ll still want you if he’s all you say he is.’

‘But with his mother to look after, how can I heap this on him too?’

‘If he loves you.’

‘He does. But I can’t burden him with this. Imagine turning up and telling him I’ve nowhere to live. He’ll think I’m asking him to take me in.’

Eveline needed time to think. ‘You can’t stay in a hotel in this state,’ she said. ‘Not on your own. Have you got any money?’

She could imagine Connie running off without thinking, hardly a few shillings in her purse. Connie shrugged despondently, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, becoming aware that people were looking at her.

‘I can draw from my bank account.’

‘Tomorrow’s Sunday – banks are closed.’

Connie wasn’t listening. ‘My father gives me an allowance, though I expect that will stop now. I’ve a few pounds on me and my cheque book, but it’s being away from home all on my own that’s frightening.’

‘You’re not on your own. You’ve got George. Go and see him tomorrow.’

She looked so dejected that Eveline found herself debating all sorts of ways out for her other than being all on her own in a strange hotel. She was aware the WSPU had hostels for young women coming into town from afar, but Connie would still be spending a night alone and in her present state, that was unthinkable.

On a sudden whim she said, ‘Look, come back with me. My gran might be able to put you up for the night, then in the morning we can think more clearly. You can share my bed. It’s a double.’

She saw Connie become attentive but had she been too hasty with her solution, not stopping to think what Gran might say to her bringing home a stranger and asking for her to be put up as well?

‘My Gran lives across the street from my parents. I’m lucky I had her to go to. She’s a wonderful person. She understands what the suffragettes go through and what they are fighting for.’

It was said with pride. Gran was as sprightly as she’d been fifteen years ago and exceptionally modern for one of seventy, unlike most people of her age, who dwelled in the past. Even though she loved to tell stories of her past life, she was strong, resourceful, calm in a crisis and ready to face up to anything. Her motto was, ‘Don’t ever let today’s problems get you down, ’cos by next year they’ll all be behind you and be replaced by another lot!’

Eveline often felt quite envious that she wasn’t more like her, though Mum in moments of annoyance towards her often accused her of being
too much like your blooming grandmother!
Gran being a stubborn old devil, she and Mum had never been able to see eye-to eye. She couldn’t help smiling, wondering if that was why Gran had taken her under her wing, to show her disapproval of Mum taking her father’s side against their child.

Eveline gravely regarded her grandmother as the door opened. ‘Gran, this is my friend, Constance Mornington.’

Quickly she explained Connie’s predicament while her grandmother regarded the girl as though able to see into her mind. She was like that – she discerned things others failed to.

There was a lot of wisdom behind the way she looked at most things, seldom shocked by this modern world. Where most women of seventy clung to their dark bonnets, she moved with the times; her figure was trim and upright, she’d wear a fashionably large hat and Eveline suspected her of secretly using tinted rinses to temper the grey hair, even occasionally a false piece coyly known as a transformation.

It was good to see someone of her age still caring enough to want to look young. She could have walked alongside any of the older suffragettes, just as brisk, plucky, resolute and unafraid.

Gran had switched her gaze back to her. ‘Well, if your friend is going to stay, you’d best both come in.’

Having sized up the situation, she’d already assumed Connie’s stay could be a long one but didn’t seem at all put out and again Eveline felt that stir of envy, but one that also held a lot of love.

The young woman had the look of someone utterly lost, of someone spoiled by a sheltered life, now suddenly on her own and totally unable to deal with it.

Victoria Ansell smiled to herself. Trust Eveline to assume responsibility for someone else’s problem. With her kind heart she always had been one for strays, so to speak. She’d lost count of the bedraggled cats Eveline as a child had brought to her door, the mangy creature cradled in her clean pinafore.

‘Gran, can it have something to eat? It looks starved. Mum won’t let me bring it upstairs or into the shop. Just a drop of milk or something?’

She always managed to find food, as with old and young heads together they’d crouch on her kitchen floor to watch the frail creature drink and eat whatever was placed before it. Sometimes it left, having filled itself up, or stayed for a day or two if poorly, being cared for before being sent on its way. No pets were allowed in these dwellings other than a canary or linnet. Sometimes it died, was wrapped in newspaper and consigned to one of the dustbins in the yard that separated one row of Waterlow Buildings from another, Eveline intoning a childish and tearful prayer over its tin grave.