Eden Falls (19 page)

The truth was, every time she was apprehended it gave Henrietta a frisson of satisfaction and excitement: a sense that she was in the vanguard of the struggle, where ‘deeds, not words’ truly was the credo. As she sat on her bench, gazing at the obscenities and witticisms that others had left on the walls before her, she found herself wishing not for freedom but for sterner treatment: something that would propel her to the forefront of the campaign. She knew she would be released in due course, shown out of the station with all the courtesy at their disposal when the police realised their mistake. She knew, too, that this episode might be no more than a single lost paragraph in the papers – and perhaps not even that, if the actual St Stephen’s artist made herself known. Henrietta, in her darker moments, worried that what her sisters in the struggle valued most about her were her wealth and her title; Clarissa’s view, in fact, and a theory which, in the company of her mother, Henrietta would laugh off, but in the privacy of her own thoughts found harder to contradict.

The problem was, she decided, in the Sloane Street cell, that she was too well bred to behave sufficiently badly. Christabel and Emmeline – though perhaps not Sylvia – could spit in the faces of policemen or strike them across the face with a clenched fist, and with such actions guarantee arrest and a good long spell behind bars. Henrietta couldn’t spit and she couldn’t hit, no more than she could hoist her skirts and dance the can-can in the street. Spitting, in particular, was out of the question. She considered it now, as an amiable young police constable led her out of the cell and back to the freedom of the Sloane Street sunshine. She looked at his pleasant face and considered spitting into it in order to be marched back whence she’d come, but though she knew what she was meant to do she simply couldn’t bring herself to do it. The very worst she could manage was to return neither his smile nor his farewell, and to rudely ignore his offer of a lift back to the Women’s Exhibition. She felt his eyes on her as she walked away; it was all she could do not to turn round and thank him for his kindness and hospitality. At that moment, she despised her impeccable manners: they threatened, she felt, to expose her.

However, this dissatisfaction with the apparent limits of her militancy, while temporarily dispiriting, proved productive. Henrietta was, fundamentally, the sort of person who found solutions rather than problems, and her train of thought ran very naturally from the inherent difficulties of her aristocratic heritage to the inherent advantages of the same. At home in Netherwood, she reminded herself, she managed (to all intents and purposes) a twenty-five-thousand-acre estate with three collieries and the largest private house in England. The land agent, the bailiff, the butler, the housekeeper – all of them deferred to her when she was in residence, as indeed did her brother, the Earl of Netherwood, who would be the first to concede that Henrietta was much better equipped than he to grapple with the myriad practical matters that arose in the course of a single day at Netherwood Hall. Thus bolstered by her own stern talking-to, Henrietta slipped into a state of mind more conducive to decisive action: a practical, plan-hatching condition in which she was able to think quite logically about how to progress. By the time she swept back through the doors of Prince’s Skating Rink she was so full of vim and vigour for the cause that she clambered immediately onto the trestle table – from which this morning she had merely been selling programmes – and issued a rousing, forthright and entirely unexpected call to arms. It was a brave thing to do, and very possibly foolhardy; there was every chance she might have looked foolish, if – say – she hadn’t managed to be heard above the hubbub. But as well as irreproachable good manners and a characteristically high complexion, Henrietta had also inherited the carrying voice of the true aristocrat, and she employed it now to exhort her fellow campaigners to take, once more, to the streets of London.

‘Let us present ourselves, en masse, at the House of Commons and demand of Mr Asquith our ancient and inviolable right to petition the king,’ she shouted. Beneath her, at floor level, Sylvia Pankhurst murmured, ‘Now, dear?’

‘The prime minister is accountable to the king,’ continued Henrietta, from her lofty platform. ‘And as such he is duty and honour bound to receive our deputation, and to hear our petition.’

Christabel Pankhurst, torn between admiration at Henrietta’s initiative and her own irritation at this impromptu rallying cry, said to her sister, ‘I suppose we could. We’re all assembled, after all.’

‘If Mr Asquith refuses to hear us, if Mr Asquith sets the police on us as if we were common criminals, if Mr Asquith prevents us from deploying our right to petition the king, then it is he who will be guilty of illegality.’

Henrietta was flushed with zeal, and her enthusiasm was catching. Someone tore down a banner and shouted ‘Votes for Women’; a cheer went up through the hall.

‘So,’ Henrietta said, still on the table. ‘Those of you who wish to force Mr Asquith’s hand, we shall march to the House of Commons in’ – she glanced down, now, at Christabel, who raised her eyebrows as if to say, ‘Now you consult me?’ so that Henrietta, to maintain the mood and momentum, had to look away again, and lay down her own terms – ‘in thirty minutes’ time. Ladies of the pipe and drum band’ – she waved at them, in their corner of the exhibition hall – ‘bring your instruments, and take us to Westminster on a tide of glory!’

She clambered down, but the buzz of excitement she had created continued on about her. Christabel said: ‘Tide of glory? What does that mean?’ but Eva Gore-Booth flung her arms round Henrietta and said, ‘Brilliant! You’re brilliant!’ and this, Henrietta found, made up for any coolness from other quarters.

In the event, there were almost a hundred women in Henrietta’s deputation. They formed themselves into an almost-disciplined regiment and walked four abreast to Westminster, parting and stopping only for the most insistent of motorists. The pipe and drum band played marching songs and on the pavements people stood and either jeered, cheered or simply stared. On Millbank the police caught up with them, among them the young constable from Sloane Street, who had been pulled off the front desk to maintain order on the streets; he greeted Henrietta with a look of pleasant surprise, as if it was a coincidence at a cocktail party, and to her abiding annoyance, Henrietta automatically smiled back and nodded a gracious acknowledgement.

The police joined the procession to Parliament, walking on either side of the column of women with expressions of weary forbearance. They knew, of course, what would happen. At the entrance to the House of Commons the ringleaders would hand their written request to the duty police officer, who would then disappear inside, returning after a period of time with a written refusal from the prime minister’s private secretary. In fact, Mr Asquith’s opinion would probably not even be sought, being already well enough known by everyone involved.

All of this was predictable, and all of it came to pass. What no one had expected was that when the private secretary handed the exquisitely worded rebuttal to Henrietta with an apology of almost palpable disingenuousness, she snatched it from the functionary’s hand, screwed it into a tight ball and threw it directly into his left eye.

‘Oh I say, good shot,’ someone said in the massed ranks, and there was laughter and scattered applause. A police officer stepped forward and took hold of Henrietta’s elbow, in case the prime minister’s man should cry foul play, and the Sloane Street constable said, ‘It’s Lady Henrietta Hoyland, sir. I’m sure she intended no harm,’ at which point, Henrietta saw red. Was she always to be excused on the grounds of her title and breeding? It was intolerable.

She began to run – in itself, a shocking sight. Her hat flew off in her haste and she didn’t stop to retrieve it but barrelled on, up towards Parliament Square, into Parliament Street and down into Whitehall. Behind her, a small pack of women followed, unsure of her intention but carried along by the thrill of the moment. Behind them, a couple of constables, dispatched by a senior officer, jogged along with vaguely bashful expressions as if this unforeseen duty was an assault on their dignity and a certain distance – both actual and emotional – had to be maintained.

Up ahead Henrietta had swung left into Downing Street and here, she stopped. She clutched her right side and took great gulps of air, and while she caught her breath she cast about with her eyes, as if she’d lost something and was desperate to find it.

‘What’s the plan?’

This was Mary Dixon, Henrietta’s ardent admirer from the Guildford branch of the WSPU, dressed as she always was in white, green and purple, like a walking pennant. She had followed Henrietta to Downing Street, just as she would follow her to the ends of the earth. Henrietta didn’t answer her question, but lurched suddenly to a small pile of house bricks stacked tidily against a wall, awaiting the moment at which they might be useful. It was only when Henrietta seized one of them and ran with it towards the prime minister’s residence that her intention – and the scale of her frustration – became clear. She was fast, though, and while she might not have been a spitter or a puncher she was a first-rate flinger: a childhood at the wicket with Toby and Dickie had given her an eye for a target and an arm for distance. As the two constables rounded the corner from Whitehall into Downing Street, and as the startled officer positioned outside Number 10 stepped forwards into her path, Henrietta launched her missile at the fan light above the door and had the satisfaction of hearing the ugly fracture and splinter of glass and wood before she was pinioned in the unforgiving grip of the constables. She threw her head back and shouted, ‘Votes for women!’, and as she was led away, Mary Dixon and the other women with her took up the cry, chanting the slogan again and again so that their voices accompanied Henrietta as she was shoved and bundled away from the scene of her crime.

At Park Lane, Isabella had found Thea in the drawing room, which pleased and surprised her, as she was sure her sister-in-law would have other things to do than wait for her husband. Instead, Thea looked extravagantly content and comfortable, nestling among a heap of cushions on a couch, leafing idly through the fashion plates of the
Tatler
and smoking a slim, dark cigarette in an elegant silver holder. Clarissa detested the smell, so it struck Isabella as a provocative act until she said, ‘Mama hates cigarette smoke,’ and Thea, looking up from her magazine, said, ‘Oh Lord, yes, I forgot,’ and immediately stubbed it out. She smiled at Isabella and patted the seat next to her.

‘I thought I was at home, in Fulton House,’ she said. ‘Silly me.’

Isabella sat.

‘Thea?’ she said.

‘Mmm?’ Thea was back at the fashion plates again, her fingers stroking the pages as if she could feel the folds of silk and satin.

‘Do you have a pash for Eugene Stiller?’ Her heart pounded at her audacity.

Thea tilted her head and flashed a sharp, sidelong glance at Isabella. ‘Oh, I see. That’s why you’ve been so snippy.’

‘Never mind that. Do you?’

‘No, not overly, although I did at first. Do you like him?’

‘Since you ask, no,’ Isabella said, feeling calmer since her question had clearly caused neither consternation nor anger. ‘He’s not half so handsome as Toby.’

Thea laughed lightly. ‘Agreed.’

‘But you spend so much time with him. And you take him up to your rooms.’ At this Isabella coloured, and again her heart pattered; how she would love, she thought, to possess just a fraction of Thea’s sangfroid. Thea closed her magazine and placed it on the lamp table. She turned to Isabella.

‘You mustn’t worry about Tobes,’ she said. ‘He has his fun and I have mine, but we are the Earl and Countess of Netherwood and ever shall be, until fate decides our number’s up.’

Isabella looked troubled. ‘Doesn’t Toby mind?’

‘Not really,’ Thea said. Then, ‘Sometimes,’ she added, more truthfully.

‘I thought when one married it was to the exclusion of all others,’ Isabella said. She knew at once that she sounded silly, and that Thea would laugh; she did.

‘No, dearest, not necessarily. Monogamy isn’t compulsory, and it’s certainly not something Tobes and I have ever suffered from.’

‘Well I intend to honour and obey my husband when the time comes.’ She sounded like a prig, she knew she did, and her face felt foolishly warm and pink.

‘Good for you,’ Thea said almost kindly. ‘Do let me know how you get on with that.’

There was something in Thea’s tone that she didn’t quite like, but Isabella was prevented from speaking further because the drawing-room door opened and Padgett entered, with the demeanour of a man bearing bad news.

‘Padgett?’ said Thea. ‘Are we to worry about something?’

‘Thomas is at the door, Your Ladyship,’ said the butler.

‘The Fulton House footman?’

‘Indeed, Your Ladyship. It seems Lady Henrietta has’ – he hesitated, choosing his words with care – ‘orchestrated an incident.’

Thea heaved a sigh. ‘Oh what now? Eggs at Mr Churchill? Flour at Mr Lloyd George?’

‘A brick, Your Ladyship, through a window of the prime minister’s residence in Downing Street,’ he said, and then – in a moment of dramatic spontaneity – he added, ‘It’s uncertain whether anyone was injured by her action.’ This last detail was neither a truth nor an untruth, he told himself: therefore, it was permissible.

Isabella gasped and Thea stood at once, shaken into seriousness. And Padgett, though he assumed an attitude of sympathetic concern, drew some considerable private satisfaction at the effect of his words.

T
he parlour at Ravenscliffe was full of clothes, organised in piles according to function. Two empty leather trunks stood in the middle of the room, their lids yawning open. They smelled of horses, Angus said. Eliza said, ‘Saddles, do you mean, Gussy?’ and the little boy said, ‘No, ’orses,’ as if his big sister were simple not to understand the distinction. She picked him up and blew a wet raspberry into his hot, soft neck, and he squirmed in her arms, laughing and protesting. Eliza helped herself to Angus like other people helped themselves to buns from a tin – she just took him up, whenever the urge came upon her, and feasted on his unique deliciousness. The prospect of his absence loomed like the threat of icy rain: she could prepare for it, but it wouldn’t make it any more pleasant, or any easier to bear. For his part, Angus had no real sense of time and distance, and even the knowledge that he and his mother were going together to see Seth was an abstract idea that he was perfectly capable of forgetting when something more interesting turned his head.