Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  If I have to face this, she thought, I will. Maybe it’s only a bluff anyway and when I refuse they will go away.

  ‘I don’t want to be fed, thank you.’

  ‘Then will you eat your breakfast?’

  ‘No.’

  She dragged her eyes away from the trolley and looked at the doctor. He was a well-built young man, not much taller or older than she was herself. He had a solid, square, dependable face, with a luxuriant brown moustache. Sarah could imagine him preening it in the mornings and dabbing at it genteely as he sipped his soup. It was a pleasant, presentable face, like that of thousands of other normal young men.

  The face said: ‘Lay her down on the bed.’

  ‘No!’ Sarah struggled, but the wardresses were ready for her. They each held an arm and backed her towards the wooden bed until it touched the back of her knees, and she sat down. A moment later she was lying on her back. Each wardress held one of her arms immobile with a hand and a knee. She stared up at the young man, who had one of the mechanical clothespeg things in each hand.

  ‘I shall have to use one of these, Mrs Becket. They are gags, to hold your mouth open. The steel one is more effective, but it will hurt, so I would prefer to use the wooden one if you will co-operate.’

  Sarah said nothing. She began to writhe and kick but it did her little good. Miss Harkness, the heavy slab-faced girl, sat on her legs, while still keeping a grip on her arm.

  The young doctor sighed. ‘I’ll try the wooden one first, anyway.’

  The third wardress held Sarah’s head, and the doctor began to try to force the wooden thing into her mouth. Sarah pressed her lips together as hard as she could. Even as she did it, she could feel the lines of tension spreading out from her mouth, all over her face, and the thought flashed through her panic-stricken mind that she must look like a grim, disapproving old spinster. But the young man peeled her lips back with his fingers, and thrust the wooden gag between them. It banged against her teeth. He changed his grip, and with the wardress’s help, used his strong fingers and thumbs to try to lever her lower jaw down. Slowly, horribly, she felt a gap opening between her teeth.

  He thrust part of the wooden gag into the gap, and reached behind him for the tube. But as he did so his grip loosened slightly. Sarah bit the edge of the gag with her teeth, twisted her head violently, and spat it out with her tongue.

  The sudden twist had wrenched her neck. But there was no time to think of that. The wardress gripped her head firmly by the hair and ears. Sarah stared up, helpless, at the young man’s reddening face.

  ‘All right, it’ll have to be the steel one, then, if that’s the way you want it. I warn you, Mrs Becket, the more you resist, the more this is likely to hurt. This thing is just a device to hold your mouth open while I feed you, nothing more. But whatever you do, keep your tongue down when I put it in, or it’ll get trapped. If you behave sensibly, no one will hurt you.’

  ‘You’re already hurting aaaaaauuugghch!’

  It was a mistake to open her mouth. He must have been watching for that, and he was quick — much quicker than she had imagined. The steel gag was in her mouth, filling all of it, hard cold sharp metal forcing her tongue down and her jaws apart, banging against her teeth. She tried to turn her head but the big young wardress held her firmly, immobile. The young man was bending over her, intent like a dentist, twiddling with some knobs or levers that set the thing more firmly in place, stretching her jaws apart to the maximum extent. She tried to spit it out but there was no way. Her tongue was flattened, trapped.

  Satisfied, the young man turned away, back to the trolley. There was nothing Sarah could do — arms, legs, head, all were gripped tightly by the wardresses. She tried to scream, but a high, thin, gurgling sound came out, terrifying her. Even her voice was imprisoned by this gag, and the scream brought saliva into the back of her throat, so that she thought she would choke, drown in her own spit.

  The young man turned back, the tube in his hand. He was rubbing glycerine from the jar around the end of it.

  ‘I’m going to pass this tube down into your stomach, Mrs Becket, and then feed you through it. It isn’t dangerous, but I advise you to lie still and co-operate if you don’t want it to hurt.’

  The tube came towards her, like a black snake in his hand. Sarah’s eyes were wide open, and she screamed again — she couldn’t help it. And then it was in — going in, down into her throat. Despite the glycerine, the end of it scratched, but it went past her throat and on down, more and more and more of it. The tube filled her throat so that she could make no noise, only suffer. She felt herself begin to vomit, but the muscles contracting around the tube had no effect on it so that nothing came up. More and more tube went in. Her wide lidless eyes stared at him as he methodically fed it in and in and in and she thought, that must be two feet, maybe three, nearly a yard of tube inside me, surely he can’t possibly need so much, when will he ever stop?

  Her body tried to vomit it out again and her throat gurgled and she nearly choked. She thought, what if I can’t breathe? They’ll suffocate me and there’s nothing at all I can do. She took great desperate snorts of air through her nose and thought: how thin my nostrils are, how easily they could get blocked. I had a cold last week — please God don’t let me cry because my nose often gets blocked then and I’ll die!

  The young doctor stopped feeding the tube into her. He picked up the funnel and jammed it into the other end. Then he held the funnel and the other end of the tube with his left hand, directly above Sarah’s face. With his right hand he picked up the white enamel jug.

  He looked down at her and smiled!

  ‘Here you are, Mrs Becket. Your breakfast. Best beef broth with egg whipped into it. Just the thing to put strength back into you and bring you to your senses. I’m going to pour it slowly into your stomach through this tube. All right? You’ll feel better afterwards.’

  He began to pour. She didn’t, in fact, feel anything at first. Just a slight warmth and swelling inside the tube as the soup went down inside her throat. Then, as he went on, there was an ache and a bloating feeling inside her stomach. She tried to shift her legs to ease the discomfort, and became horribly conscious of the heavy wardress sitting on them. Please God don’t let that woman move, she thought — if she puts any weight on my stomach, I’ll drown in all this, something will burst and I’ll die . . .

  There was a gurgling sound from the funnel at the top of the tube, and the young man put the enamel jug down with a clang.

  ‘That’s it, then, Mrs Becket. Now, I’ll just take this tube and gag out, and leave you in peace to digest your meal.’

  He began to haul the tube up, hand over hand like a sailor hauling an anchor out of the sea. Sarah became aware that she had a headache, and a rising tide of nausea was flooding through her. Her face, her neck were sweating. Still she could not move. The doctor bent over her and began to fiddle with the knobs of the steel gag, to loosen it from her mouth. As he pulled it out, the nausea became unbearable. She retched, and a stream of brown vomit shot out all over him.

  The wardress let go of her head, and the doctor started back. Sarah was aware of the foul stuff all over her face and hair, and she struggled onto her side, her hands free for the first time. Feebly, she tried to brush the vomit away. It was on her face, her dress, the bed, the floor — everywhere. She saw it was on the doctor’s coat and hands too — he was cursing and mopping them with a handkerchief.

  Sarah sat with her head in her hands on the edge of the bed, wondering if more would come. She wanted to do something about it, clean it up, but for the moment she was too weak to move.

  One of the wardresses took the bucket from the trolley and placed it in front of her. Then she opened the door, went out into the corridor, and came back with another prisoner, a sad, grey-haired woman in a serge dress covered with arrows, who had a mop and bucket of water in her hand.

  ‘There! This prisoner’s been sick. Clean it up, will you, quick as you can!’
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  The doctor stood by the trolley, mopping his coat. He glared at Sarah in disgust. ‘Look at what you’ve done now, you stupid woman! Mess everywhere! If you can’t take the punishment, you shouldn’t commit the crime. Learn to eat, or we shall be back again tomorrow, and every day from now on!’

  He marched out. The three wardresses stayed, watching the elderly prisoner slowly, methodically mopping the floor. She did it without comment, never raising her head to look at anyone. Sarah felt immensely sorry for her.

  ‘I’ll clean it up myself next time,’ she whispered. Her voice was so faint that she wondered if anyone could hear it. She looked up at the wardress who had held her head. ‘Do you think . . . I could have a bath, or a wash at least? This stuff is in my hair and on my dress.’

  ‘Bathtime’s six o’clock. You’ll have to wait till then.’ The young slab-faced wardress glared at her, then relented slightly. ‘But I’ll see you get a bucket of water and a towel. Whatever ‘appens, ‘olloway’s a clean prison, we can’t change that.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sarah gazed down at the woman scrubbing the slimy floor, and shivered. She felt so cold, feebler than she had ever been in her life. It has happened now, she thought slowly. I have suffered, as other suffragettes have done. And I am still alive.

  This is what men do to women. When we protest and stand up for our rights they don’t understand or respect us at all. This is the only way they can fight back.

  Does Jonathan know they are doing this to me?

  When the floor was clean the young wardress sent the elderly prisoner to fetch a bucket of water and a towel. Then they all went out and left her alone.

  For a long time she sat without moving on the edge of her bed. Even to move a finger was an enormous effort. But then the smell and the stickiness of her hair became too much to bear, and slowly, very carefully, she knelt down on the grimy floor in front of the bucket, picked up the cake of grey, gritty soap, and started to wash her hair.

  Much later, she dragged herself to her feet, and, with the towel wrapped like a turban round her head, began to totter the four steps from window to door, and back again.

  Again. And again. And again.

  Three miles a day. Making herself see the grass. Hear the birdsong. Feel the warm sunlight on her back.

  Remembering Glenfee . . .

  PART TWO

  Deborah

  6

  DEBORAH CAVENDISH stood on the verandah at Glenfee, waiting.

  Her home, Glenfee Lodge, was a three storey red-brick building of some fifteen or twenty bedrooms, standing in ten acres of parkland on the edge of Strangford Lough. In front of her the lawns sloped down towards the lough, and in the orchard the apple trees were resplendent with blossom. Away to her right, gardeners were raking out nursery beds in the walled vegetable garden and planting out seedlings from the cold frames; and all around them, birds flitted to and fro, seeking bits of straw and twigs for the nests they were building in the luxuriant creepers that festooned the south wall of the Lodge.

  She was a fair-skinned woman, tall and slim like her sister but with full breasts and a delicate, motherly face that tended to freckles if she was out too much in the sun. Unlike Sarah she had long fair hair which was wound into an elegant coiffure parted in the middle and swept back round the top of her head, like a turban. It was a style that was supposed to be fashionable, but Deborah was not quite sure if it suited her or not. She was never sure of things like that. She only knew that it took her maid half an hour’s careful work each morning to pin it into place, that it made her look very similar to the fashionable ladies in The Times, and that it was very easy to pin a hat on to. She would have preferred to wear her hair long and loose over her shoulders as she had as a girl, but of course no married woman of twenty-eight could do that, it would cause a scandal.

  So Deborah wore her hair up and the hairstyle made her hold her head up too, making her delicate face look rather proud, anxious, on edge. She had a straw hat on and a full-length white dress with a high collar. There were white gardening gloves on her hands, and she was carrying a basket of tulips and late daffodils which she had just picked and was intending to arrange in the house. She had caught sight of herself in a mirror before she went outdoors and thought: I am dressed like a bride today.

  Not that Charles will notice . . .

  But he has to notice me sometime. Sometime soon. If he doesn’t, it will be too late.

  I may look like a bride but I feel like a whore . . .

  Deborah had seen the first swallows earlier in the week, and as she watched, one swooped in under the eaves of the stables to where they had built a nest of mud every year since Deborah’s marriage.

  Nine years, Deborah thought. Which means those swallows must have hatched how many chicks under our roofs: twenty, thirty? But they can’t be the same birds — how long does a swallow live? We have reared generations of swallows while I just have the one son.

  But an afternoon like this was made for hope. She looked beyond the lawns to the sparkling blue waters of the lough, where the brown and white sails of fishing boats bobbed up and down; and then glanced left, along the dusty white coast road to Killyleagh, where two horsemen were riding towards the house.

  She watched as they passed through the gates and rode up the drive. They were a handsome pair — the tall man on the bay hunter and the boy on the dapple grey Connemara pony. As they came nearer the man saw her and waved, and her heart leapt. Perhaps it would really work this time, she thought. It had been a difficult few weeks, these Easter holidays, but now that Charles was back from Egypt at least he had made a real effort to spend time with their son, Tom. And through spending time with Tom he had spent a little more time with her, too — more time than she could remember for many years. She waved back, enthusiastically. Perhaps this time . . .?

  As they came closer her son nudged his pony into a trot. He halted on the drive just below the verandah and looked up, beaming. She smiled down at him.

  ‘Did you have a good ride?’

  ‘I’ll say! Mother, I jumped the three hedges down by the copse, and the ditch! He never stopped once — ask Father if you don’t believe me!’

  She glanced at Charles as he drew up, grinning, beside Tom. Charles Cavendish was a tall, lean man, ten years older than his wife. He had a thin brown face with a hooked, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and a short dark moustache. Over the years the face had become thinner, more leathery with exposure to wind and sun. When he smiled, as he was doing now, the smile always rose more to the left of his face than the right, giving an engaging, boyish look. But I see it so seldom, Deborah thought.

  ‘Quite true, m’dear, every word! And you needn’t be frightened, either — the boy’s got a seat like a trooper and the pony’s a genuine smasher! We’ll have him out with the hunt this autumn!’

  ‘Well done,’ she said, gamely. The thought of her little boy flying through the woods with the hunt appalled her, but only briefly; she had far too many other worries now. And besides, if Tom was happy, that was the whole point of this holiday. To bring them together as a family again. Before it was too late.

  A stable lad ran up to take the horses, and Charles dismounted. But Tom stayed on his pony.

  ‘It’s all right, Harry,’ he said. ‘I’ll ride him down to the stables and untack him. I can, can’t I, Father? I like doing it, and you always say a good soldier has to be able to do everything for his horse.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Be sure to walk him round until he’s cool, then rub him down. Harry’ll show you.’

  Charles smiled, watched them go, and came up the steps to his wife.

  ‘It seems that the present was a success, then,’ she said.

  ‘Certainly. He’s a grand little pony.’

  ‘I’m glad. Tom will have something to boast of, at least, when be goes back to school.’

  ‘Yes.’ He paused just below the top step, and looked at her, still smiling. I remember he smiled at me like that on our wed
ding day, Deborah thought. Nine years ago this May, in the church in Downpatrick. Sarah said I was a fool to marry so young but I defied her. We came back here afterwards in a black shining landau and stood on the steps of this house to welcome our guests to the reception. The photographer from the Belfast Times took a picture and printed it next day, saying we were the handsomest couple in Ulster.

  Now the smile looks more like that of a general, a commander. Weighing you up even as he looks at you. Yet there is that haunting loneliness somewhere deep behind the eyes, too. It’s been worse these past two months than ever before. I wish he would let me in to touch that. Ease the pain of whatever it is that gnaws him . . .

  ‘Well . . .’ As she spoke she thought she sounded almost flustered, not quite knowing how to deal with the unexpected intimacy of such a short, friendly moment. He had been away so often in their married life, they had spent so little time together. If I’m not careful I’ll blush, she thought, and that would be really foolish. It’s so important. ‘I’ve spent all the afternoon getting Tom’s clothes packed. I think he’ll find they’re in apple-pie order.’

  It was Tom’s third term at boarding school, and tomorrow she was to take him back for the start of the summer term. It seemed that an eight year old boy needed a quite extraordinary collection of clothes and kit to last him through the next twelve weeks — cricket flannels, house blazer, rowing strip, straw boater, black gown, house tie, house cap, and a complete selection of new shirts, knickerbockers, socks, boots, stiff collars, and suits, to replace those that his wrists and ankles were suddenly poking out of. Deborah had spent most of the last week buying and labelling these things, and was heartily sick of them all.

  ‘Good. Let’s hope he keeps them like that. He can be a scruffy little beggar if he wants to. Not with the pony’s tack so far, but with his own things. Would never do in the army.’ Charles stepped up onto the verandah and strolled beside her into the house. They went up the main staircase together, to the first floor where their two suites of rooms opened one off the other. He said: ‘The fields are looking good, too. If this weather holds we should have a good year.’