by Maggie Ford
He’d hand most of it to her for housekeeping and towards repaying the loan, keeping so little for himself that her heart bled for him. He’d even spoken of giving up cigarettes, his only pleasure, and she couldn’t even remember when he’d last gone to a pub. Then there was Helena to feed and clothe. She was growing so fast it was hard to keep up with her. It had all cost money and sometimes she’d felt sick with worry.
But now, April 1913, Albert’s training was behind him, though he intended to go on studying and become even better.
That Saturday after a week working as a proper engineer he came home, storming into the kitchen like some triumphant knight having floored his quarry, to empty his entire pay packet on the table as she turned round to greet him, his dinner all ready for him.
Two pounds, five shilling and sixpence!’ he blurted. ‘Two pounds, five and six! That’s only for starters. The more I study the better it’ll get. I feel like bloody landed gentry! What’ll we do with it?’
‘Put some of it away,’ she said promptly, her thoughts already flying to a nice flat in a few months’ time. ‘For a rainy day,’ she said as an excuse.
He stared at her then laughed. ‘There ain’t going ter be no more rainy days from now on.’
‘We’ve still got to pay back Gran’s loan. We can give her a bit more now. It’s only right.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed, ceasing to laugh, but then brightened. ‘But we’ll still ’ave enough to live a lot better than we’ve done in the past. I can ’ave a beer when I want and not worry about spending on fags. I might even be able to afford a decent suit, not that second ’and stuff we’ve ’ad to get off stalls. And our Helena can ’ave nice dresses from proper shops.’
She loved the way he said our Helena as if she were his own child. It wrung her heart that she’d still not fallen pregnant yet. But there was still time. Helena was coming up to three; her birthday was next month and they had been scrimping to get her a cheap little toy for her birthday. Now they could buy something nice. Just so long as when another child was born, the affection he’d had for Helena wouldn’t fade in preference for a child of his own loins.
‘And you,’ he went on, his round, brown eyes shining. ‘You can ’ave a lot more nice things.’ Since leaving his job behind a counter his speech had roughened again, but she didn’t care.
‘I’m happy with what I’ve got,’ she said, but her mind was on putting away a bit each week towards the rent of a nicer flat, her heart’s desire.
Albert grimaced. ‘I’ve ’ated seeing yer scrimping and scraping ter look decent. Now yer can buy something really nice for yerself.’
Eveline laughed in sheer pleasure, viewing the coins spread across the kitchen table. Yes, a dress, new hat, another pair of stockings, a few bits of underclothing, she’d start putting a bit away each week from the better housekeeping, dividing it between three tins – one for clothing for herself and Helena, one to paying back the rest of Gran’s generous loan and one towards the day they’d move into a new flat as good and nicely kept as Connie’s. She would try not to let the feeling of superiority it would give her show, though it was already creeping in, as close and loving towards Connie as she was.
Connie stood in the centre of the as-yet empty Finnis Street flat. ‘Eveline, I’m thrilled to bits for you.’
It was said with genuine pleasure that made all sense of superiority melt into humility. ‘It’s not as nice as yours,’ she said quickly. ‘I’d have liked it to have been higher and have all the views you’ve got.’
A third-floor flat. There hadn’t been a lot of choice really, since few were willing to exchange to a basement; it could have meant waiting months for a transfer. This flat had come up suddenly, its elderly tenant having died. It had been the only one on offer and Eveline had felt she couldn’t wait much longer, so eager was she to get out of her dingy old letting.
Excitement clutched at her every time she glanced around at this new place. In the next block to his mother and brother, Albert had said, ‘I can keep an eye on ’er. With me brother courting, out most evenings, I can pop in there any time.’
With Wilmott Street separated from Finnis Street by the school, he’d never had time before to chase over there, with his studies meaning him wasting time walking even that small distance. Now he was happy, so long as he didn’t start spending all his time with his mother, Eveline thought, perhaps a little unkindly.
Connie was saying, ‘Except that you won’t have so many flights of stairs to climb as I,’ and for the first time Eveline realised the difficulty one had with a small child and a pushchair or pram.
She thought of the three flights she must now climb. In her basement flat all she’d had to do was ease Helena’s pram down the eight shallow steps, often leaving it outside the door. Here there’d now be three flights to struggle with. How much worse was it then for Connie? Along with lots of mothers she had solved the problem by carrying the child up first, leaving her secure in her highchair while she’d go back down for the lightened vehicle. ‘Still, she is getting older,’ Connie said. ‘Eventually I won’t need to go through that chore.’
Often several empty perambulators would be left unattended inside the entrance, getting in other people’s way. At times it caused quite a few angry words among tenants.
‘Maybe one day,’ she went on, ‘George will get another promotion and you never know, we might even be able to find ourselves a nice little house.’
As she left, Connie’s thoughts strayed to the fine house her parents owned, with staff, and a motor car driven by a chauffeur. She thought often about them, comparing their lifestyle with her own. What if she hadn’t met George? Her life would now be rather like theirs, with a lovely home and servants. She would never have known hardship or the misery of her separation from them; her father would still dote on her no doubt, and on his granddaughter. But she wouldn’t have had Rebecca. She might have had a son, or not have had any children. She wouldn’t have known the joy of loving George, and to even think of Rebecca never having been born made her go cold. One small thing, such as meeting a stranger on a train, changes so much in life.
Wheeling Rebecca along the street past Eveline’s grandmother’s block, turning into Three Colt Lane and then into her own street, she thought the whole time of her family and bitterness settled in her breast at all the small hurts that had occurred since Father had told her to leave.
She’d had a letter from her sister Verity earlier this year, the first in over a year. ‘I do wish Father would try to forgive you,’ she had included, even now after all this time ignorant of the pain those few words had caused.
Married now, Verity and her husband had a fine house, but it seemed money did not always bring happiness. Last year she had given birth to a stillborn son. She herself had been terribly ill. But not one word of it had reached Connie until this year, and it was hurtful; her own mother had decided not to convey the sad news to her. Verity’s eventual letter had said Father had been filled with grief at losing his first grandson, having looked forward to being a grandfather! She had almost torn her sister’s letter to pieces in anger. How could he not acknowledge that he was already a grandfather? How could he spurn a little child, his own granddaughter?
She had written back to Verity in case she had wondered why she hadn’t sent her condolences at the time, saying how sorry she was about her loss, that she’d had no idea and to please keep in touch, but so far there had been no reply. Out of a sense of duty she had also written to Mother, again receiving no reply. Remembering Mother’s previous cold welcome she had kept away. But so many times her parents’ faces floated through her head, together with those of Verity and her younger brothers, causing such pain as to bring her to tears – tears which she would wipe swiftly away in suppressed fury before turning her mind to other things.
Apart from her little family’s needs, other things meant concentrating on suffragette news. Despite all efforts, all the promises and negotiations, they were as
far away from women’s suffrage as ever. It was so disheartening at times and sometimes it felt that even their leaders who strove so hard to keep everyone’s spirits up were losing heart.
It showed in the dissension between the different unions, especially between the WSPU, who still claimed that strong-arm tactics constituted the only argument men understood, and the NUWSS, who still insisted gentler negotiation with parliament was the only way. She still wondered if they weren’t right.
‘I’m not at all happy with the way our union carries on,’ she said to Eveline. ‘All this violence hasn’t brought us any nearer to getting the vote. I do wonder if I shouldn’t have gone over to the NUWSS.’
‘They’ve got no further than us for all their peaceful means,’ snapped Eveline.
She could snap at times. Connie had put it down to frustration living in that horrid little basement of hers and hoped she might now become more relaxed in her new flat. ‘The government just cocks a snook at them,’ Eveline continued. ‘At least we make them sit up and take notice.’
‘By cutting telephone wires?’ Connie reminded her as they drank coffee in Eveline’s new kitchen. ‘Smashing windows, burning empty houses, throwing acid on golf courses. It merely turns the public against us, makes parliament even more determined not to give in to us.’
‘One day we will achieve our goal, you’ll see,’ Eveline repeated for the umpteenth time, as if that was argument enough. It always irked Connie.
‘How can we when all they see is our apparent irrational behaviour? We are seen as incapable of dignified argument. All we seem to be achieving is to make fools of ourselves.’
‘Such fools as they still put in prison and force-feed as soon as they go on hunger strike! Such fools that they’re so scared of any being hailed as martyrs, they’re now releasing them as they weaken and as they recover take them back into custody to start the whole thing all over again. It’s brutal. Only those who’ve been through it know just how brutal.’
That always hit home; it evoked the memory of Connie’s father leading her away, in front of all those willing to go to prison for their beliefs. She’d fall silent, as ever putting an abrupt end to the argument.
It happened this Sunday morning as she and Eveline walked in the warm sunshine with their girls in Victoria Park. This time, remembering how she’d let her father control her, yet when she’d rebelled he’d turned her out, her fingers tightened around little Rebecca’s hand, so tight that the toddler, nearly two and three-quarter years old now, protested, ‘Oh, Mummy, hurting me!’
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she burst out instantly and, for her own peace of mind, turned her thoughts to what Eveline had been saying.
She still felt she was right. Peaceful negotiations had to be the more sensible way. But she was learning to keep her opinions to herself with Eveline so set on militancy, although with a child to look after, Eveline didn’t dare join in the violence, risking being sent to prison again.
Though there’d been no more grand processions since last summer, there’d been plenty of action, some of it quite amusing. A group of women in Manchester had locked Labour Party delegates in their conference hall, others had disrupted party members’ speeches with catcalls. Some was not so funny – arson attacks, stone-throwing; in February Emmeline Pankhurst admitted responsibility for setting a bomb at Lloyd George’s villa at Walton Heath golf course. The thing had exploded only twenty minutes before workmen were due to arrive. Guerrilla warfare, she was calling it. Connie could only see it as irresponsible.
There’d been counter-violence from the public: women were spat on, rough-handled, their clothing torn. Connie wanted none of it. Not any more. She’d attend her benign little meeting in George Street, hand out leaflets, sell suffragette news-sheets and even speak on street corners, but not resort to violence.
It was hopeless trying to air her views to Eveline, and perhaps it was just as well that they had their families to think about now, keeping them away from the more aggressive side to these campaigns.
But she did realise how deep Eveline’s feelings went over this Cat and Mouse Act, as it was being called, when hunger strikers released from prison to recover their strength for a few days were taken back into custody with no remission of sentence. She’d felt more or less the same way over a recent episode when one of their foremost activists, Miss Dudley-Cambourne, a middle-aged spinster, recently released from prison while on hunger strike, came to speak to them. The woman had looked so pale and weak, having pushed herself to attend the meeting, and had been hailed a hero. She was rearrested even as she left that meeting, having to be helped gently down the steps to the street by a fellow member.
Connie remembered how appalled and sickened she’d felt seeing her conducted away, a small figure held up between two burly policemen, hardly able to stand much less walk at their pace.
She’d cringed to think of that poor woman again going through that ordeal, knowing the brave woman would never give in; an indomitable spirit burned in that frail body. Although the ordeal would stop short of ending her life – the last thing the authorities wanted was to be vilified by the press – it could cause irrevocable harm for the rest of her days, even shorten them.
Of course Connie felt as strongly about these cat and mouse tactics as anyone, but to her secret shame could only guess what it must be like while Eveline, having had a taste, had never forgotten it and to this day remained touched by it. But she did miss those spectacular marches. She told Eveline so as they walked their daughters to Victoria Park that first Sunday in June.
‘I still think it was the only way to really impress the government.’
‘I don’t!’ Eveline said. ‘We’re no further on than we ever were, still pleading to be taken seriously, still taken for silly women making trouble.’
Connie wanted to snap back that violence wasn’t helping either, but held her tongue for the sake of friendship and walked on silently beside her.
With no response from Connie to her comment, Eveline lifted her gaze to the tranquil blue sky, her thoughts turning to how well she felt with the world lately. She’d found a new status – her nice flat, a few bits of new furniture instead of shabby second-hand stuff. Admittedly they were having to pay weekly for it so it wasn’t exactly theirs but it felt like it. She now had sunlight pouring into her new home, making her feel she could breathe at last.
She’d invited Mum and Dad; Mum had looked around approvingly, and had even played with Helena, as any good grandmother should, if only for a moment or two.
Most of all she felt more on a par with Connie; the old jealousies were now dying away. She looked at their two toddlers a little way ahead, holding hands and laughing at whatever two-to-three-year-olds laugh about. They’d become such close companions they could easily have been sisters, both of them with fair hair though Helena’s was the darker by a shade or two.
Eveline lifted her chin proudly, pleased to note that her daughter was just as nicely dressed these days as Connie’s, her strong little legs peeping out from beneath the pale blue frock, her pretty face framed by a frilled bonnet bought from a proper shop rather than from a second-hand stall.
She too could now dress as well as Connie, as far as money allowed. Her well-fitting brown tweed skirt and fully lined Jap-silk blouse with its pleated yoke and high neck and turn-back cuffs may not have been from the best shop in the world, but one could ape the wealthy well enough these days. The blouse had cost six shillings and nine pence and the tweed skirt ten shillings. They were for Sunday best only or when she and Connie took their children for an airing in the park. A bit extravagant on Albert’s wages maybe, but worth it.
She’d not told him how much it had cost. He’d thought she’d got it all off a Petticoat Lane stall and marvelled that she’d found something so nice and apparently so cheap. But a white lie did no harm and she’d seen that he hadn’t gone short on good meals, although she herself had done without for a while. And she felt justified in having s
uch a nice outfit that pleased him.
Wednesday evening George looked up from reading the Evening Standard to glance across from his armchair to Connie sitting in hers, busily knitting a cardigan for Rebecca. ‘I’ve just been reading that one of your suffragettes tried to kill herself today.’
The click of Connie’s knitting needles came to an abrupt stop and she looked sharply up at him. ‘What?’
‘It says here,’ he glanced again at the paragraph and began to quote, ‘“At today’s Derby a young woman ran on to the course and fell under the King’s horse Anmer, sustaining an injury to her head and was taken to hospital.” They’ve a picture of it here.’
Connie let her knitting fall on to her lap as he handed the paper to her. Apart from a blurred photo there was little more to read except that the woman’s name was quoted as Emily Wilding Davison. It was a dramatic picture, horse and jockey lying on the ground, the woman’s curled body nearby. Connie just hoped she hadn’t been too hurt.
The rest of the week she glanced through George’s newspaper but nothing more was said and she guessed the woman must have recovered. But on the Sunday they learned that Emily Davison had died of a fractured skull without having recovered consciousness.
Apparently she had told no one of her intention, but it was obvious she had meant to do what she did by running straight out in front of an oncoming horse racing towards her at top speed. In her jacket were found two folded WSPU flags. It could only have been an act of martyrdom and Saturday the fourteenth of June was already being set aside for a huge funeral procession for her.
As with every branch across the country, the one in George Street convened a special meeting. Everyone wanted to represent their branch and Connie and Eveline were no exception. It was important to everyone to show respect to a brave young woman. Though the government saw it as a mere suicide – Emily Davison was reported to have apparently attempted suicide the year before by jumping from a balcony in Holloway prison – to everyone else it was the ultimate sacrifice to bring women’s fight for freedom to public attention. To them all it was martyrdom. Her name would live on for ever.
