Crooked Pieces (13 page)

I cried mightily when I heard it, but Miss Sylvia and Mrs Pethick Lawrence said I must not fret for they had done it for the Cause and it was a mighty blow for freedom. I cannot think how being shut up in a cell can make for freedom, but they seem to think it is so. I wonder if they have ever seen the inside of a prison. I did once, when my nan was there for selling flour mixed with chalk, only to make it stretch and so to sell more bags. Prison is a wicked place, full of coldness and holiness, which I think lie side by side together.

Miss Kerr visited them. She told us they were well and bearing up and the old lady was even enjoying it, for it was years since she had had a decent rest and a room to herself, with enough to eat and not much to do but knit socks for the other prisoners. I thought of Ma and wondered how she might like it.

I will go home soon. I know it is wicked, but I like my life so much now, with my fighting and typewriting and clean smart clothes, I hold back, for it always brings me down to see how rotten is their life, even with what Frank and I can send.

It is near eighteen months since I saw Frank. I wonder if he would recognise me now, for I am so tall and every way different. Or am I? To look at, yes truly, but in my heart? In my head? In my resolve? Here I am safe, but I cannot run
away forever for if I do… I know I must speak to him, tell him…beg him… Not Lucy. It is different for me. God’s punishment. I will not think about it any more. My eyes are closed.

Since Miss Annie has been in prison I have given much thought to all I have learnt about the Cause. I own at first I cared for nothing but my wages and fine new clothes. I believed myself near enough to heaven just to be paid to write letters and then take them to the post office. Perhaps if I had not read the leaflets, not seen my friends arrested, I would have stayed of that opinion. Happy and stupid. Sometimes I wish I had.

All the time my mind is churning – Why? Why? Why? Why is a man paid more than a woman for the same labour? Why can a woman not decide for herself who should rule over her? Why, when work is scarce must a woman be the first to lose her post? I have read how some are forced on to the streets, merely to feed their children. Others are humping sacks of coal – breaking their backs, for women were never made to carry such weights. What is it in us that lets us be so used? All this is whirling in my mind when I sit down at a meeting, and yet I say nothing, though sometimes I could scream with aggravation.

I do believe the ladies mean the very best, but how can they ever know what it is like to live in wretched damp lodgings, with a child coming every year and half of them dead before walking? They can easy talk about a vote for each woman in the land, but will that bring her food or coal for the fire? I know very little, but I do know those grey men care nothing
for the likes of us – man, woman or child – and if it is for them we must vote, so they can live in a palace and lean their elbows on a great marble mantel, while women like my ma stand in the rain and beg for a minute of their time, then where is the point in this struggle?

I asked Miss Sylvia if she truly believed their minds could be turned. She was quiet a long time. ‘I do, Maggie. In the end. If only because we have men like Keir Hardie to fight for us. Ten years ago he was fighting for his own right to have a voice in how he is governed. He has told me himself how many times he felt like giving up, slinking away, “burying himself”, he said, so that he need not face another day of battling against the arrogance and stupidity of those around him.’

‘So what made him keep at it?’

‘Belief. Pure and simple. If you truly believe in something then you must fight for it, whatever the cost.’

‘That’s easy said, miss.’

Miss Sylvia looked quite down. ‘I know what you think, Maggie. You think this is just a game for women who have nothing better to do with their time. Am I right?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know why the ladies do it, miss. I only know it is a world away from the likes of me. And that when you talk about “cost”, for them it is marching in the rain and having their hats knocked crooked. For my sort it is risking a beating, to lose our work, our homes… It is so…different. And for what?’

‘For justice. The right to decide how you will be governed and by whom.’

‘A prison is a prison, miss. No matter who guards the door.’

Last night, after my fighting lesson, I felt a low achy pain in my belly. I had had it before, on and off for a few days and thought perhaps the dinner fish was bad. This morning when I got up I found that I was bleeding down my legs. I washed as best I could but more kept coming from inside me so I knew I must have harmed myself most dreadfully. I durst not tell Mrs Garrud for she has been so kind to me and would be mortal worried if I said that I had damaged myself in the fighting.

I walked to Lincoln’s Inn, all the while fearing lest my innards should fall out on to the pavement, and when I got there was so pale and faint that Miss Kerr sat me straight down and would have called a doctor.

Mrs Pethick Lawrence ordered hot sweet tea to be brought to me and asked what signs I had of illness. I told her and her face hardly moved, but she patted my hand and said I must not worry and she would ask Miss Annie (who is back at last, praise the Lord) to come and talk to me.

Miss Annie took me aside to the store-room and gave word that we should not be disturbed, then she explained that my bleeding was a sign that I was fully grown up. I thought it strange that I should fall apart so soon, for I am not fifteen and healthy up till now. It seems that what I have is not a wound but occurs to all women and goes on forever, every month till they are old. I have seen Ma with blood down her but thought it was from arguing with Pa. Miss Annie said it came from not having a baby. ‘But if all women bleed, how can there be any babies?’ I asked.

She looked a bit confused. ‘When they have babies it stops. It starts again after. Every month. You will get used to it.’ I
said I did not want to, for surely there must be some cure? She smiled and said, none that she knew of, but it was not such a great thing and would be gone very soon, and fetched me two pieces of shortbread which she said was the best medicine she knew for it. She has given me cotton pads for my bloomers. What a business is growing up.

Word has come of a new order from Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Christabel. We are to have no more to do with the politicians unless they are on our side. Miss Sylvia was deeply upset by this for it seems they include Mr Hardie, since it is he and not his party that supports the Cause. She has resigned her post as Honourable Secretary. Also we are to move into offices downstairs as Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence are quite overrun with all the banners and bills and helpers and all.

There are meetings held two or three times a week now. To save money on printing I am sent out with chalk to scratch news of the time and place upon the walls and pavements. I was chosen, Miss Annie says, because I have the fastest legs for running away and can bend over without getting the backache (this, I think, is due to my fighting, for we start each class with stretching and truly I am getting very springy).

I have at last been to hear Miss Christabel and surely she is the bravest speaker in the world. It was a rough windy night and we were outside the fish market at Billingsgate. At first she made to stand on a chair but the men, fresh from work and smelling like manky herrings, brought out a great wooden chest that they said she might have for a platform. She thanked them and climbed up on it. She spoke of justice and fairness and our need to stand together, men and women, to
fight for what was right. ‘Shoulder to shoulder, like warriors of old, unflinching, unafraid, unstoppable…’ Just as she had the whole crowd eating from her hand there was a mighty thump and the lid of the chest started to heave beneath her feet.

Miss Christabel carried on, though I could see she was unsettled. ‘Men have kept from us many things. There is one particular thing that they have kept from us, and that has been the joy of battle. They tell us women cannot fight…’

The lid gave a mighty judder so that she must stand, legs spread like a common sailor’s, to keep her balance and hold it down. The men could scarce hold their laughter, slapping each other’s backs and braying like idiot donkeys. ‘See, she can raise the dead with the power of her tongue,’ one yelled, which started them all off again. She straightened up then turned to them, cool as a summer’s breeze. ‘It seems I can also walk on water,’ which brought forth such a cheer from the women about that the men looked fair ashamed, for they had stood her on a box of live eels, hoping to see her thrown into the crowd. She smiled and held out her hands to them. ‘And they say women cannot fight!’

All summer long we have been out and about. Often I am sent ahead to beg the landlord of a public house to lend us chairs or a table for the speaker to stand on. It is wondrous how a clean blouse and neat black skirt can make a man polite to you. I am always called ‘Miss’, and never have to carry the chairs myself, though I could, for my arms are stronger than a wrestler’s now, I’d venture.

Once, when a drunkard sought to wreck a meeting, I asked
Miss Sylvia if I should throw him to the ground, but she counselled against it in case it did not work. Probably she was right for I have only practised with a bolster up till now.

Not a day goes by without a fresh pile of letters asking to join. A man was hired to paint WSPU above the window of our office. I asked what it might mean, thinking perhaps it was typewriting. Miss Kerr said, no, it stood for the Women’s Social and Political Union. I said I thought we did not like politicians. She explained we did not, but politics and politicians were not the same thing. I did not understand at all, but Miss Kerr can be very dull sometimes when she gets to explaining things so I nodded and said, ‘Quite so,’ which Mr Pethick Lawrence often does when he is pressed for time.

The Parliament will open again on October 23
^rd
and we shall march.

Is it always to be so? We gather, full of hope, determination… We march. We wait. At length comes some stiff lackey to ask our business (stiff stupid lackey, if he cannot read a banner). Away he goes. Back he comes. ‘The Prime Minister regrets…’ Well, today he had cause to regret.

Once again it was decreed that only twenty should be admitted. The officials chose them – those with gloves and hat feathers, furs round their shoulders. In they go. Out they come. There is to be no law to give the vote to women.

What would they have us do? Creep quietly away? One lady immediately jumped up on a seat in the lobby and started to complain. Comes an inspector, very smartly, and though we tried to shield her, whips her away to be arrested. No sooner is she gone than Mrs Despard, no less, steps daintily up and
carries on. She, too, is taken off, and up pops another. Truly it was like a party game till the inspector (very red behind the ears and sweating like a nag) orders in a whole bundle of bobbies to clear us all outside.

There Miss Annie, seeing Mrs Pethick Lawrence being fairly minced by one of the constables, ran to her aid and was on the spot arrested. Mrs Pethick Lawrence shouted they should let her go, and was herself taken in hand. I could not see them treated so, for they and Miss Sylvia have been my kindest friends.

We had but lately learnt a move with Mrs Garrud and it seemed now would be an excellent time to test it. As the bobby turned away I hooked my foot around his ankle and pushed him hard in the back. This should have made him fall roughly to the ground but instead he turned round, very peevish, and said, ‘Don’t do that, miss, if you please.’ I knew not what to do next, so said as loud as I dared, ‘I will if I like,’ whereat he arrested me.

After it was done I was very frightened, for all save Miss Annie were ladies through and through, and it was a shock to sit with them at the police station, all in cold stone cells together.

Our names were taken and it was said we must go before the judge the following day. I swear I did not sleep that night for fear of what would happen, but though I was scared to my very toes and beyond, I also thought that I had not disgraced myself entirely.

As I could not sleep I got out of my bed and practised my move some more with the pillow, that next time I may get it right.

The court was very terrible.

We stood, squashed together in a tall wooden dock, no wider than a coffin and not one half so cosy. The judge was horrible – a face like a bad potato with grizzled ringlets down his back and eyes all popping like a Jack-in-the-box whenever one of the ladies tried to speak out for herself.

I think we were not there above ten minutes. A bobby said that we had caused disorder and then the judge chewed his mouth around as though he had bitten a lemon and said a whole lot of things which I did not understand, ending up with ‘Two months. Second division.’

Several ladies gasped and Miss Annie reached across and squeezed my arm very hard. I stayed as close to her as I could. She was very kind to me and tried to make light of our situation. She, having been in prison before, told me it was not so very bad, though the food was not of her choosing and it was a terrible waste of time to be locked up when we could be out spreading the word. Miss Billington said that our very imprisoning would do more for the Cause than a dozen rallies. I hoped she was right.

We were taken below stairs and there divided between the cells. Just as we were about to leave there was a commotion on the stairs and a voice called out, ‘Here’s another to join you, ladies,’ and down came Miss Sylvia, looking mighty pleased and angry at the same time. It seems she had protested not being allowed to attend our trial and, for her pains, had been placed before the same foul judge and sent to join us!

What a gathering we were. I wondered who was left to mind the office with so many of us bound for prison.

Mrs Pethick Lawrence looked exceeding ill, and when the
great black van came thundering into the yard, I thought she would faint away with horror. All the way there I could hear her murmuring to herself and weeping, for she hates to be indoors without a window open and indeed we were pressed as tight as letters in a pillar box, with just a tiny slit up high to let in light and air.