Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He hurried after her so that she had to turn and face him before she could reach the door. ‘I see I have frightened you and that is unforgiveable. Please . . .’ He stood before her, just blocking the easy way to the door, serious, polite, making no attempt to touch her any more. Again the charming smile ‘. . . forgive me, if you can. It is only that I have admired you for so long, and sometimes the life we are given can be so disappointing. I really did not mean to offend you. Take it as a compliment, if you can.’ He reached out a hand, tentatively, to touch her face. ‘Debbie? Are we friends?’

  She put the hand away, softly, with her own. ‘I am very tired, Jonathan, and I have come a long way. Please let me go to bed now. In the morning I will try to forget everything that was said — and you would be wise to forget it too, if you can.’

  ‘If I can.’

  He made no effort to prevent her going but instead stood by the door, watching her, as she climbed the stairs. When she got to her room she hunted about for a key to the door but there was none, so she thought about jamming a chair against the door then told herself she was being absurd. Hysterical. After all, the house was full of servants and there was a thick, blue bell-pull hanging next to the bedhead if she needed to summon anyone.

  Which of course she would not.

  He’s just a little drunk and upset because of what happened to Sarah and what he had to do in the Commons today. No gentleman would dare to break into my room in the night, surely? After all, I have stayed in this house dozens of times.

  When Sarah was here . . .

  Oh, poor Sarah! You tried to tell me that men could not be trusted when father died and I wouldn’t listen, I didn’t want to believe you. And now when you’re starving in prison your charming, handsome husband does this!

  To me, your pregnant little sister.

  Why did he choose me? Perhaps it is because I wanted more satisfaction from a man than any woman has a right to have, and actually dared to have it, too, with Rankin. Perhaps that’s changed me too, and this is what I’ll inspire in men from now on.

  Or perhaps it’s something I inherited from Papa.

  A while later she heard Jonathan’s footsteps go upstairs to his own room, with only the slightest pause outside her door. But long after that she lay awake, listening to the unfamiliar night sounds of the city, and thinking about Rankin, and his baby growing inside her.

  And her sister, alone and starving in her cold stone cell.

  13

  FOOTSTEPS IN the corridor. The jangle of keys. Sarah shrank back into the furthest corner of her cell, her knees hunched up to her chin. Was there the sound of wheels, the rattle of the trolley? Surely it wasn’t the right time! They weren’t varying the time, were they?

  Perhaps the young doctor had to go off duty early to visit the theatre. So he would force-feed his patients earlier, oh please God let it not be that not now it’s too early in the day I’m not ready I . . .

  The door crashed open. A wardress came in and a man. Not the young doctor. An older man not in a white coat. This man was big, burly, in a respectable suit. His bulk filled the doorway. A heavy, fleshy man, with a solid, portentous face, heavy jowls, slightly receding brown wavy hair, cold grey piercing eyes.

  There was no trolley behind him. Thank God!

  The man watched her, mocking, eyebrows raised. Thick sensual lips slightly redder than most men’s, smiling. Look at me, woman, I am important, his pose said. He stood just inside the doorway, posed, pompous, watching for the effect of his presence.

  She looked and thought, oh my God I know him!

  Martin Armstrong.

  The man she had last seen striding briskly away from his consulting rooms in Kensington. Her husband’s pimp.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice a whisper, faint, like an old lady’s. His flesh, all that pompous self-assured bulk of it, made her squirm. The smile, his teeth between the thick lips, was worse. As though she could not fail to be delighted to see him.

  He said: ‘I should ask you that, perhaps, if it were not in all the newspapers. But I have an appointment as Assistant Medical Officer to this prison, and when the Senior Medical Officer is away on holiday as he is now I replace him entirely. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘Know? Of course not, how should I?’

  ‘I thought perhaps your husband might have said.’ The smile was still there, enjoying her discomfiture. A hand — thick spatulate fingers — strayed to his waistcoat pocket, unconsciously patting his belly.

  My husband? Does the man think I know, and don’t care? A fog began to swirl in Sarah’s head, and she thought, I’m too weak, I can’t cope with this. ‘Why should my husband speak of you?’

  ‘He and I were at college together, you know that. You surely remember the night I came to dinner with you, last autumn? We spoke of the work I do amongst the destitute families of prisoners? The hostels I work in — for orphans and the children of prisoners? They have been most favourably spoken of in Liberal circles. Your husband has even visited a few, and praised them most kindly. It is charitable work, that brings its own rewards.’

  She thought: so Jonathan actively helps this man! Praises him for work he does with young children. Oh God — what if those hostels are where the girls came from! The woman in the collecting cell said something about that, didn’t she? It’s too dreadful.

  ‘And so when I read of your case in the papers I was interested, and when your husband asked me to visit you I was happy to do so.’

  ‘My husband asked you to . . .’

  ‘To visit you, Mrs Becket, yes. In my official capacity, of course. Though I hope I may be of some help to you if I can, for old acquaintanceship’s sake.’ He sat down, on the foot of the bed, his heavy trousers an inch from her feet. Smiling, as though enjoying the power he had over her. She shrank away from him, her hands pressed flat against the hard surface of the bed beside her, to still their trembling. Did Jonathan send this monster here?

  ‘May I feel your pulse?’

  ‘Why?’ She kept her arms where they were.

  ‘I am a doctor, Mrs Becket. I have come to examine you.’

  ‘Why do I need to be examined?’

  ‘You have refused food and my colleague has prescribed treatment for that. Your husband is very concerned. Naturally, I need to know what the results of that treatment are, and if you are capable of withstanding some more.’

  ‘Treatment! Is that what you call it?’ She had meant to scream, but her throat was so dry with shame and fear it came out as a croak.

  ‘Treatment, yes. Give me your wrist.’ He took it. She snatched it back. ‘Really, Mrs Becket, I cannot act as your medical adviser if . . .’

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’

  The smile faded, the thick lips pursed together disapprovingly in the round fleshy face.

  ‘Really, Mrs Becket, I assure you . . .’

  ‘Save your assurances for the wretched little girls you molest in the house where you have your consulting rooms!’

  ‘I — I beg your pardon ?’

  ‘You heard.’

  To her surprise, he had gone quite white. If she had not been so afraid she would have noticed it more, but even in her rage she saw that his normally ruddy face had gone sickly white, as though he were suddenly afflicted with nausea. The wardress saw it too. It was the young one — the one built like a coalheaver, Miss Harkness. Sarah saw her glance at him with horror. She took a deep breath, drawing in courage.

  ‘You know what I mean! You’re not a doctor at all., Martin Armstrong, you’re a sham! I know about the brothel you keep above your consulting rooms in Kensington, the high-class prostitutes and whores you keep there for men like my husband! And you take little children in there, too, don’t you — girls of fourteen and fifteen! Where do you get them from — your brothels in Hackney? Or those charitable hostels you talk about? You introduce them to prostitution, don’t you? Or do you abuse them yourself first?’

  He ga
zed at her, appalled. Sarah was aware of the watching eyes of the wardress, over his shoulder.

  ‘That — is a monstrous allegation, Mrs Becket!’

  ‘Is it? I don’t care, it’s true! You are a liar and a procurer and a hater of women. It is you who should be locked up, not me! When I get out of here I shall make it my business to bring round a party of suffragettes to your consulting rooms and we shall see for ourselves! We shall rescue those poor girls there and the children you torment, and print the story in our newspaper. I shall destroy your reputation altogether, even if I ruin my own husband’s in the process! Tell him that, when you see him, will you?’

  Martin Armstrong sat quite still. A little of the colour had come back into his face, but his big fleshy hands were opening and closing unconsciously on his lap, as though they wanted to squeeze something. He glanced briefly at the wardress, as though for support. Then he said: ‘That is the most ridiculous outburst I have heard in my life. I can only think you are affected by a form of collective insanity, like most suffragettes. It is a form of hysteria to which the female mind is uniquely susceptible.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Sarah suddenly felt how trapped she was, helpless, quite unable to walk out and slam the door or call her servants and ask him to leave as she would at home. She had to listen to everything he said until he decided to leave. She was utterly in his power.

  ‘It is not nonsense. I am a medical man and I know. Your wild accusations prove it. I also know that if you continue to refuse to eat, you will suffer serious physical damage. Your brain will be starved of nourishment and may deteriorate further. It is my duty to ensure that your treatment continues while you remain in my care. So I must continue my examination. Give me your wrist.’

  ‘No!’

  Every vestige of his ingratiating smile had gone now. Instead, there was a frown, dark brows scowling together, a slight flush on the heavy jowls. Why did men have to be so big! she thought. It’s because of that, as much as anything else, that they bully us.

  He beckoned to the wardress. For a moment Sarah thought the girl would take her side, but after a slight hesitation she obeyed. She stepped forward, sat on Sarah’s legs and gripped her arms so tight Sarah thought they would bruise. The man felt her pulse.

  ‘A trifle fast, but normal in the circumstances. Let me listen to your heart.’

  Oh God, Sarah thought, Jonathan sent this man and now he is going to force feed me. How could any husband treat his wife like this?

  Martin Armstrong took a stethoscope out of his pocket. Miss Harkness pulled down the front of Sarah’s dress, roughly, and he listened through her slip. She saw the slightly balding head bent in concentration, and thought, shall I spit? But her mouth was too dry with fear. If I had sharper teeth I could tear his skin like a tigress . . .

  ‘Fine sturdy heart. Good pair of lungs too. I congratulate you, Mrs Becket. Your mind may be deranged, but you are in excellent physical health, and if we continue with the treatment there is no reason why it should fail.’

  He says that when he can look at my arm and nearly see through the skin, it is so transparent! Sarah’s heart was beating so fast now that she could feel it pounding in her throat. Any minute now the trolley would come. To spin things out she said: ‘What do you mean, treatment?’

  ‘The forcible feeding, of course.’

  This man is my husband’s friend, she thought. He is savage, inhuman, a torturer. He is smiling, damn him! What is it that’s wrong in men’s brains?

  She stared him straight in the eyes and said: ‘You are a devil! A murderer!’

  ‘Quite the opposite, Mrs Becket, I assure you. Your life is in my hands.’

  He turned his back on her, and suddenly he was gone, his wide leather shoes scrunching heavily on the stone floor of the corridor outside. For a moment the young wardress, Miss Harkness, stared down at Sarah, shaking. Only a second, and Sarah thought the girl was about to hit her.

  Then she, too, was gone.

  The door crashed shut. The key clanked in the lock. Sarah slumped onto the end of her bed, and drew her knees up, trembling, to her chin. She thought: I thought I had a happy life before I came to prison but I was wrong. It was all a sham, an illusion. I thought I had married a gentleman but he turned out to be a monster, a grub who sent his slimy friends to feed off me as though I were a living corpse. It’s only in here that I’ve learnt what he’s really like.

  She waited, listening, to the clanks and howls and rattles of prison life.

  Waiting. For the clatter of the trolley in the corridor outside . . .

  Martin Armstrong prided himself on his ability to look calm at all times. Calm, avuncular, masterful — that was the image he aimed at. It was useful to him not only as a doctor, but in his other dealings with women. He was a big man and he used his size to dominate others, physically and morally. Most people were in awe of him. Patients especially, of course — they were worried about their illness, often tearful, nervous, afraid. His calm reassured them. Prostitutes were similar — often flighty, overtired, skittish, drunk, hysterically excited one minute and depressed the next. Martin was able to control them by his calm, his stolidity, and, occasionally, by his strength.

  Most women were a little afraid of him, and Martin liked it that way.

  He regarded women as basically inferior creatures. They could not control their emotions because of their monthly cycles. They were physically weaker and less intelligent than men. They were obsessively interested in foolish frippery, things like clothes and music and novels and flowers.

  Some, of course, like his own wife, had to be treated with respect. He kept her in a pleasant house, with beautiful furniture and clothes and a piano and a nice garden to occupy her mind. She spent her time supervising the servants, playing with their two young children, going to bridge parties and coffee mornings and the theatre, and visiting her friends to talk about babies. He bought her presents, and she smiled at him like a happy child living in a doll’s house.

  He made love to her regularly, once or twice a week, but it was very boring. She lay on her back and thought, he supposed, of having children, while he tried to get as much enjoyment as he could without crushing her with his bulk. It never lasted long. Occasionally she became ill and then he treated her for a disease which he understood very well, and she didn’t.

  Gonorrhea. He didn’t get it very often because he examined all the girls he let rooms to in his brothels, but even he could make mistakes. He fucked most of the girls he employed but usually only once or twice, because to establish any kind of closer relationship with them would undermine his authority.

  He couldn’t afford that. They were the other kind of women in Martin’s world. Their own marketable asset was their ability to fornicate in all kinds of exciting and interesting ways, which respectable women like his wife would never believe, even if they heard about it. From this asset they made money, and he helped them. London was full of rich, respectable men who found making love to their wives excruciatingly dull. They wanted excitement, but needed discretion.

  Martin provided the discretion and the premises, and the girls provided the excitement.

  Apart from that he had no relationship at all with the girls. In fact, he despised them. They were like horses in a stable which he rode once to see if they provided a good ride, and then hired out. When his customers got bored with them he got rid of them. Presumably most of them in the end got married, or set up in business on their own, or found work in a shop or as servants or in a factory. Martin neither knew nor cared.

  Suffragettes had no place in Martin’s view of the world. They seemed to be interested in neither sex nor marriage; indeed, they did not behave like females at all. They neglected their homes, and ran around like screaming savages in skirts throwing stones and breaking windows and setting fire to things. Many of them, like Sarah Becket, appeared to actually hate men so much they could not bear to be touched. It seemed to him like a form of hysterical madness.

 
It was also very dangerous.

  As he strode along the corridor in Holloway he appeared outwardly calm as always, but inside he was shaking with anger. That appalling woman Sarah Becket — he had not wanted to help her, but because of her husband he had tried, and she had more or less spat in his face. In front of the wardress too — God knows what gossip she would make out of this, in their grubby little common room downstairs. And the worst of it was, everything she said was true.

  He marched into his office, slammed the door behind him, and paced furiously up and down the carpet. This was where he had agreed to help her husband Jonathan, against his better judgement — and now look what had happened! She and her wretched suffragette friends must have followed Jonathan to his consulting rooms; or spied on him somehow, and now they knew exactly what went on.

  He was in no doubt what would happen. Even if Sarah only wrote about it in The Suffragette, enough respectable people would read it for questions to be asked, and if the police became involved other newspapers would follow the story up. He would almost certainly lose his job at the prison, and more importantly, a lot of his patients would probably leave him as well. Some of them, like Jonathan, knew exactly what went on in the rooms in Kensington, but others would be appalled if they found out.

  Including his wife. This would make things very difficult at home.

  But it was worse than that. The girls in Hackney and Kensington paid him a very high rent for their rooms, and if the police asked them they would probably cheerfully admit that many of their clients came to them through Martin. Living off immoral earnings was a crime. Particularly if some of the girls, as at present, were under sixteen.

  I could go to prison, Martin thought. I could be shut in a cell like the ones here. All day behind a locked door and four stone walls. With filthy clothes and foul food and a bucket under the window.

  He sat down at his desk abruptly. Sweat was prickling his forehead. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and thought, what shall I do?