A Woman's Place (24 page)

To Eveline’s mind Gran was by far the sprightliest person for her age she had ever seen. In deep gratitude, Connie wanted to name the baby Victoria Rebecca. Gran was flattered.

‘But no Victorias. Named after the queen, I was. Never did like the name.’ So it became Rebecca Isabel for Connie’s own mother despite all.

Three weeks and Connie still remained lethargic, Eveline wondered if she would ever be strong again. Connie wondered too.

‘To think,’ she sighed, propped up by pillows while Eveline cuddled little Rebecca, her own four-month-old baby gurgling at the foot of the bed. ‘You’d not long had Helena before you were in that July demonstration on the twenty-third. I couldn’t see myself ever having that kind of stamina.’

‘Of course you will,’ Eveline tried to cheer her, but Connie’s earlier upbringing had been so different from hers.

Where hers were the sort of people who had to pull themselves together and get on with the job, even after childbearing, Connie had been used to things being done for her, staff to wait on her, a family doctor more like a friend and not someone who didn’t know her from Adam, tending any who could scrape together the shilling he charged. Connie’s father could employ proper nursing care rather than a local midwife. At home Connie would have been waited on hand and foot. She’d chosen a life where she must do her own housework and put up with the lack of help, yet her genteel upbringing still had its effect on her.

She had written to tell her parents of her pregnancy and had received no reply She had written again to them telling them of the birth and still there had been no response. Eveline felt it was this more than the traumatic birth itself that was causing Connie to feel dispirited and weak but said nothing. Connie hadn’t spoken of it, which wasn’t good for her, and Eveline felt it best not to mention it.

‘I don’t think I shall be doing suffragette work for a long, long time,’ Connie sighed, regarding Eveline with envy and pride. ‘I really don’t know how you did that July demonstration after having Helena.’

Eveline too wondered, though she didn’t make any comment. Her Mum had frowned on it. ‘It’s ’er lookout if she makes ’erself ill,’ was all she said and had looked at Albert as if he wasn’t man enough to stop his wife.

In fact Albert, bless him, had understood how she’d felt and had gone along to support her, leaving Gran in charge of Helena.

‘I’m not having you brought ’ome in a state of collapse, and me not there,’ he’d said, still battling to speak better, but still often failing. ‘The second you look like you’ve had enough, I’m taking you ’ome, and that’s that, whether you like it or not.’

He was working hard studying for his hoped-for surveyor’s career though it seemed an uphill task for someone with little education.

Going along that day, amazed at the spectacle that met his eyes, he was surprised to see men in the procession. ‘Don’t make me feel so much of a fish out of water,’ he’d said.

Ironically the procession was held on the very day Asquith announced the temporary burial of the Conciliation Bill, though they hadn’t read about it until the following day, the parade itself being confidently held to help urge it forward. Despite the later general disillusionment, for her it had been a wonderful day, she and Albert, Connie and George, together, and it didn’t matter that she had felt all in by the end of it.

The demonstration had been well publicised with handbills, circulars, endless meetings, groups out every day chalking the event on every London wall they could find. There’d been twenty thousand women, in two separate processions so as not to block the traffic. Again there’d been forty bands, as well as the WSPU drum-and-fife band, and in Hyde Park forty platforms had been set up. Marchers were asked not to wear large hats and trailing gowns to appear more like soldiers in the ranks, not to break step or wave handkerchiefs. One procession began at Holland Park, along Bayswater Road, entering Hyde Park at Marble Arch. The other, which she and Connie had been in, their husbands walking alongside at a respectable distance, had begun at the Embankment, then continued along Northumberland Avenue, Pall Mall and Piccadilly, to enter at Hyde Park Corner.

Although a huge amount of preparation had gone on, Albert had strongly advised her to miss her George Street meetings where, like everywhere else, volunteers were busy with scissors and sewing machines, paint and paste brushes, hammer and nails, making banners and posters.

‘You ain’t strong enough yet,’ he had said. She hadn’t argued. He’d at least agreed on her going on that most important July demonstration later.

Hyde Park had been like August Bank Holiday, a hundred speakers or more, brilliant sunshine, both processions merging around half past five, the bands playing the ‘Marseillaise’, flags and pennants flying and thousands of onlookers milling about.

Eveline knew she’d never forget that day in July, having put aside her earlier disappointment at missing the June procession. But she’d had to come away early, fatigue and a need to get back to Helena overcoming her.

Connie had looked all in as well. Despite the smallness of her bump, with only three months to go, pregnancy had begun to tell on her by then. They had both returned home, sad to have left so early, but triumphant, the presence of their men beside them an even greater triumph.

Since the virtual burial of the Conciliation Bill – other government business took precedence until the summer recess and no mention of it occurred when government returned, for it was clearly shelved – large demonstrations had grown somewhat stale in the eyes of the public.

With Christmas only three weeks away, shopping was more on people’s minds. Cold weather didn’t lend itself to flamboyant demonstrations and pretty dresses, more to coats, scarves and fur collars. Persistent December winds made banners difficult to keep rigid and flags tended to be ripped loose from their poles; things could turn into a fiasco, not the sort of picture women’s suffrage campaigners wanted to paint.

Eveline and Connie had grown closer since the birth of their daughters and with Connie taking ages to recover during November, they had lost some of the impetus for suffragette work. And just as well. Some five hundred women who’d rushed the police outside the House of Commons had been treated exceptionally brutally. A hundred and fifteen women and four men were arrested, though on the following day charges against nearly all of them were withdrawn. So many had suffered injury, even sexual humiliation such as one unscrupulous policeman grabbing hold of a woman’s breast in full view of the public, that suffragettes were calling that day Black Friday.

‘You could easily have been there,’ Connie said to Eveline who’d popped in to see her. ‘You’ve always enjoyed being in the thick of things.’

‘I don’t know about enjoy,’ Eveline said. She was holding Connie’s baby, her own seven-month-old rolling happily on the bed in which Connie languished. ‘I’ve never shirked my duties, but—’

Hastily she broke off, realising it must sound as though she was referring to the time Connie’s father had paid her fine, saving her from imprisonment. It was still a touchy subject with Connie, one it was best to keep well away from. The last thing she wanted was to hurt her friend’s feelings.

‘But I do think it was a dreadful business,’ she hurried on, annoyed with herself. ‘Women manhandled by the police like that, and bad language used as well. I was told of one policeman who actually grabbed a rather elderly woman’s breast and said she’d been wanting someone to do that to her for a long time. When she protested, he said he could grip her wherever he liked.’

She began rocking Connie’s baby, who had started to whimper. ‘Some women complained of having had their clothes and even underwear torn, and some of being picked up bodily and thrown into the crowd. It’s said the police had specific orders to manhandle them.’

‘I can’t believe that’s entirely true,’ Connie broke in gently. ‘Probably a misunderstanding of some sort.’

‘A misunderstanding?’

‘I’m sure it was. They had drafted police from the East End, men more accustomed to dealing with all sorts of riff-raff, rough gangs and drunks.’

She spoke quite innocently, gazing at Rebecca who was growing more fractious.

‘They were probably unaccustomed to dealing with militants from better areas, no doubt saw them as the kind of women who expect to be rough handled. I’m sure police from West London divisions would never have treated women in that way.’

It was Eveline’s turn to feel hurt; Connie’s words sounded like a slur on an area in which she had been brought up. Of course it had its share of villains, gang fights and regular rough-ups, but the same could be said of anywhere, even the back streets of West London. It seemed the East was always being named and blamed.

‘Here, you nurse her for a while,’ she said sharply, handing Connie back her baby and, reaching across the bed, picked up her own child. Rebecca fell quiet immediately as Connie took her to begin making little clucking noises at her.

‘Some are against militants going off at a tangent,’ she said without looking up. ‘Some think that any sort of militancy just now could jeopardise any survival of the Conciliation Bill, especially with another general election next week. The next government could be more in sympathy with us. And it does no good having suffragettes shown harassing members of parliament on their way to the House.’

There had been pictures in the newspapers of women walking beside MPs, accosting them, almost blocking their path, and Eveline had to admit that it wasn’t the way to get parliamentary sympathy.

Even so, still burning from the apparent aspersion cast on her East End, she said huffily, ‘I wouldn’t know. I’d best be off. I’ve got to make a start on Albert’s tea.’

But as Connie nodded, though confused and downhearted, she mellowed. ‘I’ll pop in tomorrow, all right? And you ought to start getting up, moving around a bit more. See you tomorrow.’

To help her better temper along, she leaned over and dropped a kiss on Connie’s forehead.

Connie brightened instantly. ‘I have been getting up. It’s just that I still feel I need my afternoon rest.’

‘Of course.’ Eveline relented. Connie would never have the resilience of women brought up in the East End.

Still hoping, Connie sent a Christmas card to her family, hardly expecting to receive one back. But to her surprise her sister Verity replied with a brief letter wishing her a good Christmas and hoping she was well. She did not mention George at all but hoped Connie’s new baby was doing well, Connie having written about the birth but with no response from her parents.

Verity added that she was getting married in the June to the son of a wealthy businessman to whom she’d been introduced and that both families were pleased. Connie could well imagine Verity bowing to her father’s wishes even if she hadn’t particularly fancied the young man. Not so her, and look at the pain it had caused her.

The lack of response from her parents was needling her more than she cared to admit and in that frame of mind she decided to visit or, more correctly, confront them as soon as Christmas had passed. It preyed on her mind right through Christmas despite enjoying the day she and George shared together; it made her feel the loss of her own people all the more acutely.

Still seething she chose the Tuesday following New Year, trying to ignore the drizzle that might have dampened a less determined spirit. It was time to have it out with them once and for all. Waiting for a better day would have had her letting it go altogether. Leaving George a note which explained where she was going, that she might be late back home, and that he could easily warm up his dinner of stew himself, she wrapped Rebecca up snugly and set off.

Her determination was still so intense when she reached Perivale that the ten-minute walk from the station to her parents’ home seemed to fly by; Rebecca felt light in her arms, her umbrella gave no hindrance, only the wet hem of her skirt flicking up mud from the pavement noticeable as she went. But by the time she reached her parents’ door she was hot and breathless.

In the shelter of the extensive porch she closed the umbrella and lifted a hand to give the bell pull a tentative jerk, suddenly uncertain. What had she been thinking of, coming here? What did she expect?

Not their butler Bentick but a maid, not Agnes but a strapping, plain-faced girl with mousy hair pulled back from her forehead, opened the door and asked who she was and on being told, appeared bewildered and a little suspicious, obviously unaware that this family had another daughter. Connie felt a wave of resentment pass through her as though her very name had been erased from the face of the earth.

‘Tell them I’m here on a visit,’ she snapped, and before the confused girl could bid her wait and close the door on her, reached out and with the end of the umbrella gave the door such a push that it was thrust open before the girl could catch it. Next second she was in the hall, the familiar hall that had not changed at all since she’d left.

‘Tell Mrs Mornington that her daughter Constance is here,’ she demanded and the girl scuttled off up the stairs to her mother’s bedroom where although it was nearly eleven she was probably taking her time rising. With little else to do, her mother had no doubt breakfasted in bed.

Hoisting Rebecca further up into her arms, she let the umbrella drip on to the dark-tiled hall floor and waited, ignoring the small puddle it began to form. The well-built maid could wipe it up later.

Her mother appeared at the head of the stairs, hesitated, then as if gathering courage began slowly to descend, her eyes not leaving Connie.

She seemed to gather dignity about her like a cloak as she reached the hall and walked with measured steps towards her visitor. Her cream silk wrap and the paleness of her small face and her rapidly greying fair hair made her look as wispy as a ghost. Connie did not speak or move forwards, compelling her mother to come the whole length of the hall before stopping three feet away from her. Only then did Connie say anything.

‘Hello, Mother.’

Her voice seemed to take the woman by surprise. She even almost shrank back, her mouth half opening to speak then closing as she looked towards the hovering housemaid, finally saying, ‘Milly, Mr Mornington is in his surgery. Ask him to spare a moment of his time. Tell him his daughter Constance is here. It should not take him from his work for too long.’