by Allie Burns
‘I can’t go to HopBine and have the baby on my own. And Wilfred is happy for you to come with me.’
‘And Theo?’
‘Who knows.’
Mother pulled the mask back over her eyes and sighed.
‘If we could just go home until the baby is born.’
‘You realise it’s going to have to be sold.’
That had been inevitable from the moment John had asked Wilfred for his help; but John couldn’t have known that Wilfred would view it as a business transaction rather than a call for help from his family. But her dream wasn’t over; with the proceeds of the sale Mother could buy a place of her own, and if there was enough left over she could buy the farm from Uncle Wilfred.
‘Our stay will be temporary. But it offers a haven for Cecil, too.’ Emily took a heavy blink.
The eye pillow came down from her mother’s face again and she stared at the ceiling.
‘Mother, you aren’t happy here. You cry at night. Some time away from Wilfred might show you how life could be.’
Mother hadn’t moved the whole time, but now she cleared her throat.
‘You’ve made a terrible mess of things, and this baby coming along is an added complication. Now you expect me to help you,’ Mother said.
Emily’s hands clenched. It was true in part – for the first time in a long time, she did need Mother, and was that really so much to ask? Frankly, she didn’t much care how Mother saw it, just as long as it got them away from Wilfred.
She took a deep breath. ‘You’re right, Mother, which was why I requested your help. And so, I ask: will you do this for me?’
*
Emily tried to control her own pace as she walked from De Vere Gardens with one hand beneath the bump, her coat gaping.
Alice’s house was just three streets and a small square away, but the pregnancy had shortened Emily’s gait and the muscles in her stomach twinged and pulled. In such a short distance she drew attention and passers-by stopped to ask if she needed an escort.
‘The information you gave me was a great help,’ she panted. Cecil was out at a meeting, but she lingered a moment on the doorstep, peering over Alice’s shoulder for signs of activity.
‘I suppose you’re having a meeting about your cause, are you?’ Emily asked.
Alice shook her head. ‘You’ve caught us at a quiet time.’
Emily sagged. The seeds of change fell from the very plants that grew in that house.
‘But I do have something for you to read actually.’
Emily perked up, and followed her into the library. Alice retrieved a book from the shelves and slid a newspaper cutting out and into Emily’s palm.
The Desire to Work
I can drive cars. I can repair them too, and I can plough the fields and milk the cows, but no one will employ me in either capacity. I am patted on the back for having been a ‘war girl’ and told to stand aside for the returning soldiers and ‘working girls’ all because I hadn’t needed to work before the war.
What does my future offer? Isn’t there a way that I can live my life without idleness and loneliness?
College courses for captains and corporals, schemes for sergeants, benefits and bureaux for munitioneers, but what about me and my hundred thousand sisters?
‘I should imagine that’s how you felt when you had to give it all up?’ Alice said.
‘Yes. I miss it so much,’ she confessed. ‘It was the most wonderful time of my life.’
‘You’re not alone,’ Alice said. ‘The war gave us freedoms, and it’s difficult to accept that it’s over, isn’t it?’
Emily nodded. ‘Only, despite everything …’ Emily’s gaze fell to the ever-growing mound that protruded from her stomach. ‘Despite everything standing in my way, it isn’t over, not by a long stretch.’
Alice slapped her thighs. ‘Wonderful,’ she guffawed. ‘That’s the spirit!’
‘When we return to Kent,’ Emily told her, ‘I intend to take over the farm on my family’s estate.’
‘Good for you. Good for you.’
‘And I’ll take on some women too, I hope.’
Alice believed she could do it – that much was clear. Emily told her about Martha. She’d promised her a job and she intended to keep that promise. Even with Uncle Wilfred threatening to control them, and Theo missing, Emily still had more options open to her than Martha and she intended to give her friend a helping hand.
‘Some of the suffragettes are campaigning for colonies for ex-land girls,’ Alice told her. ‘Have you considered that?’
Could HopBine Farm really be a colony? She could imagine it: the old girls – well not Ada Little and Olive Hughes, but Lottie and Hen, and Martha of course. She could rent out Perseverance Place, perhaps divide out the plots and let the women earn their own income from their bit of land. Cecil would approve of that idea, so would Father. Her mind raced away with the notion.
‘How do I find out more?’ she asked.
Alice offered to arrange a meeting with the right people, but Emily was only in London until Friday, and then they were going back to Kent. They simply couldn’t delay their escape, for risk of Mother losing her nerve or Wilfred tightening his grip. Perhaps he’d decide to come clean to Mother and not release the pension money to them after all.
‘Isn’t there another way I can find out?’ she asked.
At the door, Alice raised her palm to her forehead. ‘Oh, how foolish of me. Thursday night! Eleanor Kirby will be here for a meeting.’ Emily waited for a clue. ‘She’s organising a deputation to the Board of Trade. Bring your friend.’
She was wary of introducing a hardworking girl like Martha to a privileged suffragette. Martha might biff her on her well-to-do nose, but if they could help them turn HopBine Farm into a colony for ex-land girls then it was worth the risk.
*
Alice welcomed Emily and Martha in with one hand cupped around the flat champagne glass in her hand. ‘Grab yourselves a drink,’ she said, raising her voice above the music and chatter. ‘And then I’ll introduce you both to Eleanor. Do you need a seat?’ she asked Emily.
‘I can stand for now, thank you,’ she said, a protective hand over her ever-growing stomach as they backed towards a corner out of the way. The baby shifted about. They were close to the gramophone, so they sidled their way down towards the window where it was quieter.
‘You didn’t tell me it was a party.’ Martha, her nose crisp with powder, straightened her suit jacket, and smoothed her freshly shingled hair. Emily hadn’t known.
‘Shouldn’t you be at home in your condition?’ Cecil cut through the crowd to ask what half the room was probably thinking.
‘Yes. If I was doing things the right way, I suppose I should,’ Emily huffed.
‘Who’d have thought the war could bring out the rebels in us both?’
‘I’m not staging an uprising, Cecil,’ she said loudly.
He gestured towards his ear and shrugged. ‘I can’t hear you.’
‘No.’ Martha nudged him in the ribs. ‘She’s put others first the whole war long. You could learn a thing or two.’
‘How dare you!’ Cecil said.
‘Now, now, children.’ Alice reappeared and Cecil delivered a slow, dismissive blink to his sister and disappeared into the crowd before she could say any more.
They followed Alice to meet Eleanor, who was secreted away from the commotion, along with a few splayed-out guests in the more sedate music room.
‘Here are the land girls I mentioned. Martha just told me about the fines her friend’s factory had been threatened with if they didn’t let the women go.’
‘Twenty-five pounds.’ Martha addressed the room as if she was at a hustings. ‘Twenty-five! And the rumour is that it’s going up to one hundred. Seems they’ll do anything to keep the trade unions satisfied.’
‘It’s called exploitation and we won’t stand for it,’ Alice trumpeted. ‘Now meet Eleanor Kirby, an agriculture suffragette.’
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said to Martha. ‘But I’m on your side.’
Martha folded her arms and took a step back. It would take more than that to convince her.
‘Let’s hear what Eleanor has to say,’ Emily said. She blurted out her ambition for HopBine Farm. She was talking too quickly, but she couldn’t slow down. She wanted more than just a farm; she wanted to own a place where women like them could keep working, and be self-sufficient.
‘Now.’ Eleanor tilted her head. ‘The women we speak to have lost husbands and need to provide for their families. They deserve to work, but …’ She raised her forefinger and made eye contact with each of them in the room before continuing. ‘We mustn’t view women as being in competition with the men. Cooperation – that’s the aim.’
Percy Greenacre and the others hadn’t thought about the women when they took back their jobs. None of them would ever take orders from a woman. It wouldn’t be as simple as Eleanor might think; the women wouldn’t be in control if they did it her way.
‘What you’re suggesting will mean that women will still be taking orders from the men. They’ll get the jobs the men don’t want and they’ll be paid less,’ she told Eleanor, who wrote down what Emily said in a notebook.
‘Interesting, yes. I suppose you’re right. And would the men take orders from a woman?’
Martha sniggered. Emily didn’t need to add anything else. Eleanor scribbled again. Emily hadn’t expected this, for the suffragette to be learning from them.
She’d read about the government’s plans to rush through a bill to legalise the pre-war injustice to women. They intended to make it illegal for a woman to work in a post she wouldn’t have held before the war.
‘We aren’t equals any more, not now the war is over,’ Emily said.
‘Quite. Many women, from clerical girls to those in the factories and on the land, are disgruntled. They feel pushed aside. If we come together, then united we’re a powerful force. But I still feel there’s a need for cooperation. A move away from them and us.’
Emily shuffled in her seat. She wouldn’t mind working alongside a man, but only if he took her seriously.
‘I have a fund to help establish cooperatives,’ Eleanor went on. ‘Women would be responsible for and work their own land, but they’d toil alongside veteran soldiers.’
Martha raised an eyebrow at Emily. Could this work? These women had money, and good intentions, but they were idealists and didn’t have enough hands-on experience to know the realities of breaking into a workplace where they weren’t welcome. Perhaps she and Martha would be better off tackling this on their own.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
April 1919
The driver dropped them in Oxford Street, right outside Hitching’s Baby Store. Wilfred told them they had twenty minutes and then the car would take them home again.
‘Is there anything in particular we can help you with today, Madame?’ The assistant addressed Emily’s mother.
Emily shed her gloves, flattened them into her right hand. She adjusted the ribbons on her hat with the ring finger of her left hand. The wedding ring basked in the glory of the bright shop lights.
Mother asked if they might start with the bassinets up on the first floor. They both agreed to stretch the budget as soon as they clapped eyes on the hooded white wicker cradle on wheels, sweet little bows on the side and a delicate, pink silk lining.
On the way downstairs to the clothing, Emily lingered at the baby carriage showroom.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ asked a clean-shaven shop assistant, hands fastened behind his back.
She shook her head. They hadn’t. But she had ordered a Hitching’s baby carriage booklet and had been reading it before she went to sleep at night.
‘My eleven o’clock hasn’t arrived yet. If you’d like to know anything, please feel free to ask.’
She went straight to the Hitching’s Empire carriage and ran her fingers along the elegant handlebar. It was the most popular pram at Hyde Park. It had ball bearings in the wheels, which would give the baby a smooth ride, an important asset on the countryside’s uneven tracks. The assistant pointed at the diagonal line of three carriages.
‘Take it for a run,’ he said.
She backed it out of its space. It was marvellously light, nothing like as heavy as she’d expected. One hand on the bar, she pressed her finger pads into the lined base. A bit of give for the baby’s back. She glided down the runway in the middle of the rows of baby carriages. It bounced on its suspension. Its wheels purred. It exuded a factory scent.
‘There are three colours to choose from,’ the assistant called. ‘Brown, grey or blue.’
As she turned to glide, the eleven o’clocks arrived. A fawning couple, husband and wife, arm in arm. The woman, who hardly looked to be with child at all, and was accentuating her baby bump by smoothing it with her hand went straight to the brown Empire model.
‘The grey, don’t you think, Mother?’ Emily said.
‘We give a special discount to war widows,’ he added with a gentle tone.
‘Oh … no.’ Emily was trying to find the words to explain. She’d rehearsed them before they’d come shopping; she was going to say he was still away, home soon, but it all deserted her now.
The assistant excused himself, and suggested they make an appointment to come back. He began to run through the features of the Empire to the eleven o’clock couple. Mother lifted the price tag entwined around the handles. She raised her eyebrows and discreetly let it fall.
‘That’s very thoughtful,’ Mother cut in and then asked the assistant: ‘How much is the war widow discount?’
Emily stepped away. ‘We’ll leave it, thank you,’ she called and fled down the stairs to the counters with the gowns and napkins.
When Mother caught her up, she hissed. ‘What an embarrassment. You are a widow – that’s the story. Nothing else will do.’
Emily pretended to be fascinated by the towel napkins, rubbing them with her fingers. What was so wrong with the truth?
*
‘This place is really not bad at all.’ Grandmother spoke as if she were on safari in Africa, not a Lyons’ Corner House. She wore a grey-coloured dress and a discreet black band on her upper arm. ‘Very modern of you to suggest such a place.’ Emily took an unnatural interest in the tablecloth, certain that she’d giggle if she made eye contact with Captain Ellery. ‘The atmosphere here is quite jolly, don’t you think, Louisa?’
Mother nodded. ‘It’s rather noisy for me, actually.’
Emily gave the tablecloth her full attention again.
‘Although, yes, you’re right, Louisa, the tables are rather close together. I shouldn’t want to come here for a private conversation. But to come and say bon voyage … What’s the matter with you?’ she asked Emily, who hid a snigger behind her glove. ‘Are you coming down with a cold? You should be careful in your condition. Confinement might seem old-fashioned to you, but it serves its purpose. Far be it for me to interfere.’
‘I’m very well. It’s the excitement,’ Emily said.
‘Well enjoy it, because I don’t suppose you will find vanilla slices back in Kent.’ Grandmother took a sip of her tea and spread a thick layer of cream on her scone. ‘How’s Cecil?’ she asked, in a flippant tone.
When she’d told Cecil they were leaving for Kent, he’d wanted to talk about the Russian revolt and workers’ rights. She wanted him to think about returning to Oxford, pursuing his career in journalism. But he’d argued that the newspapers were just part of the establishment in the end. The government controlled them during the war; they ended up a part of the propaganda machine. The reporters didn’t spread a word of truth about the war.
‘Cecil, you’re a grown man now,’ she’d reasoned. ‘Ideals are commendable, but it will be a tight fit in
the farmhouse. You need to plan for your own future.’
But it was as hopeless as it always had been, no doubt always would be. Employers didn’t want him; job advertisements stated: no conscientious objectors need apply. He’d been let down by the system in his eyes and he was too young for responsibility. Perhaps he was right. But the same could be said of her and she would have to juggle the care of Mother, along with a baby, while she chased down her own dreams.
‘He’s a free spirit,’ Mother said. ‘He must do as he feels right.’
Some things would never change. Cecil was a free spirit; Emily was a nuisance.
‘And has Captain Ellery told you his news?’ Grandmother asked.
‘The trip to the coast?’ Emily answered.
The day to Brighton had been a great success, spirits raised and a lovely day had by all, but it had proven ineffective when one of the men had died a week later.
‘Days out are just not enough; we need something more permanent for those men,’ he said. All three of them were silent, hands on laps, waiting for him to go on. ‘And it will happen. The charity has a new investor,’ Ellery announced. His eyes sparkled, and a rare smile lit his lips. ‘A relative of one of the other chaps – it means we can find somewhere permanent for the men to live. Start to make a real difference.’
‘That’s wonderful, Thomas.’ Emily rested a hand on his arm, and then quickly snatched it away.
‘Captain Ellery.’ Grandmother frowned.
‘Yes. Yes.’ She dipped her head. What a fool she must look being so over familiar, and in front of Mother too.
But the important thing was that he would head up the search for a residence for the East End men. He might not have accepted his past quite yet, but he could channel his energies into something worthwhile.
When he excused himself to go to the W.C. Grandmother leant across the table and behind a discreet hand, but at an indiscreet volume, she told them that Ellery’s mother was cock-a-hoop. He’d fallen for a girl.
‘That’s wonderful,’ Emily said in a high pitch, a huge beam pinned to her face.
Once the taxi had dropped Grandmother and Mother back in Belgravia, Emily asked Ellery if they might take one last stroll in the park. Her mind had been buzzing with possibilities for the farm, and what ideas to take from the suffragettes to use as her own, and which to leave out, and he was so attentive. But she went and spoiled it all by asking the one question guaranteed to clear the smile from his face.
