Crooked Pieces (35 page)

Here my breathing turned into snorts for I was trying so not to laugh. Mrs Garrud sent me for a glass of water. On the way out one of the bobbies peered at me real hard. I did a cartwheel right under his nose so he would have something worth gawping at.

When they had gone we fell about laughing.

If the Government thought because of the 1
^st
they could forget about the 4
^th
…! Knightsbridge took such a knocking! Glass, glass, glass. So many arrests. I know not how I escaped it. Perhaps it is because now I know so many back streets and side-alleys. So different from when I first came to London. I almost never get lost now.

What I would not give to be back to those days. I must not think like that. ‘Times change. Life moves on,’ as Miss Christabel would say.

Times certainly changed this morning. I had hardly drawn the blinds when there was a clanging on the doorbell and in came four detectives to charge Miss Christabel and the Pethick Lawrences with ‘Incitement’, and now Miss Christabel is fled to France. I can hardly believe it. That she would leave us.

We are like a rudderless ship, tossed this way and that in a stormy sea with no lighthouse to guide us to calmer waters.

I did not think of that, I am happy to say. Miss Davison came up with it and insists it goes in the next edition of
Votes For Women
. If there is one, for with Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence arrested, I do not know how we shall sort it. I begin to wonder if Miss Davison uses so much Greek and Latin because her English is so soppy.

One wonderful thing has come out of all this. Miss Annie is back to run the office. Each weekend she travels to France and returns on the night train with Miss Christabel’s articles and new instructions for us.

Stone throwing is the order of the day. The prisons are full to bursting. It is a strange time. Half of the public support us and half are against so much violence, for though Miss Christabel insists that we respect all human life, she urges us constantly towards greater and greater destruction of property. She says it is the only way, and if the Government pays no heed when its offices are attacked, then we must go further and destroy their very homes.

I do not like the thought of this. Desks and typewriters are
one thing. Where a man lives with his family is another altogether.

And yet today I would gladly destroy the home of Judge Lord Coleridge and everything about him from his flee-ridden wig to his fat flat feet. Nine months! Mrs Pankhurst, Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence. ‘Conspiracy and Incitement’.

‘But what is that?’ I begged Miss Sylvia. ‘They have never thrown a stone between them. Nor harmed anyone. Except with their truth and courage.’

‘I know, I know, Maggie. It is a dreadful sentence. Quite awful.’ She looked so pale and exhausted, but I had to know.

‘Please tell me what it means. I need to understand.’

She sank down in a chair. ‘It means… I suppose it means trying to force other people to do your bidding, whether they want to or not.’

‘Like the politicians, you mean?’

She nearly smiled. ‘I’m afraid so.’

The feeding has begun again. Terrible tales come out of women bleeding from their ears, unable to swallow, their vision wrecked, limbs cracking over pumped up bellies. I daily give thanks that I am needed here and cannot leave the office. Every day comes news of some fresh torture. A ‘doctor’ has writ that women are mad by nature and nothing can alter it! I wonder if he thought them mad when they answered his every bidding, or if he has come but lately to such lofty thinking.

Miss Davison, who managed to get herself arrested merely for going into the post office (a thing I do every day without a second glance from anyone) has thrown herself down the
stairs at Holloway and is in the prison hospital, mightily wounded.

Miss Kerr telephoned the news to France. Back comes the order, ‘Tell Maggie she’s to write a whole column in Miss Davison’s honour. Make sure it gets the front page.’

I said I would not (only to Miss Kerr).

She looked terribly worried. ‘Oh, please, Maggie. I’d do it myself but I haven’t a minute free at the moment.’

‘Why can’t she do it herself? She does everything so much better than anyone else.’

‘Oh, Maggie, that’s not very generous. Miss Davison is such a very brave soul. Surely you should feel proud to be asked to write her praises?’

‘I’ve no doubt I should, Miss Kerr. But I don’t.’

She said no more but when Miss Annie got back the two of them were talking together for ages and then Miss Annie came looking for me. ‘Maggie, what’s this, you don’t want to write our front page for us?’

I was ready for her. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, miss. I just don’t think I’m up to it.’

‘Of course you are. We wouldn’t have suggested it else. Miss Christabel was most particular. She says you have a fine way with words.’

‘Not Latin and Greek ones, miss. And I’m sure Miss Davison would expect a deal of those.’

‘Miss Davison is in no condition to choose at the moment, Maggie, and I’m sure if she were, she would like nothing better than for you to chronicle her deeds in your own distinctive way.’

I thought, that she would not, for it would make for pretty spiky reading.

‘And besides,’ she went on, ‘Miss Christabel desires it specially. Don’t worry about the filing. I’ll get someone else to finish it for you.’

By three o’clock I had got no further than:
Miss Emily Davison has been taken to the prison hospital again. Sadly. She threw herself down the stairs and is much hurt by it. Sadly. She has done things like this before
.

Miss Sylvia called in with some press cuttings and she and Miss Annie came to see how I was getting on. Poor Miss Annie looked quite desperate when she saw. ‘It’s fine, Maggie, so far. But couldn’t you try and go a little bit faster? We need it at the printer’s first thing tomorrow.’

‘I’m sorry, miss. It just doesn’t seem to be coming quite as it should.’

‘No, well, do your best. If you can’t finish it in time I’ll just have to stay late and see what I can come up with.’

‘Yes, miss.’

When she had gone Miss Sylvia popped back to me. ‘Maggie, I have a suggestion. Tell me if I’m being stupid, but why don’t you pretend you’re writing about Mama? I know how much you admire her, and it would be such a shame if the front page was…well, a bit…dull, if you see what I mean.’

I was off like a rocket and finished by ten past four, although Miss Sharp who has taken over the paper for now, did ask I remove the line about ‘withered old bones’ and ‘a lady of advancing years’. I have still not forgiven Miss Davison for burning my Christmas card to Fred.

Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps I should be grateful to her. I only know I am not.

Oh, Fred. Where are you? Why did you go? I miss you so much. I have got back my body nearly. I am healthy again. My arms are strong and firm like before, my hands are soft. I’m no longer a witch. And every part of me is aching for you. For all the things you were going to help me be. A wife, a mother, a woman. Now I shall never know any of them.

But I have my work.

Mrs Pankhurst and Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence have been released at last. They are gone abroad to recover. Today a Labour Member of Parliament challenged the Prime Minister, calling him a torturer and a murderer. His name is Mr Lansbury and he was thrown out for his pains.

The Government has done a wicked thing. The wickedest of all. It has sent the bailiffs to The Mascot to take away the furniture and sell it to pay for the court cases. My heart is sick when I think of that most beautiful of homes being torn apart by villains and thieves, for that is all bailiffs are, and the worse for they carry the law with them in their thievery. I did not think such a thing could happen to a gentleman and lady, like Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence.

And now the shopkeepers are at it, too. Saying they must be paid for their windows and it is for Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence to bear the cost of it. They are like dogs picking at the flesh of a great fallen lion. Well, a lion may fall but he may rise again and then beware, those dogs.

I showed that to Miss Sharp and she gave me that funny fierce look of hers and said, ‘Not bad, Maggie. I think we might find a space for that.’

Miss Sylvia came to the office tonight. I was about to lock up. We had had a busy day for tomorrow there is to be a great meeting at the Albert Hall to welcome home Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence. God knows, they have been greatly missed.

I could see she was troubled.

‘I have bad news, Maggie. Dreadful. I wanted you to know before it becomes public for it affects you – all of us, very deeply.’

My heart started pumping. I did not dare to think what was coming.

‘My mother and Christabel have had a secret meeting with Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence in France. They discussed the bailiffs’ writ and all that that means. It seems that if the Government insists on applying it, it will be entitled to charge every penny of damage our movement causes to the Pethick Lawrences personally.’

‘But why them? Why not all of us?’

‘Because they have been found guilty of Conspiracy, so every deed may now be laid at their door. Besides, they alone have sufficient means to be worth hounding through the courts.’

‘What will happen?

Miss Sylvia sighed deeply. ‘It already has. Mother and Christabel are bent on pursuing a violent course, no matter what. There have long been disagreements on that subject. It has reached the point where the Pethick Lawrences are no longer prepared to lend their name to such activities. Mrs Pethick Lawrence is a Quaker, after all.’

‘A Quaker?’ I squawked.

‘Yes, and a pacifist. They both are. And so, in my heart, am I.’ She stood up. ‘But I am also a Pankhurst.’ And though she did not say it, I knew she wished she were not.

So the Union was split. We moved to premises in Kingsway and because we no longer had Mrs Pethick Lawrence to hold us in check, the office became noisier, and madder and more disorganised, and so did our supporters. Mrs Pankhurst counselled no caution, except in the matter of human life, and that not our own. It is odd that for one who cares so deeply about the safety of others, she seems so reckless with ours. And Miss Christabel even more so. Perhaps a broken head looks less painful from across the water in France.

I did not mean that. Sure, without her the whole movement would crumble into dust. I remember Miss Sylvia saying once how the militants had ‘injected the thrill of life’ back into the fight, when it had all but sunk into a ‘coma of hopelessness’. And that is thanks to Miss Christabel more than anyone. She is the inspiration and force behind our every move. I am ashamed of myself for even thinking as I did.

Gone, too, our magazine. Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence continue to publish
Votes For Women
and have found great favour with those who prefer a more peaceable approach. That will not do for the militants, naturally, so a new one has been started,
The Suffragette
, full of fire and brilliance, but without their calming influence it often reads more like a hellfire preacher’s ranting than a plea for fairness and justice.

The Labour politician, Mr Lansbury, who called the Asquith a torturer, has shown himself a true hero, resigning
his seat and seeking re-election as an Independent, hoping to further our cause. Miss Sylvia admires him mightily and has made him one of her speakers. He is to stand at the
by-election
in Bow.

I went down to help. The people loved him, and but for his old party making trouble against him, he would have won, I am sure. Now the Tory has got in. In Bow! His name is Blair and he has to be told what to say all the time.

Miss Sylvia is quite down about Mr Lansbury losing. She says the people of the East End deserve someone like him to stand up for them. She has had an idea. To gather a deputation made up only of working women from all over the country and take them to speak before the Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey, who is now quite white, but has grown a little softer with the years. Mrs Drummond is to take charge so whatever happens it will be exciting! Miss Annie is going too. There is to be a tailoress and a laundress and a pit-brow woman. A fisherwoman is coming all the way from Scotland. Good thing Mrs Drummond is going, so at least one person will understand what she is talking about.

Miss Sylvia asked if I would be of the number. I thought it a strange request. ‘What can I say? I work in an office and am paid good money.’

She said, ‘Tell them where you came from.’

When the women had spoken, of how they worked ten hours a stretch for half of what the men earned, of how they swung hot irons from dawn till dusk because men could not stand to do it, of how they dressed the dead from the mines and cared
for the children left behind, nursed the sick, stitched till their fingers bled, sweated over boiling tallow vats, choked on cotton dust till their lungs filled like pillows, it was my turn.

I could see they were surprised to see me rise. Indeed I was quaking so heartily I feared I should fall down dead in a faint, for my feet and hands were tingling as when the prison butchers tied me to the torture chair.

Then I thought, these men are not my torturers. How can I fear them when I have endured so much worse? So I gripped my snivelling drops of courage and began. ‘Excuse me, sirs, I know I am young and have little knowledge of the world or how it should be.’

‘I would imagine that to be true,’ muttered one of them.

‘But still I know that it is wrong for a woman to watch her children die, as my mother did, for want of medicine and victuals, and coal to light a fire. To have to choose between her ma and her pa, who shall stay and who go to the workhouse. To have a baby made on her year in year out, and when she is too ill for any more to…’ I stopped. ‘To have no power over her life and let it slip away as though she had never been, because she counted for nothing to those who could have made things better. There must be good men in the world, sir. And I know there are. Who would rule justly and seek to change such misery. They are the men we would vote for. How can that be wrong?’