London (159 page)

“Don’t be silly, Violet.” Edward knew the City: the idea of any of the livery companies admitting women was absurd. He would have been astonished to know that his own brewery had come to him from Dame Barnikel. He sighed. “In any case, it’s all a waste of time. Not a single political party supports you.”

Unfortunately this was true. There were those for and against in every party, but none of the leaders could decide whether it would be to their own political advantage to add a female vote. Even the most radical were far more interested in enfranchising more working-class men than worrying about women.

“Then we shall go on until they do,” she replied.

“What infuriates me about your campaign is that it sets such a bad example,” he confessed. “Can’t you see that if people like us start publicly agitating, it only encourages the other classes to do the same? And, God knows,” he added, “things are dangerous enough as it is.”

Violet could sympathise with this last assertion. As the old century had departed, and old Queen Victoria with it, the new King Edward VII faced an increasingly uncertain world. A war against the Dutch-speaking Boers in South Africa had been won only with difficulty, and some doubt about its moral purpose. Murmurings against British rule had begun in India. The German Empire, although the Kaiser was King Edward’s nephew, was expanding its colonial and military might in a rather threatening way. Britain’s trade, too, was meeting stiff competition now, so that even staunch free-traders like Bull were beginning to wonder if the huge bloc of the British Empire should protect itself with tariffs after all. The issue of whether to give Ireland Home Rule had split the Liberal Party, too, making old political certainties harder for men like Bull. But the most disturbing aspect of the new Edwardian era lay even closer to home.

The huge inequalities and problems of the new industrial age had not been solved. While King Edward VII amused his subjects – the less puritan of them anyway – with his racy court and his splendid style, the uncertainty of these unresolved tensions increasingly troubled them too. Although the great socialist revolution predicted by Marx had not yet come, the Trades Unions which had grown up in the 1880s had two million members by the turn of the century, and four million expected soon. In recent elections they had fielded their own political party which was already emerging as a growing third force. At present the Labour Members of Parliament, only some of them true socialists, were ready to go along with the Liberal government whose radical wing, led by the brilliant Welshman Lloyd George, was pledged to introduce welfare provisions for the poor. “But they won’t be able to do much, and the Conservative House of Lords will vote down even that,” Bull predicted. “And what will happen then?” It was precisely this vague but growing fear of social unrest that made him deplore the demonstrations of the Suffragettes. “Trouble breeds more. You’re stirring it up,” he complained. “Have you considered your children?” he went on. “Do you think this is very kind to them? Is it a good example?”

Violet was furious. How could he use her children against her like this? “The children are proud of me!” she stormed. “They know what I’m doing is for a good and moral cause. I’m showing them how to stand up for what is right. And I’m sure they know it.”

“Are you sure?” he answered.

His brother Herbert could be rather foolish sometimes with his clowning, thought Percy Fleming. But that was Herbert. A little crowd had paused to look at him as he stood in the middle of Tower Bridge.

“Decide, Percy!” he called out. “I shall stand here even if the bridge opens up until you do!”

One of the crowd was a young woman – well, perhaps a year or two older than he was, Percy supposed – very respectable-looking. He wondered what she thought of it.

“Well?” cried Herbert, striking an attitude in the fashion of a melodrama at a music hall. “Oh, Percy, you will kill me!”

“I shall if you go on like that,” said Percy – quite wittily, he thought. He glanced at the respectable girl to see if she thought so too.

Percy Fleming was a lucky man. In the fourth generation, the descendants of Jeremy Fleming, the Bank of England clerk, totalled thirty in number. Like any other family, some had prospered and some had not. Many had left London. Percy and Herbert’s father had kept a tobacconist’s shop in Soho, just east of Regent Street, which was a jolly area nowadays. When Percy was a child, the Metropolitan Board of Works had built two great roads in Soho – Charing Cross Road going northwards from Trafalgar Square, and Shaftesbury Avenue which descended to Piccadilly Circus: and before long Shaftesbury Avenue had become lined with theatres. But while Herbert had always loved raffish, theatrical Soho, Percy had always been drawn to the quieter side of Regent Street which merged, as one walked westwards, into sedate Mayfair. There were still some stately old firms of Huguenot clockmakers and craftsmen to be found there, but the chief occupation of the place, spreading out from the street behind old Burlington House called Savile Row, was that of the London tailor.

Though a tobacconist by trade Percy’s father had many acquaintances in the business. “The golden mile they call it,” he used to tell Percy. “I can always tell, the minute I see a customer step in the door, if he’s wearing a West End suit.” As for the new ready-made suits which had begun to appear in some clothing stores, his concave face would assume an expression of quiet contempt as he explained: “God did not make men in standard sizes. Each has his own shape and stance. A well-cut suit so perfectly fits that a man can’t even feel he’s got it on. But a stock item, even if you alter it, will never have any style.” Percy had even seen his father hide his better cigars from a customer wearing a ready-made suit.

To Percy, the golden mile was a wonderful place. As a child, he watched the apprentices and the trotters who took samples round and ran errands. Through his father he made friends with some of the cutters, the all-important men at each establishment who cut the patterns for each customer’s individual shape, always on to strong brown paper which would be kept, usually hung on a string, for re-use with the customer’s next order. It was no surprise then that while his brother Herbert, after a brief flirtation with the theatre, soon settled down as a clerk, Percy was eager to serve the five or six year indenture to qualify as a tailor. And when, all on his own, he persuaded a master tailor to take him on and came back to report the fact to his father, Fleming senior had been truly impressed.

“Tom Brown!” he cried in delight. “Now that, Percy, is what I call a
real
gentleman’s tailor.”

At Tom Brown’s, Percy had spent six very happy years learning the art of tailoring and learned it so well that at the end of that time Mr Brown had made him a good offer of employment. But Percy had other ideas. It was not unusual for a skilled tailor like himself to work independently. He was sure Tom Brown would continue to use him, and working for himself he could take in orders from other tailors too. If you were good, and you were happy to put in long hours, you could make more than you would as an employee, and you had your independence too. But the real impetus had come from Herbert.

“I don’t see enough of you, Percy,” he’d said, “and you’re all that’s left of the family now.” Both their parents had gone by the old century’s end. “Why don’t you come up and live near Maisie and me? The air’s much better up at Crystal Palace, you know. It’d be better for your cough.”

When the vast Crystal Palace had been dismantled after the Great Exhibition, an enterprising group had bought it and reassembled it upon a splendid site on the long ridge, some six miles south of the river, that formed the southern lip of the London geological basin. Until recently, it had been mostly woodland and open field. Gipsy Hill, close by, had been what its name suggested. On the southern slopes of the ridge, even now, the houses soon gave way to open country that stretched away to the wooded ridges of Sussex and Kent as far as the eye could see. But on top of the ridge now, with magnificent views clear over the London basin to the distant hills of Hampstead and Highgate, were streets of houses – mansions in large gardens along the crest, modest houses and suburban villas on the slopes below. The air was excellent, safely away from the London smog in the basin beneath. Crystal Palace, as the area was now called, was a desirable place, and Herbert and his wife Maisie had lived there ever since they married.

“The station’s close. I take the train into the City every morning,” Herbert had pointed out. “But there’s another you could take that goes to Victoria Station. Perfect for the West End. You could get from your door to Savile Row in under an hour.”

Herbert was right about his cough. He had been feeling the effects of the London fogs recently. And if he were to leave Tom Brown and work from home, he would not need to go into London every day. But still it was a big move: he had hesitated to make it.

Percy and Herbert would sometimes meet on a Saturday, when Herbert’s clerical work in the City ended early at two in the afternoon. Today, after a meal in a pub, and since the autumn day was quite fine, the brothers had gone for a walk. Herbert had not mentioned the subject of Percy’s future however, until approaching the old London Stone in Cannon Street, he had pointed to a large structure opposite and remarked: “Now then, Percy, you know what that is!” Cannon Street railway station was a large affair. It covered most of the site where, when the road had still been called Candlewick Street, the Hanseatic merchants had lived – and indeed, where a Roman Governor’s Palace had stood a thousand years before that. The busy station had its own iron bridge across the river. “That’s where I get my train, Percy, to Crystal Palace.”

He had been relentless after that. They had walked down past Billingsgate to the Tower of London, and all the way Herbert pressed him. “You’re looking very pale, Percy. You must get out. Maisie’s promised to find you a wife. She says she can think of several nice girls. But they’ll want to live up there. Come on, Percy. You’ll make more money, too!” and finally, as they walked over Tower Bridge, he had decided to play the fool.

“Oh, all right then!” Percy said. “I will.”

“He’s decided!” Herbert let out a cry. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he addressed the bystanders, “you are all witnesses. Mr Percy Fleming here has just promised to set up on his own and move to the salubrious environs –” he went into full music-hall style – “the
rarefied
regions, I say the clean, the clear, the home of the
cr
ème de la
cr
ème, the very
cr
est of
cr
eation, I am speaking, of course of the Crystal Palace . . .”

There was no doubt about it, Herbert was certainly a card.

Percy glanced round and was relieved to see that the onlookers were smiling. But Herbert was not done yet.

“Madam.” He had gone up to the girl Percy had already noticed. “Will you be a witness, that my brother here – he’s very respectable you know, and” – a stage whisper now – “
in need of a wife
– has agreed to live at Crystal Palace, and that there can be
no turning back
?”

She smiled. “I suppose so,” she said, and Herbert gave a little shout of triumph.

“Shake my brother’s hand,” he insisted, and as soon as she had hesitantly offered a gloved hand: “There, Percy. That’s it!”

While Herbert turned to talk to another bystander – it was amazing the way he could do that, and people never seemed to mind – Percy found himself left with the girl. “I’m sorry about my brother,” he said. “I hope he didn’t annoy you.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “He’s just having a lark.”

“Yes,” he said. “He does that sometimes.” He wondered what else he could say. She had very nice brown eyes, he thought. Nothing cocky about her though, like some girls: very quiet, kept herself to herself, he would think. She looked as if she might have suffered a bit. “I’m quieter than he is,” he explained.

“Yes,” she said. “I can see that.”

“You don’t live around here, then?” he said.

“No,” she hesitated a fraction. “Up at Hampstead.”

“Oh.”

“That’s a long way from Crystal Palace,” she pointed out.

“Yes.” He looked down. “I often come here on a Saturday like this, walk about, go into the Tower sometimes,” he lied. “Just by myself usually.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s nice.”

Herbert was ready to move on now, so Percy had to go. He nearly said, “Perhaps I shall see you again,” as they said goodbye, but that would have been a bit forward.

Edward Bull knew the form. A short walk with his grandson around the grounds of Charterhouse, and it all came out. The teasing had been constant: “How’s the Prime Minister, Meredith?” Or more unkindly: “Have they arrested your mother yet? Could she plead insanity?” Once, over his bed, he had found a huge placard saying: “Votes for Women”.

“Pretty bad, eh?” Bull asked.

“I had to fight one fellow,” Henry admitted miserably; and though he did not say so, it was obvious that he did not think the cause was worth fighting for.

Still, when Bull suggested he treat four boys to tea, there was no shortage of takers. Not a boy in Charterhouse would refuse the chance of food. At a tea shop, he did them proud.

Twenty years as squire of Bocton had added a massive and deep-seated authority to Edward’s already powerful presence. To the boys, the solid Kentish landowner was an awesome figure. As for Bull, he had not run a brewery for nothing and he soon got the measure of the boys. There was one in particular they all followed. With his huge acquaintance in the city and elsewhere, there were not many people Edward could not place somewhere, and turning to the boy he casually asked: “Millward you say your name is. Now I know a broker called George Millward. Is he one of your people?”

“My uncle, sir.”

“Hmm. Give him my best wishes when you see him.” It was very clear that it was Bull who was conferring the favour.

He talked a little about how Charterhouse had been when he had been there, discovered another boy’s father had hunted with the West Kent, of which his own son was now joint master; but kept his best move of all until, at the very end of the huge tea, he leaned back, smiled meditatively and remarked to Henry: “I miss your dear father, you know, Henry.” And then by way of explanation to the boys: “Colonel Meredith, you know, was a most remarkable sportsman.” And with a nod of admiration: “He had probably shot more tigers than any other man in the British Empire.”