by Lissa Evans
‘Yes, that’s sensible.’
‘But I’ve got another one coming already – look.’ She dragged down the skin of her cheek, and The Flea peered at the cream-tipped swelling on the lower lid.
‘My aunt says it’s the soot from the railway.’
‘That could be a factor. Perhaps it’s just as well you no longer work at the station.’
‘I suppose she told you about the row, too?’
‘What row? Oh – something to do with geography?’
‘All I said was, “Where are you travelling to, Madam?” because otherwise you’re just standing there, aren’t you, and you might as well be a hat rack or have your mouth glued shut, and the lady said, “Manchester,” and I said, “Oh, I’ve never been to Lancashire,” and she said, “It’s Yorkshire,” and I said – politely – I said, “It’s not, Madam.” Because I know it’s not, my boyfriend’s dad’s from there, except he’s not my boyfriend any more, he went off with someone else after the fair, he said I looked a fright and I had to go back to Auntie’s on the bus with my scarf over my face. It’s been a rotten, stinking, horrible week.’ And she was crying, suddenly, blotting her eyes against her sleeve, all the starch rinsed out of her. ‘I’ve got to take this over to Warren Street now,’ she said, shifting the bundle of linen to the other hand.
‘Are you working for your aunt?’
‘Just for my keep. Why?’
‘I’m wondering …’ The girl’s nails were neat and short, and as clean as Christmas. ‘I’m wondering if you’re looking for another job.’
Mattie wore her purple, green and white sash for lectures, and her Holloway brooch, but not her hunger-strike medals. ‘I have no wish to look like the veteran of an historic war,’ she said. ‘The battle is not yet over; every day brings fresh skirmishes.’
With five minutes to go, the Drill Hall was three-quarters full. From her position in the wings, Mattie looked out at the audience with dissatisfaction; they were all so old. She hastily corrected the thought – most of them were a similar age to herself, and at fifty-eight she felt no different, bodily or mentally, than she had at thirty – no, it wasn’t their age that was dismaying but their demeanour. Women were knitting; a man on the front row peered through a magnifying glass at a copy of Punch; there was chat, there was light laughter and the rattle of a tin of mints being opened. There was no anticipation, no rigour: they were clearly there for entertainment and not education or debate, and the swift sword of her rhetoric would be blunted on a row of bolsters.
Only The Flea was on the alert, standing in the aisle with boxes of slides to hand, the air around her swimming slightly from the heat of the lantern. Rather than her WSPU sash, she was wearing a discreet pin in the Union’s colours (‘If the audience are looking at me, Mattie, then they are looking in the wrong direction’). She caught her companion’s eye and gave a little nod of readiness.
‘Good evening,’ said Mattie, stepping forward to the lectern. ‘My name is Miss Matilda Simpkin. I hope, over the next hour and a half, to convey something of the history and methods of the militant suffragette movement, to slice through the integument of myth and slander that has so often overlaid the truth of its beliefs and actions, and to expose to clear view those of its aims that have yet to be achieved. For until women are represented as well as taxed – until the laws that govern one sex expand to cover both – we will not be free to work for our own salvation: be it political, social or industrial.
‘Let us begin with the venerable argument against the female vote – an argument that centred around the character of that frail creature known as woman. Her horizons were narrow, her sphere domestic, her opinions as light and capricious as the flutterings of a moth; how could she possibly be trusted to choose wisely and independently? Let us see a collection of these Victorian flibbertigibbets.’ She signalled to the caretaker and the hall dropped into darkness, apart from the long cone of yellow light from the magic lantern and the softer splash of the reading lamp that illuminated Mattie.
‘Mary Somerville,’ said Mattie. ‘Mother of six, self-taught scientist, jointly the first female member of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Oxford college for women is named after her.’
On the stretched sheet that hung centre stage, a portrait of Somerville settled into focus.
‘Florence Nightingale’ – the picture changed – ‘who asked the question: “Why have women passion, intellect, moral activity – these three – and a place in society where not one of the three can be exercised?”’ The slide holder clicked and slid again as The Flea worked deftly in the dark.
‘Frances Buss, pioneer of female education and founder of the North London Collegiate School for Ladies.
‘Octavia Hill, housing reformer and saviour of Hampstead Heath.’ A little sigh of appreciation went up from the audience.
‘Charlotte Brontë, who once said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.”
‘Dr Garrett Anderson, not only the first Englishwoman to qualify as a doctor and surgeon, but the first female mayor. And, finally, Grace Darling, oarswoman and heroine of the storm. Each of them barred from the franchise, each of them – I’m sure you’ll agree – strangers to reason, liable to faint at inopportune moments and best employed in advising their cooks on the best method of preparing junket.’ There was a hesitant titter. ‘Meanwhile, after the extension of the male franchise under the 1832 Reform Act, vastly increased numbers of wastrels and drunkards, adulterers, wife-beaters and employers of child labour were able to stroll freely into a polling booth in order to ordain the governance of this country. Charlotte Brontë couldn’t vote, but Branwell Brontë could. Dr Anderson stayed at home, while the Rugeley Poisoner, Dr Palmer, went to the polling booth. By 1903, when Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, over fifty years had passed since the publication of Harriet Taylor Mill’s essay “The Enfranchisement of Women” – fifty years of petitioning, fifty years of discussion, fifty years of meetings, of canvassing, of promises made and of promises broken. The birth of militancy came after a long and painful confinement: sweet reason, it became evident, had changed nothing – sweet reason could safely be ignored by those in power. What was needed was a new approach, a shift from the genteelly audible to the boldly visible.’
Mattie swung her pointer towards the screen just as the WSPU motto replaced Grace Darling’s rowing boat.
DEEDS NOT WORDS
‘Deeds not Words,’ she repeated, with ringing emphasis. ‘And do not doubt, for an instant, that those deeds were called into existence not by reckless energy but by the stubbornness of those in power. Any questions, before I move on?’
She peered into the semi-darkness, hoping for a waving arm, a cleared throat; from her years on the stump, she knew that the real business of any meeting was not in the opening monologue but in the debate that followed: it was the difference between shadow-boxing and sparring.
‘If you have questions, please raise your hand. I would much prefer to tackle points as they arise, rather than wait until the end. No? … Very well. Next slide. We see here Mrs Pankhurst holding a meeting outside the Houses of Parliament in protest at the talking-out of a women’s suffrage bill. This was in 1904. If you have never seen a filibusterer at work, then imagine a small child trying to explain something important while his playfellow sticks his fingers in his ears and shouts, “La la la,” and you will have some idea of the maturity of the tactic. Hand in hand with this inability to listen, the political parties at this time also demonstrated a marked reluctance to speak, a failing which led directly to the first arrests of the militant campaign. In October 1905, Miss Christabel Pankhurst and Miss Annie Kenney, pictured here’ – bright young faces, hats like silk saucepan lids – ‘attended a Liberal Party meeting in Manchester at which they enquired, both in speech and in writing, whether a future Liberal Government would give women the vote; not only did they fail to receive an answer, but they w
ere also ejected, charged and imprisoned – and it is here that I wish to correct a long-standing and entirely false belief. I have heard it said that suffragettes received no sort of rough handling from the authorities until they themselves began to mete out physical protest, to which I would reply: balderdash. More injuries were received at the hands of stewards at political meetings than in any other theatre of protest – women asking questions of Cabinet Ministers at public discussions would be dragged from the hall, punched and kicked, shaken and indecently manhandled, often in full view of an unprotesting audience. I myself have a permanent depression in one calf resulting from a steward jabbing the ferrule of his umbrella directly into the muscle and, if anyone doubts this, then I would say, like Our Saviour to St Thomas, “Come thou and put thy finger in the wound!”’
There was a volley of gasps, followed by the rustle and creak of someone making their way along a row of chairs and thence out of the hall.
‘For shame!’ called a man.
‘I use the phrase not in order to shock,’ continued Mattie, mendaciously – that particular phrase had proved over the years to be a reliable method of gingering up a stuffy audience – ‘but in order to convey the extraordinary forbearance of the suffragette movement in those early days; we received kicks and blows, and we returned with leaflets and speeches, newspapers, meetings and peaceful demonstrations. I myself was arrested for the first time when I arrived at the House of Commons as part of a deputation. I spoke; I may even have raised my voice, but I most certainly did not raise my fist – and for this, I and others were imprisoned in Holloway for over a month. You can see here a photograph of our release; the person holding the bouquet is Mrs How-Martyn and the person just beside her – wearing a headscarf beneath her hat – is me; what you cannot see in this photograph is the infestation of head lice that I carried out of the prison with me – yes, a question?’ She had spotted a masculine handkerchief waving in the dark.
‘Shouting in Parliament is all very well, Miss Simpkin, but what do you have to say about the acts of criminal arson carried out by the suffragette movement?’
It was a middle-aged voice, truculent. Mattie smiled.
‘Could I ask you in return if you recall reading about the Reform Act riots of 1831, in which the gaol and the Bishop’s House in Bristol were set on fire, with many deaths resulting, all in the name of representation? And yet no male reformer has ever been asked to apologize for this. Men have been allowed to use bloodshed and disorder to gain their freedom – have been celebrated for their passion in pursuit of the vote – and yet the suffragettes, who hurt not a single person with their fires, are condemned. As Thomas Fuller once said, “Abused patience turns to fury.” By that point, we were furious, and justifiably so.’
‘So you have no regret about these acts of vandalism?’
‘If I have a regret, it’s that no government buildings were burned to the ground, no electrical companies, no factories – we wasted our powder on half-built houses and tea pavilions, and were therefore seen as a private nuisance rather than a public threat. Do I see another questioner?’
‘Did you say’ – the elderly voice hesitated, tremulous with horror – ‘did you say lice, Miss Simpkin?’
‘Yes, I did indeed mention those persistent little blighters –I had to massage petroleum jelly through my hair and then comb out the corpses thrice daily for a month in order to rid myself of them. So let me say a few words now about the prison conditions that gave rise to such horrors …’
Over at the magic lantern, The Flea reached for the appropriate box. There were six altogether, each numbered in luminous paint, and the slides within were kept in an order that she had long ago memorized. Mattie’s lectures rarely pursued a linear course, and The Flea often had to move back and forth between the boxes as questions flung up fresh subjects. She slotted a slide into the lantern and slid the frame across.
‘This picture is not of an actual prison cell,’ said Mattie, ‘but of an accurate facsimile, assembled and exhibited by the WSPU at the Prince’s Rink Exhibition in 1909. It all looks rather comfortable, doesn’t it? – a decent-sized room, an adequate bed, a window, a wash stand, a chair, even a small table on which one might put one’s belongings. One might almost be in an hotel, and I’m sure you’re all wondering what those dreadful militant harridans were complaining about – however, I have withheld one vital fact: this is a first-division cell, of the sort occupied by the ordinary male political prisoner. If you were a Fenian, throwing bombs at English policemen, then this is where you would find yourself after conviction. By contrast, a suffragette found guilty of persistently ringing a Cabinet Minister’s doorbell with the aim of receiving a simple answer to a simple question would be placed in one of these – a second-division cell.’
The slide changed; there was a murmur of consternation.
‘As you see, it is half the size of the previous room, and singularly devoid of home comforts. And, as I can personally testify, were this one of the so-called punishment cells, which in Holloway Prison were situated in the basement, it would lack even a window. Lying on a plank bed with one’s wrists cuffed together, one was reduced to staring at the irregular patches of black damp on the walls, trying to work out which of them looked most like a profile of Mr Asquith. Male political prisoners were, of course, allowed their own clothes, whereas I can best illustrate what we women were required to wear—’
(Box 3, thought The Flea: Processions, fourth slide from the front.)
‘—by showing you a photograph from the 1908 march to Hyde Park. Of the 30,000 women and men who paraded that day, those who had previously been incarcerated wore their prison costume. You see the woollen dress – it was rather a strange shade of mustard – the apron with arrows, and the mob cap that possessed the singular attribute of making even the prettiest face look like a peeled turnip.’
There was a laugh, rather warmer than the one earlier, followed by a question from the audience about the march, and The Flea was able to stick with Box 3 for a while, which was anyway her favourite, though the photographs could never convey the true feeling of those processions – how, when the march had started, and the bands were playing, and the air was dense with cheers and song, it would feel as if a friendly wind had lifted you up and was carrying you along with a thousand friends – as if you could never be alone again, as if darkness had been outlawed, as if the world had already been won. And afterwards it took hours, days sometimes, for that wind to drop – so that typing at her desk in the WSPU offices, or lying on her narrow bed in Archway, listening to Miss Sare filing her toenails on the other side of the shared bedroom, she would still feel like a swallow, skimming just above the ground.
And here was a slide of the Coronation procession: seven miles long, Joan of Arc on a white charger, pennants, floats, choirs, brass bands, societies of every kidney – the Actresses’ League, the Theosophists, the Tax Resistance League – and somewhere towards the centre, the Pageant of Historical Women. ‘We need nuns!’ someone had called out at the office the day before. ‘Christabel says that the Abbess Hilda really must have acolytes,’ and The Flea had been herded into a fitting, and the next morning had found herself standing on the Bayswater Road, draped in black and white and awaiting the arrival of the abbess. Who had turned out to be Mattie Simpkin, the peripatetic speaker whose cross-country schedule The Flea had been organizing for the previous six months. ‘How was Dorking?’ she’d asked her, rather shyly. ‘Dorking?’ said Mattie. ‘It was corking!’ And the reply was so silly and unexpected from someone with such a weighty reputation that The Flea had actually giggled.
Mattie, wearing a headdress shaped like a cuckoo clock, had led her flock with dignity (‘Though I’d rather hoped to be Boadicea’), occasionally blessing the crowds who lined the route. It had been the most thrilling day The Flea had ever known, the atmosphere not importunate but gloriously triumphal, and she could never forget, over the bitter, furious years that followed, her own bafflement th
at it hadn’t worked – that the government had watched a display of such discipline, such civilization and culture and wit, and had then simply turned its back.
It was like the fairy tale that she’d read as a child, where the woodcutter’s daughter was set task after task in order to free the prince from the witch’s spell – first she’d had to find the magic egg, then the golden bird, then the blue heart of the mountain – and yet each time, when she succeeded, the promised freedom was denied and another task requested and, in the end, only violence and death were able to break the enchantment.
‘The blunt fact,’ said Mattie to the audience at the Drill Hall, ‘is that we were betrayed, over and over again, by politicians who thought that because we were women we would accept high-handed duplicity as a hazard of our sex. We were left, finally, with no choice but to use the argument of the stone, and the hostage of our own mortality.’
And The Flea reached for Box 4: Hunger strikes. Three people exited the hall during the description of force-feeding.
The predictable question – asked at every single lecture and always with the air that the speaker was saying something tremendously original – came some twenty minutes later. ‘But surely you must admit, Miss Simpkin, that the vote was ultimately granted only because of the sterling work by ladies on the home front, while their menfolk were away in the trenches? Surely it was responsibility, and not irresponsibility, that won it for you in the end?’
‘To which I would reply,’ said Mattie, ‘that it was, in my opinion, only the Government’s fear that militancy would return after the war that forced the bill through. Sterling work is something of which women have always been capable: is not a mother raising seven children performing sterling work every day? Were not those ladies whose photographs opened this lecture all exemplars of sterling work? Is not a millhand who arrives home after twelve hours at the loom only to begin cleaning and cooking performing more than her fair share of sterling work? Is she not, in fact, the essence of responsibility? And yet such a woman, if under thirty, or failing the property qualification, may still not exercise her vote, while the devil-may-care youngest son of the mill owner, with a head full of silliness, has full possession of the privilege! Another question?’
