A Woman's Place (7 page)

This Saturday afternoon saw a larger than usual group attending at George Street, all talking about the preparations for the Tuesday evening pageant.

Eveline had difficulty finding any vacant pegs for her coat in the cloakroom with so many hanging there. She kept her hat on as quite a few did, more for convenience with all that removing and reinserting of hatpins, large brims with their wealth of trimming knocking together as ladies gossiped.

There were two men present too. They stood out like sore thumbs amid the squash of females. The middle-aged one did appear interested, unlike the second, a much younger man looking utterly bored. Eveline recognised him instantly as the young man she’d seen at that first meeting. She saw too that the young woman he’d been with then was with him again.

It was silly, the dismay that went through her on seeing the woman – no doubt a steady lady friend, who had probably dragged him along with her judging by his reluctant expression. But even seeing him here, from then on Eveline found herself unable to concentrate on anything else.

‘Are you all right?’ Connie asked as she came to sit beside her.

She forced a smile. ‘I’m fine,’ she said a little too exuberantly, then sobered. ‘You see that young man in the corner talking to that woman?’ She waited for Connie to follow her discreetly directed gaze. ‘He’s the one who kept staring at me at the Ambrose Hall meeting.’

Connie was looking a little bemused and she realised that she hadn’t so far mentioned him to her. She now needed to play it down. ‘I expect he was probably looking at someone else but I wonder what he’s doing here?’

‘I suppose the same as we all are,’ Connie said without too much interest. ‘There are plenty of men sympathetic to our cause, thank the Lord.’

The lady chairman, Mrs Edith Duffield, was commanding attention from the small dais, her voice raised above the general chatter.

‘Thank you! Thank you, everyone!’

Hush descended. The ladies standing about talking hurried to their own seats. The young man leaned back in his. The woman with him was sitting much too close to him and again Eveline experienced that deep sense of dejection.

‘It is so very pleasing,’ Mrs Duffield was saying, ‘to see so many of you here. But of course it was expected, being such an important week in our calendar. I refer to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance holding its Quinquennial Congress in London and in the very same week the Pageant of Women’s Trades and Professions. Let me tell you a little about that.’

She gazed around at fifty or more pairs of attentive eyes, their owners having squashed into a room designed to hold hardly more than forty, and it included a table for committee officers and speaker.

‘There will be a good thousand of us from ninety different occupations gathered under the trees in Eaton Square. The procession as you know will be lit by lanterns as we move off down Sloane Street skirting Hyde Park and terminating at the Albert Hall. It will be a sight to behold.’

‘We will make such a show,’ cried one member, totally carried away. ‘We’ll be a blaze of light with torches and lanterns and emblems, an endless column of light,’ to which everyone agreed with enthusiasm.

The talk turned to the procession itself, Eveline finally dragging her gaze away from the back of her quarry’s head as their chair lady continued.

‘The procession is to proceed in five separate blocks, according to trade and profession. Each block will have a number. Block One will be for farmers, market gardeners and all others in that field. It will also include housewives, housekeepers, and trades such as sweet and jam makers, cigar and cigarette makers, and so on. I have lists of every trade here so that those of you who do plan to join us can come and take one to find out where you will be.’

‘I expect I’ll be in Block Four,’ Eveline said to Connie as they went up for their list. ‘I am more or less an office worker.’

It was a good one to be in, among the secretaries, shorthand typists, indexers and printers, also including writers and journalists, actresses and singers and musicians. She, a mere calculating machine operator, felt quite elevated to be among such distinguished people.

‘I’m not sure where I shall be,’ Connie said somewhat glumly. ‘I don’t have a trade and I don’t work. I feel a little left out. I shan’t be wanted.’

Eveline looked at her in surprised sympathy. Only a few weeks ago it had been she who’d felt like that, a stranger glad to be taken under someone’s wing, that someone being Connie, for which she had felt eternally grateful. Now here was Connie admitting to feeling left out.

‘Of course you’ll be wanted. There must be something you do. Maybe you help with some charity work or other?’

Connie shook her head. ‘My mother does. She has lots of charities.’

‘Couldn’t you choose one of them and say you do those things too?’

Again Connie shook her head. ‘I don’t think this includes charity work.’

‘Well, what do you do for a pastime?’ Eveline urged helpfully.

Connie pursed her lips. ‘I like to paint. I paint landscapes and …’

‘Well there you are then!’ Eveline felt suddenly in control. ‘You could be in Block Two with the painters and sculptors and fashion designers and all those sort.’

Block Two would also have house decorators, florists, dressmakers, milliners, pottery painters, especially when Connie divulged that she had also turned her hand at a little pottery at a class she went to.

‘There you are then,’ Eveline said again. ‘The other two blocks don’t concern us – industrial workers and the nursing professions. I’d like to have an emblem of some sort like what’s been described but not the secretary bird they suggested because I’m not really a secretary. I suppose I could draw a calculator machine but I’m not very good at drawing.’

‘I’ll design one for you,’ Connie said, suddenly full of enthusiasm. ‘I could paint a tape of calculations in red coming out of it. I’ll make something for myself too – an artist’s pallet and brush.’

As the meeting began to break up with everyone chattering at once, Eveline regarded her with envy. ‘I wish I was as clever as you,’ she said as they moved over to the refreshment table with the rest for more tea and cake to send them on their way. ‘And I wish I had your freedom too.’

‘Freedom!’ The word burst from Connie’s lips. ‘If only you knew. What freedom I have is won at high cost.’

In short bursts she related the way she had defied her father over the man he had set his mind on her marrying.

‘Why should I marry someone I don’t really love, just to please him?’ she went on vehemently. ‘Simon and I got on to a certain extent but he was too much like my father, too full of his own importance for me to want to settle down as his wife.’

Words tumbled out, how she had spoken her mind before both sets of parents, Simon shocked, stunned rather than devastated, everyone shocked; the week of remonstration that followed. Connie lifted her chin defiantly.

‘I’ve rather burned my bridges in that direction. It’s only a matter of time before I burn a few more by telling my father that I’m a suffragette. He utterly disagrees with women having independence. I’m sure it stems from a fear of us becoming too independent, able to do without them, especially men such as he of high standing. He’s a doctor, you know. But I don’t care if he does throw me out of the house; I am determined nothing is going to stop me continuing to be a suffragette.’

Eveline felt of the same mind but in a different way. Her father might not go picking a husband for her but he’d air his opinions all right regarding what he called them shrieking suffragettes. Finding his daughter was one of them would really make him see red but though she couldn’t imagine him throwing her out, how could he stop her? Lock her in her room for ever?

She grinned at the notion but seconds later she was distracted by the sight of the young man she’d been eyeing throughout the meeting sauntering towards them at the refreshment table. In a sudden surge of anticipation she turned in his direction. Not looking at what she was doing, her sleeve caught the slice of Madeira cake on her plate, sweeping it off.

‘Oh!’

She tried to catch it as it fell but succeeded only in giving it a whack so that it landed in several pieces at the young man’s feet. Flustered and embarrassed, she made an ungainly lunge in her tight skirt to retrieve it, her elbow catching the plate she’d been holding. It landed on top of the already broken cake, splattering it even more. All eyes turned towards the disruption.

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry!’ she gasped in dismay.

She was vaguely aware of a reassuring hand on her arm, the slim fingers gently curling around it.

‘Allow me,’ he said in a low, easy tone. Before she could stop him he had bent and gathered up both plate and lumps of cake, depositing them in the hands of the lady dispensing teas who had hurried around the table to see what she could do.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I seemed to have been a little clumsy.’

The older woman simpered before the fine blue eyes. ‘Not at all, dear man. Accidents happen.’

‘Thank you,’ he said in the same low tone and turned back to Eveline, she by now blushing furiously. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she managed. She was aware of Connie looking on. ‘I’m fine, thank you. But it was my fault. You shouldn’t have taken the blame.’

‘It shouldn’t matter,’ he said. ‘It’s over now.’ He was regarding her closely. ‘I’m sure we’ve met somewhere.’

‘Ambrose Hall, a few weeks ago,’ Eveline blurted without thinking. It was too late to retract. She saw Connie regarding her with some amusement. ‘A few weeks ago,’ she repeated lamely. ‘We didn’t speak, though.’

‘I remember,’ he returned. ‘I was sitting a little way behind you.’

He didn’t need to say more. She was painfully aware from the look in his eyes that he recollected their glances meeting, and her turning a second time to look at him. The memory brought up her colour quite violently. What must he be thinking of her?

‘I’m glad I’ve met you again,’ he was saying. ‘As there’s no one here I can ask to introduce us, I will introduce myself if you have no objection.’

She gave a small shake of her head, still aware of Connie looking on, less amused now so she thought. Was she seeing her as an outrageous flirt?

‘My name’s Laurence Jones-Fairbrook, Larry,’ he ended lightly.

‘I’m Eveline Fenton,’ she said in a small voice. Then, unable to help herself, she burst out, ‘Is that young lady you’re with your fiancée?’

The question instantly struck her as utterly rude, but he laughed, half turning to where his companion sat talking to another woman. ‘My cousin,’ he said lightly. ‘She’s a bit of a suffragette and when in town likes to pop in here, but insists I chaperone her, though why, I don’t know. She’s a capable enough person. Still, only right I oblige.’

Connie had put her cup of tea back on the table. She laid a discreet hand on Eveline’s arm. ‘I have to be off. I shall leave you two together. I’ll see you on Tuesday evening at the pageant?’

Eveline’s gaze was trained on Laurence’s handsome, narrow face as if held there by a magnetic force, relief and delight all but overwhelming her. ‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured absently, aware that she was alone with this man, alone in the crowd of departing attendees.

‘You’ll be at the pageant?’ he asked quietly. As she nodded he said, ‘Then I shall make certain to be there too. My cousin will have gone home, but I shall look out for you, if I may. If you don’t mind?’

She shook her head. ‘Not at all.’

‘Very well,’ he said.

Going home a little while later, her heart pounding with excitement, she could hardly believe what had happened, that he was actually unattached, had spoken to her, had even spoken of seeing her again if only at the pageant.

‘And what’re you looking so ’appy about?’ Mum asked the moment Eveline showed her face that evening.

She couldn’t help smirking. Happy? She was ecstatic but had hoped it wouldn’t show. Even a dismissive shrug couldn’t conceal her feelings.

‘Yer look like yer’ve lost a penny and found a pound.’ Mum loved changing idioms around to suit the occasion.

‘I’ve had a nice afternoon, that’s all,’ she muttered as offhandedly as she could but knowing full well that wouldn’t fool her mother for a minute, ever in hope of her finding a suitable young man.

‘Meet someone nice, did yer?’

‘Where’s Dad?’ Eveline evaded, hanging her coat on the peg behind the living-room door to be followed by her wide-brimmed hat. She would see if she could buy a new, more fashionable hat ready for the Tuesday pageant – dig into her modest savings for it.

‘Still downstairs,’ came the reply. ‘Where else on Saturday evening? Yer sister’s giving, ’im an ’and down there while I do the dinner.’ Mum was regarding her keenly. ‘So who is it then what’s made yer face all glowing?’

Eveline dropped on to one of the upright chairs in the family living-cum-dining room.

There were only two armchairs, one for Mum and one for Dad, and woe betide anyone who used them without permission. No room for a sofa what with the dining table large enough for a dozen people, the chest of drawers and the bed in one corner partially shielded from sight by the Chinese screen that had belonged to Gran, all taking up so much space. It was left for everyone else to use the six hard chairs and two stools, often drawn up to the table not only for meals but when the family was indulging in their various hobbies of an evening, elbows supported on its surface on which after every meal was done Mum would spread her maroon chenille table-cover.

Mum came to stand over her. She’d grown plumper with the years but at forty-one she was still as solid as she had ever been – a worker, helping her husband in his shop and doing her own chores, disdaining paid help though most in her position would at least have had someone to do the general housework. She did however relent about the laundry, sending it out to a woman who lived not far off, on the other side of the arches.

Mum would inspect every article that came back, her brown eyes in her rounded face sharply critical while she remarked without fail, ‘I could of done this better meself,’ but she never did nor changed her washerwoman.