A Mad, Wicked Folly

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  His gaze flickered to my book briefly and then away. “The application window is not open.”

  “Oh,” I said. I pulled my sketchbook back and clutched it to my side, embarrassed.

  “It opens in April. All work must be submitted for consideration by the end of April, along with a letter of reference from an instructor or one from an artist alumnus of the school. If you’re accepted, you’ll sit the exam in July.” He regarded me over his half-moon spectacles. “I should warn you, though, we only accept very serious students of the highest quality. This school turns out professional artists. If you plan to get married and have children, this may be a waste of time for you. Perhaps you should discuss things further with your parents to see what would be best for your future.” He inclined his head and started to leave.

  Before I knew what I was doing, my hand shot out and grabbed his arm. His eyes widened.

  “I do apologize, sir,” I said, finding my voice, even though it wobbled. “I plan on completing my course of study, and I very much look forward to attending the school. I’m quite serious about my work and someday I plan to see it hanging here among the works of these alumni. And not high up, sir, where no one will notice it. Right on the line of sight, in pride of place.”

  Goodness gracious, where did all that come from? I didn’t give a fig because the look of disinterest fell from his face, and now he was listening. “Now, what is required for submission?” I let go of his arm. My voice cracked, and tears of frustration were only an inch away.

  “I have some information I can give you.” The gentle-

  man went out of the room and then came back with a leaflet in his hand. “This explains it all. You must drop off what’s listed by the date there. We’ll review it and then contact you if you’ve been chosen to sit for the examination. My name is Mr. Earnshaw. If you have any problems, ask for me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I wish you the best of luck, Miss . . . ?”

  “Darling. Victoria Darling.”

  “Miss Darling. And I do look forward to seeing your work hanging amongst our alumni’s.”

  “On the line.” This time I did smile.

  “Of course,” he said, smiling back at me. “Wherever else?”

  “Good day, Mr. Earnshaw.”

  “Miss Darling, just before you go,” he said. “Present the best work you have. Very few women are given a scholarship each term. You must put your best foot forward.”

  “I shall,” I said, and then bade him good day and left.

  Outside, I took a deep breath and blew it out in relief. My knees were shaking, so I found a bench in a tiny garden nearby, and sank onto it to rest for a moment and read the leaflet:

  Portfolio Requirements

  for the Royal College of Art

  All work submitted must have been produced within three years and dated. Only genuine sketchbooks and notebooks will be considered; loose sketches will be disregarded.

  False statements made will result in disqualification.

  If invited to the interview and examination, you will be requested to

  bring further work with you.

  I stuffed the leaflet and my sketchbook into my satchel. With all that was required, what if my studio drawings weren’t enough? Put your best foot forward, Mr. Earnshaw had said. The paintings from the alumni were so good, so well crafted and inspired. The way that artist caught the light. And then the awful voice inside me began to whisper: You don’t know how to do that. How will your work measure up? And then my mother’s voice chimed in: What makes you think you have the talent? . . . Preposterous, preposterous, preposterous.

  I couldn’t think this way. Monsieur Tondreau and Bertram believed in me. I must believe in myself.

  I had, what was it? Five weeks or so before the window closed. I would just have to put my shoulder to the wheel and produce more work. Starting immediately. I wished I had subjects like the absinthe woman in France. I needed something compelling, something fiery and bold, something that would make the panel feel what my subjects felt. If I could make them feel, then they would sit up and take notice.

  Suddenly I remembered the suffragettes. I stood up and started walking. If anything fit into the category of compelling, the suffragettes and the crowd that came to gawk did. I could draw the police constables, the passersby, the suffragettes themselves. A whole litany of subjects was there for the taking. Freddy said they picketed Parliament every day. I wasn’t far from Parliament.

  I stepped into the street and waved down a hansom cab.

  Six

  The Houses of Parliament

  I HEARD THE NOISE even before reaching Parliament. Half of London must have been there. When I stepped out of the cab and drew closer, I saw the crowd was made up mostly of rough-looking men who didn’t appear to be interested in women’s suffrage. More men poured up the pavement from all directions. A few women hurried past with downcast faces, towing their children along. Some crossed the street to avoid the spectacle.

  I pushed through the crowd to get a better view.

  “Go home where you belong!” a sneering man shouted at me.

  I stepped back, unsure.

  “Shut your mouth and leave her be!” said a pinch-faced woman standing in a group of other women. She waved her hand to me: come along.

  Smiling my thanks, I joined the women and found a place out of the way of the men, next to the railing. I pulled out my pad and looked through it to find a blank page.

  The words of Monsieur Tondreau filled my mind. Draw what you see, ma chère, not what you know. I made some quick sweeps with my pencil, warming up, getting the measure of the crowd. I began to lose myself in the work, and my mind settled.

  “Are you drawing that for the newspaper, for Votes for Women?” A teenage girl wearing a straw boater peered over my shoulder.

  “It’s just a sketch.” I turned my pad away from her. I didn’t like people to look at my sketches while I was working. Especially strangers.

  “I wish I could draw,” the girl said, and then she brightened. “I’m in the poster parades, though. We wear sandwich boards and march in a line together singing songs. It’s ever such a lark. So are you drawing that for the paper?”

  An older woman standing next to her glanced around. “Margaret, don’t be so beaky.”

  The girl shrugged. “I’m only asking, Mum.”

  “Don’t know how Miss Pankhurst will be heard over this din,” her mother grumped.

  “Miss Pankhurst?” I said. “Do you mean Christabel Pankhurst?”

  “That’s why so many people are about, to hear her speak. She’ll be along in a moment.”

  I could not believe my luck. Having such a famous figure in my sketchbook would be a boon.

  “Come along, Margaret. Let’s get closer.” Margaret’s mother took her hand and set off. As I watched her tow her daughter through the crowd, I couldn’t help but think how strange it would be for my mother to bring me to such an event.

  The area around me began to fill, so I stepped back into an empty space next to a woman standing alone. I recognized her from the group of suffragettes I had seen the day I arrived home. She was the tiny woman who had been handing out leaflets. Up close I saw she was young, probably no more than a year or two older than me. She peeped out from under the brim of a hideous felt hat with wide eyes that made her look a little like a startled mouse. When she stepped to one side, I saw that a long iron chain trailed out from under her coat, the ends padlocked to the railings of the fence.

  I was taken aback. “Is that a chain?”

  She grinned widely. “It is indeed.” She spoke in a flat accent peculiar to Americans.

  “You’re American.” Most likely stating the obvious.

  “Yes.” Despite her small size, she had an air of fierceness about her. “And what of it?”

  I
turned my pencil around and around in my fingers. “I don’t meet many Americans. Are you visiting?”

  “I’m here for school. I was working for the vote in America, so I picked up the cause here when I arrived last year. But it makes no difference what nationality I fight for. It’s the same war to me.” She studied me for a moment, glancing from my face down to my sketch pad.

  “Why the chain?”

  “The prime minister made it unlawful to loiter last week, so the police try to move us on if we stop and give a speech. If I’m chained, and there’s no key for that lock, they can’t force me off very easily.”

  “Why doesn’t Christabel chain herself, as she is the one giving the speech?”

  “Because she’ll get arrested. The police arrest anyone who obstructs the pavement. And Christabel can’t do the work she needs to do in jail. She’s too valuable. If the police come, the girls over there make sure she gets away. I’ll gladly get pinched in her place.”

  “Why?”

  “Going to jail is our way to wrong-foot the law. We’re denied the rights of being citizens, so we have to be outlaws and rebels. The newspapers used to ignore us, but now they can’t. Our names and the circumstances of our arrest are written in the newspapers the next day. Or course, they’re as prejudiced against us as you can imagine, but all publicity is good publicity for our cause. And because of this we’re willing to pay the price for our actions. You see?”

  “I suppose,” I replied, just to be polite. I couldn’t begin to imagine why anyone would want to put herself in harm’s way for any reason. To volunteer to go to prison seemed extreme.

  “My name is Lucy. What’s yours?” she said.

  I hesitated. “Victoria,” I finally said, omitting my surname, not wanting her to know too much about me.

  “What? Were you named for Queen Victoria? The one who said the fight for women’s rights was a ‘mad, wicked folly’?”

  I shrugged, not knowing how to respond.

  She looked at my sketchbook again. “Are you going to join the WSPU?”

  “I’ve only come to draw.” I turned my attention back to my sketch. “I’m an artist.”

  “Well, this is your lucky day. We have need of artists,” she said. “Cristabel’s sister Sylvia is recruiting artists to assist her with a grand mural for the Women’s Exhibition in May. I’ve been helping with it and I’m sure she’d welcome you.”

  “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m very busy just now.” I admired the suffragettes’ conviction, and certainly believed in women’s suffrage, but I had little time to join such an organization. And besides, my father would have a fit of apoplexy if I became a suffragette.

  Furthermore, an artist had to focus, and that left little time for anything else. It didn’t matter if I joined the suffragettes anyway. One woman more or less would not make a difference.

  “So you’re the type of girl who lets the rest of us do the heavy lifting while you sit back and reap the rewards,” Lucy said matter-of-factly.

  “I beg your pardon! You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I glanced around for another place to stand, away from her questions, but there was nowhere to go in the crush of people.

  “Christabel Pankhurst always says that women who aren’t willing to fight for the vote are unworthy of it.”

  “I agree with the WSPU, I really do,” I said. “You don’t have to convince me.” I shifted under her frank gaze. “I told you, I’m very busy. I’m applying to the Royal College of Art and I have a great deal to do to get ready for the exam. Maybe I can donate some money or some such.”

  “Sylvia went to the RCA. Said the principal hated women.”

  My shoulders hunched up. I pressed my mouth closed and bent to my drawing.

  “I do apologize,” she said, not sounding sorry in the least. “I’ve been told I’m a bit pushy sometimes.” She pulled loose a small pin from her jacket. “Maybe you’ll accept this gift.” She reached over and fastened it to the lapel of my coat, giving the pin an emphatic tap with the tips of her fingers. “I hope you’ll wear it proudly.”

  I pulled my lapel up and looked at it. It was an enameled striped shield with WSPU stamped on the top and the phrase DEEDS NOT WORDS written underneath.

  “If you want to make a donation, when you have the time, bring it to the headquarters.” She handed me a leaflet. “Clement’s Inn, just off the Strand.”

  Without looking at it, I shoved the pamphlet into my sketchbook, and turned away from Lucy. What an annoying know-all!

  “Here she comes!” someone from the crowd shouted.

  I stood on my tiptoes and craned my neck for a better look. The crowd near the Members’ Entrance had parted to allow a dainty woman through. Several women flocked around her, protecting her. One set a wooden parlor chair down and helped her up onto it so that the crowd could see her better.

  “There she is,” Lucy said, rapt.

  I began a quick sketch. Christabel Pankhurst was even prettier in person than in her photos. She was dressed in a coral-colored lace frock with a wide sash across one shoulder. The sash read Women’s Social and Political Union. She had a sweet appearance, with delicate features and curly brown hair that framed her face. But her countenance was not sweet. She glowered down at the restless crowd. Several men moved up to stand in front of her, arms folded and faces grim. Another man leaned against the railing right to the side of her with a sneer upon his face. If she was afraid of them, she did not show it.

  And then her stalwart expression collapsed, changing to one of dismay. I turned around and saw a square black wagon pulled by two dray horses approaching.

  “Here come the coppers,” Lucy said under her breath. “And they didn’t even give her a chance to speak.”

  The women around Christabel closed ranks. Two helped her down from the chair; another threw a cloak over her head and bundled her off toward Westminster Bridge. The pinch-faced woman and the others followed. Margaret and her mother hurried away toward Old Palace Yard.

  “You’d better scarper,” Lucy said to me. “Quickly, unless you want to get arrested, and I doubt that you do.”

  But I did not heed her. I had entered the fervor that gripped me whenever I saw something I wanted to draw. It was always the same. It was as if something possessed me and forced me to capture the scene unfolding in front of me. I began a new sketch of the police van, hurrying to lay down the structure of the van and to portray the essence of the placid nature of the horses, so at odds with the ominous conveyance they pulled.

  The doors at the back of the van flew open, and several constables jumped out. One of them hung back, an expression on his face as though he was embarking upon a distasteful task. He was a lot younger than the other constables, maybe only eighteen or nineteen, but he had the air of someone much more mature. He cut a very masculine figure in his uniform, with the dark-blue trousers and the long five-button tunic. He looked familiar. I had seen him before somewhere.

  I began to draw his profile in the corner of the page. He had strong facial features, with a long jawline and high cheekbones. The police constable had an expression of strength, but there was a vulnerability about him that appealed to me. He would have made a wonderful model for heroic poses, like Michelangelo’s David. I could picture him as David, standing tall, holding the slingshot over his shoulder, as if waiting quietly for the chance to unleash the rock against an enemy that was stronger than he was. (But without the stupid tin fig leaf!)

  I smiled and glanced up from my sketch. The constable was staring at me, a look upon his face as if he knew me. I recognized who he was, then. He was the young constable who had rolled up the poster and handed it to Lucy.

  With an exasperated tsk, Lucy shoved me away from her. “Go!”

  I tripped forward, and the pencil skittered across my drawing, marking the sketch.

  She faced the cr
owd. “The government levies taxes upon women as well as men, but women have no say in how that money is spent,” she shouted out, her voice calm and steady. “How can we if we are unable to express our opinions by casting a vote? This is taxation without representation. America, my own country, raised arms against its sovereign for such treatment. Now women of both Britain and America are feeling their backs against the wall and we are not willing to submit tamely and without protest to political tyranny—”

  “Oi, love!” a man wearing a bowler hat and a long canvas duster shouted. “You know what they say . . . hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!”

  “Nay, sir, hell hath no fury like a woman denied her God-given rights!” Lucy put the heckler in his place with barely a pause. “Women of the nation have made crystal clear—”

  “Clear as mud, I’d say!” the same man shouted. Others nearby laughed.

  Lucy was undaunted; she leaned forward, warming to the task. “Listen with your ears then, sir, and not your eyes!”

  “Wouldn’t do any good, lass!” the man shouted out.

  “I should think not. I feel sorry for your poor wife if you give her the same attention as you’re giving me.”

  “He hasn’t got a wife!” another man near him said.

  “No woman will have him, eh?” Lucy’s smile took the sting from her barb, and gales of the crowd’s laughter covered the man’s sheepish retort. “Now, gentlemen, if I may carry on entertaining you with my fine speech.”

  Lucy darted her eyes at the approaching constables, registering them for only a moment before turning her attention back to the crowd, which had increased greatly. More men had joined the fray—so many that they spilled out into the road, creating a traffic snarl, forcing omnibuses and cabs to trundle round them.