A Woman's Place (5 page)

Whether Verity, having left her school for young ladies at Christmas, resented what little mail she did have being read out, she never let on, but Connie resented it deeply as an intrusion into her privacy. At nineteen, almost twenty, a woman now, why should she be subjected to such a demeaning practice? Little wonder she’d secretly become a suffragette. Her parents were a leftover from Victorian times; their ideas hadn’t moved on, they remained as old-fashioned as their home, stuffy and overstuffed. Things had changed. It was 1909, when old customs and old values were fast receding, except of course in this house.

Now she must concoct yet another fib, one spawning another. ‘As Bentick crossed the hall with the post I saw a letter for me, so I took it.’

Her mother’s expression changed to one of shock. ‘How could you be so underhanded, Constance? Your father receives all the day’s post.’

‘Oh, Mummy!’ Connie made for the sofa before the drawing-room’s marble fireplace with its blazing fire. ‘I didn’t see it as any of his business. One would think I was having a clandestine meeting with a strange man.’

‘I should hope not when you and Simon are practically engaged.’

‘Simon and I are not yet engaged, practically or otherwise!’

Her mother turned away in exasperation to finger the leathery leaves of the large aspidistra in its blue pot on the window table before the drawn curtains; the ornate gas lamps had already been lit with evening closing in.

Connie couldn’t resist a brief, self-satisfied smile. ‘At any rate I feel I’m not ready for marriage yet.’

Her mother turned abruptly. ‘Your father would be aggrieved to hear that. He has high hopes for you and Simon, who will himself one day be an eminent surgeon. You could do no better than marriage to Simon.’

‘I’m still not ready and Father cannot honestly expect me do what I’m not ready to do.’

‘
What
can I not expect you to do, my dear?’ came a deep voice and both turned to see the tall, spare, bearded figure of Willoughby Mortimer Mornington framed in the doorway.

Connie stemmed the sudden anxiety that sprang up inside her. ‘I was saying I can’t be pressed to marry until I feel certain of what I am doing.’

She heard her mother give a little gasp. There was a long pause in which both women watched his slow approach. Connie stood up, holding herself very upright, almost as tall as he, in contrast to her mother, small and thin and uncertain of herself.

They watched as he crossed the room to the domed clock on the mantelshelf over the fireplace, reached into his fob pocket for his gold hunter to check the time against it and opened the glass front to move the clock’s minute hand forward a fraction, returning the watch to his fob pocket. The heavy, gold Albert, looped across his dark waistcoat, glinted in the gaslight as he turned back to the two women.

‘No one is pressing you to do anything, Constance,’ he said slowly. ‘But it must be said, you are of an age to begin thinking of marriage. You and Simon have known each other for almost a year and have become good friends and that friendship has lately grown far deeper?’

Connie took in a deep breath, her lips compressed. ‘I don’t know how he feels about me, Father, but my feelings for him remain cool.’

Within the well-trimmed, distinguished beard his lips quirked into a faint smile. ‘Which is as it should be, my dear. A young lady should not reveal too great a response in that direction before marriage. It is for her fiancé to be understanding and to gently warm her heart to him.’

Perhaps that was what was wrong. If he were a little more passionate she might feel differently about him, but he was stuffy, correct to a fault. Maybe it was their schooling; hers had taken place at a school for young ladies, his at a public school for boys then an all-male university. Even now, at twenty-four, still engaged in medical training, he’d had scant dealings with women until they’d met. As for herself, she had no knowledge of what went on between man and woman. Little use asking Mother or even friends, they as innocent as she; it wasn’t a thing to discuss in polite society.

She felt nothing when Simon kissed her, few as his kisses were. He, no doubt, took her reluctance to be a woman’s natural fear of the unknown and perfectly normal. It was obvious from what he would say when she drew back.

‘I understand, darling, not until we are married,’ almost an exact echo of her father’s words now.

But she didn’t want to marry him. There had to be something more, something her senses told her had to happen when kissed by a man, a man she truly loved.

‘I think very soon,’ her father was saying, ‘Simon will be requesting your hand in marriage, Constance, within the next week or so for sure. And I am sure your response will be a positive one, my dear.’

Connie returned his gaze silently, but her heart was saying that it would indeed be positive. It would be her last chance to make a stand. How could she marry a man who showed every prospect of becoming so like her father as the years went on, likeable though he was now? If Simon came pressing his suit, her answer had to be an emphatic no. In a way she felt sorry for him. It would be as traumatic for him as for her, and she couldn’t help a shudder at the repercussions she knew her answer would bring. It was a big step she was taking.

She’d half expected him to broach the subject that very evening and was somewhat relieved when all he said as they returned home from a social evening with friends was that he loved her very dearly and eagerly looked forward to the time when he could prove it, tantamount to yet another hint at marriage. Except that as he kissed her on parting company he murmured that he might very well be having a word with her father in the near future, with her consent of course, to which she said nothing, not wishing to commit herself either way at that moment.

This Saturday she forgot all about him as her George Street meeting revolved excitedly around the earlier protest outside Number Ten Downing Street, the scuffles, the brave women who’d chained themselves to the railings outside and had had to be cut free with heavy wire cutters by the police.

Listening, Connie envied them their courage but was glad she hadn’t been among them, though she should have been. She had courage enough to face arrest and she’d be in good company. But it would have meant her father finding out about her and that must not happen. The longer this was kept secret, the better.

‘Were you there?’ Eveline asked as they listened to the woman who gave a little speech about how she had been carried away off her feet by the police, the indignity of it, her arms pinioned to her sides as if she were a rag doll. But she hadn’t fought them or cried out, allowing herself to be borne off. She had spent two days in police cells with the minimum of comforts and was sent back for another two days for refusing to pay the fine they imposed. She was, in fact, incensed that her brother had paid it for her, and was still angry.

Connie shook her head to Eveline’s question, aware of her scrutiny. ‘I would have been there but I was obliged to stay at home,’ she said, acutely conscious of the flimsiness of the excuse.

Eveline fell silent as the speaker continued talking, but as they left she brought up the subject again. ‘I wish I’d been there. I had to work. I’d have got the sack for skipping off. Bad enough being off when you’re ill, they question you as if you’re a criminal. I kept thinking of you being there.’

‘I wish I had been but it wasn’t possible.’ She spoke with a bitter ring to her tone as they stood outside the building before parting company.

Why did this girl persist in seeing her as being free because she didn’t work? Her life had its prison bars too. If this girl could see how a dictatorial father could rule someone’s life every bit as much as did her working day, watching and questioning, mapping her life out for her, she’d think differently.

‘I’d like to join in with everything,’ Eveline was saying. ‘Even if you didn’t go on the Downing Street protest, you’re an old hand. I’m still new.’

Connie couldn’t help herself. ‘I want you to understand, Eveline, it’s my father; he has no idea about all this. If he had he would take steps to see I never attend another meeting.’

Eveline regarded her with incredulity. ‘What could he do?’

‘What would your father do if he wanted to prevent you?’ She waited, but Eveline had grown silent. ‘As to my being an old hand, as you put it,’ she went on, ‘I joined the suffragette movement just after Christmas so I’m almost as new as you are. Too early for me to be of any great use to the sort of women who are ready to lay their heads on the block for their cause.’

Eveline did not speak for a while. Then she placed a hand on Connie’s arm. ‘I didn’t realise. It looks like we’re both in the same boat. I dread to think what my father would say if he found out.’

She gave a little giggle. ‘Looks like we’ll be holding each other up from now on.’ And as Connie livened up she asked with a hopeful expression, ‘But you will be at the Eaton Square rally, won’t you? Because I don’t want to be there on my own.’

‘I shall be there,’ Connie said with conviction. ‘Come what may.’ But for some reason the words brought Simon to mind and turned her thoughts to this evening.

He’d finally decided. He’d told her in the week that this Saturday evening he intended to call on her father to formally ask for her hand in marriage. She’d felt herself go cold but hadn’t had the courage to express how she felt on the matter. A pity she hadn’t done so, for now she had it all to do and at a most critical time too, there in front of her parents; for the life of her she could hardly imagine how she was going to face it.

On the train home it was all she could think of. With her face buried in a pamphlet she’d picked up at the meeting, she kept reading the same words over and over, hardly noticing the passing panorama or the other passengers in this crowded carriage, her view of the opposite seats blocked by people having to stand. She only looked up as Perivale crept into view, the train puffing and jerking to a stop amid a billowing of smelly coal smoke.

As she patiently waited for her turn to alight from the compartment, someone immediately behind her said quietly, ‘Hello, there.’

She turned abruptly and found herself looking into the clean-shaven face of the tall young man who’d touched his bowler hat to her last Saturday and whom she suddenly recalled with a pinking of her cheeks had been exceptionally good-looking. She felt her breath catch in her throat and a sudden racing of the heart as she became aware of a faint wafting of soap.

‘Hello,’ she returned, strangely shy. She was not by nature shy and this new feeling rather startled her. He had a most gorgeous smile and that too made her feel quite foolishly overwhelmed.

‘I remember you getting off this same train last Saturday,’ he was saying as they alighted on to the platform. ‘You were rudely jostled and when I practically committed the same offence, I felt I needed to apologise.’

‘You didn’t jostle me,’ she said somewhat stupidly. ‘All you did was brush my arm. And you did tip your hat.’

‘You remember!’ His tone had a lightness to it that betrayed a natural sense of humour. ‘So now I’m taking the opportunity to apologise in person.’

Connie smiled, keeping her gaze on the platform a little way ahead. ‘There is no need, but it’s very nice of you.’

They walked together to the exit, handing their tickets to the ticket collector, and came out of the station on to the street.

‘I go this way,’ he said. ‘Just a short walk to where I live.’

‘And I go this way.’

She was aware of a disappointed ring to her tone, but saw him brighten instantly. ‘I could escort you to your home.’

‘No.’ She couldn’t have that, not with this evening’s ordeal looming. ‘No, thank you. It’s not far.’

‘Then maybe I’ll see you again?’ His downcast expression made her smile up at him and he brightened again. ‘I work in a City bank. After we close on Saturdays I usually have a bite to eat before catching this train home, so it could be I might bump into you again next week?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, a little too quickly for her liking.

He was grinning but with pleasure, not ridicule. ‘I’ll look forward to that.’

She didn’t dare say that she too would look forward to it. Even a nod might have indicated the same thing. So she just said, ‘Goodbye then,’ coming away strangely light of heart. Yes, she’d definitely be able to face the boring Simon and quite cheerfully say no to him.

She heard the jangle of the front doorbell, heard Bentick go to the door, his rather hollow voice saying, ‘Good evening, Mr Whitemore,’ Simon asking after her as he entered, Bentick replying, ‘Miss Constance is in the drawing room, sir.’

Moments later he was being shown into the room, Connie looking up from the book she’d been affecting to read while her mother had fussed and fidgeted with ill-concealed excitement at the coming proposal.

The instant he appeared her mother all but leapt up from her chair and hurried over to him. ‘She has been waiting for you, my dear Simon, so I will leave you both alone.’ With that she was out of the door and gone.

Connie watched his confident approach, making room on the sofa for him to sit, but kept a tight hold on her book as if it might form a barrier to what he was about to say. Undaunted, he laid a cautious hand on the one that was free, taking time to ask if she was well, what had she been doing all day and confiding that he’d been as nervous as a kitten turned out of doors, waiting for this evening to arrive, finally and with some effort coming to the point.

‘Constance, my darling,’ he began hesitantly. ‘You know, of course, why I have asked to see your father this evening?’ She nodded, refusing to relinquish her grip on her book.

‘I’ve looked forward to this for so long,’ he went on. ‘I think I’ve been almost fearful of it, but as you offered no objection last week when I said I intended to ask your father for your hand, the time seemed so right.’

She’d offered no objection? She had said nothing one way or the other and he’d automatically taken her silence as consent. What a fool not to have revealed her feelings to him there and then.