by Amy Myers
‘Stand away, please!’ he bellowed. ‘Keep well away from the ditches, if you please.’
Two tiny tots, busy investigating the stickleback content of the River Crain as it emerged from underneath the shallow bridge of the road and across the line of the ditch, obediently scuttled for safety.
Tilly regarded the Common balefully through the windows of the imposing house on Mount Pleasant. Tunbridge Wells was neither one thing nor the other; not the battleground of London, nor the quiet thinking ground of Ashden. At least once upon a time girls, boys, and whole families had enjoyed themselves walking on the Common here; now, it seemed to be an ants’ parade ground of uniforms, discussion groups and workers of every class. Everyone, it seemed, had something to do – save her. She was gathering her strength after being released from Holloway, but she and her fellow suffragettes were still worried that this was yet another of the Government’s traps and that, whatever was said when they were released, they might still be re-arrested. She must avoid it, she had reluctantly decided. Her spirit might be strong enough to undergo the ordeal again, but she was forced to admit her body was not. Earlier this year the doctor had forbidden her to go on hunger strike again, and she had ignored him. If she went on at this rate, he said, her constitution would be so weakened she would be a prey to any disease she came across: tuberculosis, pneumonia, fevers. She could not risk it yet again, there was still too much for her to do.
‘Have you read Mrs Pankhurst’s letter?’ Penelope came bursting into the room. ‘What does it say? Pa pleaded with me to launch this knitting circle or I’d have been here earlier. You should have heard me nattering on about scarves for the war effort when all I was longing to do was to find out what Mrs P. was going to do.’
‘We’re to suspend militant activities until hostilities are over.’ Mrs Pankhurst’s letter had been circulated to all groups on the 13th, and the Tunbridge Wells group to which Tilly had speedily allied herself had delivered one to her as promised.
‘You sound rather blasé about the prospect. It makes sense, doesn’t it? We want to make people think about women and the vote, and at the moment all they can think about is the Kaiser and the cost of bread.’
‘The question is, Penelope, how long will hostilities last? Weeks? Months? Years even? Memories are short, especially in politics. We will lose all the ground we have won towards gaining the vote. Even the publication of The Suffragette is to be suspended.’
‘We must support the war effort,’ Penelope pointed out reasonably, ‘or it shows us in a bad light. Look at the Women’s Freedom League. They’ve already established the Women’s Suffrage National Aid Corps to help the poor. If Mrs P. doesn’t come up with something like that, I’m off to offer the Corps my invaluable services, or if not them, someone. Trained to do nothing, ma’am; willing to run the whole bally shooting match, ma’am. There’s us ruling classes for you.’
Tilly managed to grin. ‘How right you are.’
Penelope paused, not knowing quite how delicately she should tread. ‘Do you have plans for when you’re fully better?’
‘I did. I read that the War Office through the motoring organisations was appealing for motor-cars with or without drivers. I offered my services. I was told that the motor-car would be welcome, but that as a woman I could be returned to the bosom of my family – unwanted. I drove off in my motor-car and came straight here.’
‘Idiots. I’m glad anyway, because I want you to stay here as long as you like. Pa thinks you’re a corker. A misguided one, but a corker all the same.’
‘Even though I’m leading his daughter astray?’ Penelope’s offer of shelter, after she had come to see her in Holloway, had been accepted gratefully and immediately. It had solved Tilly’s biggest problem. She was not well enough to live on her own, nor able to return to Dover, nor, for the moment, was it advisable for her to go to Ashden. Laurence had nobly suggested it, but he had enough to do in the current crisis without hauling the cuckoo back into the Rectory nest. She had been amused to see slight relief on his face when she refused; this was what she had always loved in her brother – that he was a human being as well as a man of God. Or perhaps the two were the same? Anyway, time enough for Ashden. Give Swinford-Browne enough rope and she would be back.
Lord Banning was an amiable, vacant-looking man, who greeted her pleasantly and courteously every time he met her in the house with a faint air of surprise as though it took him a moment to recall who she was; it made her feel like an injured bird, welcome, but transitory.
‘I don’t need leading. I run.’
Tilly relaxed. ‘Forgive me. I am forever treading on eggshells at Ashden, because of my brother.’
‘He disapproves of your activities?’
‘Of course. Therefore I’m somewhat inhibited in what I say to his daughters.’
‘You mean Caroline.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Yes. You heard she was engaged to Reggie?’
‘No! By golly, she’ll do him a power of good.’
‘And what about he to her?’ Tilly asked drily, relieved to see there were no signs of regret for Penelope’s own lost opportunity. She’d be a wonderful supporter for the cause. That was her metier.
‘They’ll live happily ever after.’
‘Penelope!’
‘Very well then. They could live happily ever after.’
‘I’m going to press you. I love my Caroline. Why your doubt? Because of the war?’
‘Yes. The question is: which war?’
Belgium, everything was Belgium. For the last couple of weeks Paris had been the talk, that, and the sainted Isabel. Phoebe worried about Isabel too, but not all day and every day. She knew she must be safe, or they would have heard, whereas all those poor people in Belgium were having terrible things done to them; babies were being killed and nailed to doors, women’s breasts were being cut off, and from what she could gather, worse things were happening to women. Phoebe did not like to speculate on that for it pushed her back into her own darkness. What was she, Phoebe Lilley, going to do? Not what Caroline and Felicia were doing, she was sure about that, but everyone around her was rushing around talking about the war effort. Phoebe wasn’t going to knit or sew, and she was too young to be a VAD, thank goodness. She wasn’t sure what it entailed but it sounded messy and she hated blood. Philip Ryde had said she could help him when school started again in September, but that wasn’t exactly a war effort, and besides, Philip was old and dull, and he had a limp. He was safe, of course, unlike – no, she wouldn’t think of him. She quickly decided to walk over to The Towers on the pretext of asking Patricia if there were any news of Isabel. She wouldn’t walk up Station Road in case she saw him lounging outside the forge in the High Street; she’d go the long way round past the hop farm. She wondered whether hop-pickers would still come from London this year, or whether like everything else that too would change.
She set off across the Withyham road into Mill Lane. She liked this winding lane, which led up the hill to the mill; then she could turn off on to the footpath skirting Gowks Wood. The hill made her feel as if she had passed out of Ashden and into some brave new world of her own, a kingdom ruled by Phoebe Lilley. The corn was only stubble now, with sheaves dotting it like wigwams, and prickly as she lifted her skirts to jump the ditch into the wood. Gowks Wood, unlike Nye Wood, near the Forest, was a friendly place, filled with bluebells in spring and yet with enough room between the trees for grassy clearings. Once, as a child in her favourite glade, she’d found a fairy ring, which appeared for the mornings and vanished before nightfall. It had become a ritual to stand in the middle of it, and make a wish.
Today, her heart jumped painfully, someone else was standing there: Len Thorn. She stood still, like a cat spotting an adversary in the dark of the night, trying to ignore the thudding within her.
‘I saw you coming, Miss Phoebe. I’ve been to the hop farm. I thought I’d wait for you here.’ He grinned.
‘Why?’ she e
nquired, surprised that she managed to sound so calm.
‘This and that.’ He ambled out of the ring that once had enchanted her.
‘Don’t come near me.’ His slow tread was more sinister than if he had rushed at her.
‘You’re not afeared of me, are you?’ He put a hand on the sleeve of her voile gown and slowly ran it up and down the length of her arm. She felt powerless to move, feeling the heat of his touch through the thin material. He stared at the rounded flesh as though it mesmerised him. ‘Just a kiss, Miss Phoebe.’ He turned those tawny eyes on her, and she felt her face inclining to his as though she had no control over it; his lips were on hers, lightly at first, then his arms were holding her closer and words something like, ‘You’re a witch, Miss Phoebe, and no mistake,’ tumbled out. He held her against him hard, then released her. ‘There now, that weren’t so bad, were it?’
‘No,’ Phoebe agreed, doubtfully.
‘You sit by me, my lovely, and tell me what’s amiss that you look at me as though I were the devil himself. You sit by me and talk to your heart’s content.’
To her surprise, it seemed quite natural to pour out her feelings about her sisters and the Rectory and about how she was always being left out. He said nothing, but, chewing on a piece of grass, he listened.
‘I’ll never ever have anything to do, now that I can’t go to Paris in September. The war might go on for months and nobody cares at all. I’m not important to anybody.’
‘Everyone’s important to someone, so my old grannie said.’
‘Not me.’
‘You’re important to me, Miss Phoebe. Every time I see you, with your rosebud lips and eyes like a young doe, and hair like the wind through the forest trees, I want to kiss you.’
After all, it was rather nice, with her arms round his neck, and his lips pecking gently at her. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation of his lips darting from neck to eyes, to ear, to chin, and even inside the unbuttoned neck of her gown. The sun was pressing in upon the blanket of her closed eyelids, pleasantly warm in the still, quiet glade. But then she became aware that it wasn’t quiet. The warm breath was turning into harsh gulps, and the gentle kisses becoming harder. She was aware of the grip of his hand digging the boning of her girdle into her; she opened her eyes in protest, but, as the hand shifted and the pain receded, the other hand moved down her body to grasp her between her legs, kneading the thin voile dress and cotton of her petticoats. An ache shot up through her body, just as terror gripped her. What was happening to her, to him? His face was inches from hers, gleaming with sweat and a kind of triumph in his staring eyes. Just so must demon monsters have looked in fairy tales when they seized their prey. And she was his; she couldn’t move. She was held so tight, held in the reality of her nightmares.
She was Phoebe Lilley, she tried to tell herself, struggling in vain, and nightmares didn’t happen. They didn’t. She hit out instinctively wherever she could, using struggling arms, feet, knees and almost by accident teeth, which dug themselves firmly in his chin. Taken by surprise, he howled in pain and relaxed his hold. She was free to run from this horror, this darkness of the unknown.
Stumbling and panting she fled along the footpath, not stopping to glance behind her until at last she could plunge off it and lose herself among the rows of bines, heavily laden with ripening hops, providing a sheltered arbour of acrid dry scent. She drew deep breaths as she stopped, shuddering, terrified she was being followed. She was surrounded only by the deep silence of the fields. Or so she had thought.
‘Are you all right? Miss Lilley, isn’t it?’
Her heart sank. Pushing through the bines, alerted by her heavy sobs, was that terrible hop man Eliot, cap on his head, red kerchief at his neck, and with that threatening moustache. Instinctively she backed away, and he stopped still in his tracks.
‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. Tell me if there’s anything I can do.’ He looked so concerned that she burst out crying in earnest.
Frank Eliot wavered, undecided, cursing his luck for strolling up at this moment. Cautiously he came closer, for he had no alternative. ‘Shall I escort you back home to your father?’ he asked quietly, alarmed to see her dishevelled state.
‘No!’ How could she face Father or Mother like this?
‘Have – did –’ Frank broke off, perplexed. He had never been in such a situation. A man, for sure, and in one leap he guessed who it was, but what to say next that would not embarrass her coming from another man? Had the fellow raped her?
‘I’ve some beer here, Miss Lilley.’ He swung his luncheon bag down from his shoulder. ‘Sit down and have some.’
‘No, thank you.’
She spoke so sharply, he realised what she was fearing. ‘You stand then. But have some. It will steady you, and then I’ll take you home.’
She grabbed at the old lemonade bottle, in which some horrible looking liquid had replaced the lemonade she longed for. Fleetingly it crossed her mind he could be a white slaver, but she didn’t care. The beer tasted bitter and rough, but it did steady her, enough to say eventually: ‘I’m all right now. Thank you. I don’t need to go home.’ She was rigid with shame.
‘Look, Miss Lilley, I’m a man. It’s not right I should be asking you outright, but I must. If there’s some tramp or anyone been doing things he shouldn’t to you, PC Ifield should know of it.’
Phoebe looked at him with fear in her eyes. He was a man and, what’s more, Isabel had said he was a dangerous man. She shouldn’t trust him, but then there was no one else. ‘It wasn’t a tramp.’
‘Whoever it was, did he –’ Frank was nonplussed again. The girl needed a woman. Then he had an idea. ‘I’ll take you to Miss Patricia, she’s a friend of yours, I know, but before we go I must tidy you up a bit.’ He pretended not to notice as she shrank back against the bines. ‘Here,’ he produced a comb from the bag, ‘let me use this.’
Warily, Phoebe let him approach, and he tried to bind the heavy strands of dark hair up into some semblance of order, as he had once loved doing for his now dead wife. Then, as she seemed incapable of doing it herself, he twirled her round, buttoned up the neck of her dress, and tidied the sleeves and collar.
‘I reckon just now, Miss Phoebe,’ he said quietly while he was doing it, ‘you think men are all beasts, but we’re not. We’re most of us just like you women, scared sometimes, bad sometimes, but meaning well. And you must think what men want of women is a violent, dirty thing. But it’s not. It’s the most wonderful gift God gave us when it’s used right. It’s like electricity: used wrong, it kills you, but used proper it glows with the brightest and sweetest light you ever did see.’
Bang, right on the head. The last nail. Percy eyed his handiwork with some satisfaction. Daisy had explained it was to help the war effort, and here it was, as neat a container as you ever would see. This was the sixth, and hidden behind the log piles. There was another in the coalhouse, two buried deep in the bushes down by the compost, one in the stable hayloft and another behind Fred’s workroom. The decoy one in the Rectory cellar was the one the Germans were meant to find. At first he’d misunderstood, and thought that, despite Mrs Lilley’s instructions, these containers for food was the food hoarding he’d read about which was unpatriotic. The Government had said so, and more importantly so had the Rector. Now Daisy had pointed out to him that they had been ordered by the King to deny the Germans access to everything; transport, money, petrol – and of course food – if they invaded. After all, if the Germans came marching in demanding billets, they couldn’t fight ’em off with Master George’s water pistol, could they? They’d have to be cunning, welcome them in, and deny them food. So all the Rectory supplies would have to be hidden. All the same, Daisy had said, the Rector need not know about it just in case he got confused too.
Ten to one it was a lot of fuss about nothing, Percy thought. The British Expeditionary Force was protecting us now, and every day the newspapers were full of the glorious success our
boys were having against the Germans. War had been declared over two weeks ago and no Germans had arrived in Sussex yet. Not troops, anyway. Plenty of spies, though, until the Government started rounding up and interning all the ones they’d planted years ago, pretending to be bakers, and butchers, or – Percy stopped short. He’d been going to say bandsmen, and then he remembered Rudolf. He had liked Rudolf, German or not; he pondered this problem for some time and concluded that his Lizzie must have knocked the evil out of him, so that he was almost English really. Still, suppose the Kaiser got hold of Rudolf and made him talk; persuaded him to tell him all about Hartfield and Ashden. They’d know where to come then. Perhaps the Misses Norville had been right to fortify Castle Tillow.
‘I’m sorry, Mother, but we have to go to do our VAD training. You know we signed on for six months minimum. It’s nearly the end of August, and our three weeks’ first aid course is finished on Friday. Provided we get our certificates we have to go on to the next stage.’
‘But on Saturday, so soon. And both of you. Felicia is so young, and you are volunteers. You are not being paid.’
‘I am eighteen, and we are going together. And we have a duty, payment or not,’ Felicia answered.
Elizabeth was not reassured, but as Laurence came in from afternoon visiting, sought an ally. ‘Laurence. Caroline and Felicia say they have to leave us on Saturday for training in a hospital. That’s only four days.’
‘Where are you going?’ Laurence asked sharply.
