The young woman put aside the papers she was allegedly reading. ‘Oh, take no notice of that, it’s useless – gains like mad if I don’t remember to wind it up, which I don’t always. Jon never notices. He doesn’t know if it’s today or tomorrow.’ She smiled. ‘Would you like some coffee, Sergeant? I’m sure you’d like some, Jon, wouldn’t you?’
‘Thank you, Nolly.’
Inskip said he would be glad of a cup before he left. He’d been wondering where he’d seen her before and suddenly he remembered where, as she disappeared into what Devenish had said were his own living quarters, from whence could be heard water running into a kettle, the rattle of china. Presently there came the smell of coffee. Silence fell while they waited. Devenish seemed absorbed in his thoughts. He leaned sideways from his chair, idly reaching for a paper which was on the floor beside his desk and then ineffectively shuffling other papers together on his desk, while Inskip took stock of his surroundings. Fanatically neat himself, he wondered how anyone could work in all this mess, how anyone could have managed to accumulate such a mass of paperwork in the less than four months of the paper’s existence. But then he saw that although the walls were practically invisible under posters, notices, and other unidentifiable papers, with one wall devoted to crammed bookshelves, he began to see there must be some kind of organised chaos about the way they were assembled together in piles on the shelves. There was even a battered row of mottled grey box files, clearly labelled. It was probably due to the young woman, who now placed a cup of steaming coffee in front of him and held up a sugar bowl. ‘One lump or two, Sergeant?’
‘Three. Please,’ said Inskip.
‘Well,’ said Nolly when the sound of the sergeant’s boots on the lino-covered stairs had died away and the door to the street slammed behind him, ‘that was a close shave.’
‘You mean your timely intervention to get me off the hook?’
In fact Nolly had suggested the coffee because she noticed Jon had looked as desperate as her brother did when he was in need of a cigarette. Jon didn’t smoke but she had rightly guessed he might be in need of a diversion. ‘Well, it did, didn’t it?’ He raised his eyebrows and she gave a short laugh. He was pleased to hear it. He’d missed that laugh. She’d been unusually subdued since hearing about Lydia, after that burst of tears when he’d told her what had happened, and the remark which she had refused to explain. ‘Oh, come on,’ she added, ‘don’t pretend not to understand.’
‘I don’t. Understand, I mean. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh yes you do, Jon dear, you do.’ She began to gather the used coffee cups together. ‘But that sergeant’s pretty sharp. He already suspects you were fibbing, and it won’t take him long to put two and two together.’
His gaze travelled to the paper he’d picked up from the floor, now covering the latest article submitted by ‘Cicero’. Maybe he’d been too late, attempting to hide it. If Nolly had noticed, maybe Inskip had, too – though he couldn’t have made the connection – could he?
‘Lord, Nolly, nothing gets past you, does it?’ She looked as pleased as though he’d paid her a compliment. Which indeed, he had. He liked to think he could lie as well as the next man when the situation demanded it and thought he’d deftly steered the police sergeant away from tiresome questions. ‘You and my sister – you should meet, she’s another one for mind reading.’
‘Oh but we’ve already met.’
He stared. ‘You know Bridget?’ Not for the first time she was flummoxing him. ‘How in the world did that come about?’
‘We were introduced at a meeting at the Caxton Hall.’
He said slowly, ‘You’re talking about a women’s suffrage meeting? Nolly, Nolly, please tell me you’re not mixed up in that!’
‘Well, if agreeing with them means being mixed up, then yes, I am. And I do a bit of work for them. In a menial capacity of course. My talent for stuffing envelopes knows no bounds.’ She was smiling but he could see that behind it she was deadly serious. She said, ‘Oh, you! You’re telling me that you with your quick perceptions … you never even guessed?’
‘No. I didn’t.’ He’d been blind, because this explained a good deal that had puzzled, even worried him. The times she’d been late (no doubt after one of those meetings which he knew from his own experience of meetings of that sort tended to go on and on, or perhaps working for those suffragettes until late the previous night), those telephone conversations, probably not always from her admirers, he now realised. The visits – which he had not encouraged – from women who had not perhaps just come to goggle at the strange sight of Nolly actually working.
‘I wouldn’t have known who Bridget was, of course, but Devenish isn’t all that common a name. She was astonished that I worked with you but after that we got on famously. She’s top-hole, isn’t she?’
‘Who? Brid? Well, I suppose she does have her moments …’ He was taken aback, but only momentarily. ‘Strangely enough, I’m not altogether surprised. She’s always been wayward – but I’m astonished that she’s prepared to let something like that get in the way of her future prospects.’ He was astonished, too, to find himself angry about it, because he was one of the minority of men who believed strongly that women had as much right to be enfranchised as men. He had a profound belief that universal suffrage was a basic human right for everyone, man or woman, at present denied to the female half of this country. Hugely admiring of the courage of those women who were fighting for it, he had occasionally gone to their meetings, joined in the heckling of politicians, though he had been too busy, too involved with the problems of the Voice to respond to invitations to speak on platforms on their behalf. He had, however, once written – cautiously – on the subject in his paper, though it had not been well received and would not be repeated. He wasn’t sure where Lukin stood on the subject and daren’t risk more of his disapproval. But Jon didn’t subscribe to militancy and the whole thing was a different matter when it came to his sister – and even more, he realised, to Nolly. It wasn’t some game those women were playing, they were deadly serious in their aims, their cause was to them a matter of life and death. Disregarding the element of martyrdom which undoubtedly fired some of them, they were prepared not only to suffer imprisonment and the horrors of force feeding but also to go to the stake if necessary, he was convinced.
‘How deep into this is she – my sister?’
‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I should be telling you this, but there’s a woman she admires called Rina Collingwood who’s very persuasive and … Bridget admires her a lot.’
‘Bridget is not a woman who’s easily persuaded.’
‘We’re all sisters under the skin – when it comes to fighting for a cause.’
Nolly, and Bridget. He felt winded, as though he’d been given an actual blow to the solar plexus, and for once in his life was speechless. And dismayed, too, to detect traces of hero-worship when Nolly spoke of his sister. He could find nothing to say except, ‘Well, you women!’ As if they were after all a species hitherto unknown to the human race.
Thirteen
Kitty’s diary was usually a mundane thing, just a record of what had happened during her normally not-very-exciting day, with random thoughts and observations that occurred to her from time to time, rarely amounting to more than a page, or maybe two. But tonight, writing it up as she always did before going to sleep, she had covered page after page, as if recording every detail of yet another endless day would lessen the horror of it, perhaps even help her make sense of life turned upside down.
It was another stifling hot night and after she’d finished writing and turned out the light she threw off the bedclothes. She was bone tired, emotionally exhausted, and though she kept her eyes closed she lay wide awake, unable to get to sleep, however much she told herself she needed to. The truth was, she was afraid of dreaming again, that tonight her dreams would not be so pleasant as the last one. This time, the grey wolf was sn
arling, his yellow teeth ready to snap.
Eventually, tossing and turning, she must have fallen into a semi-doze. She didn’t know how long it was before she was suddenly jerked awake, her heart thumping, by the soft click as the knob on her bedroom door was turned and the door creaked open. She shot bolt upright. Hardly had she drawn breath to scream before the intruder whispered, ‘It’s only me, Kitty. I couldn’t sleep.’ She sat up and leaned over to switch on the electric lamp; her heart resumed its normal beat and her panic receded. Only one person would come into her room like that.
‘No. Don’t put the light on,’ Bridget said.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said again. She stood by the bed, clear in the moonlight. Kitty could see she was shivering. She reached out for her and Bridget slid in beside her, as Kitty used to do with her when they were children, when she’d had a bad dream and Bridget had been there to comfort her. Only now it was she who was trembling. Bridget – so self-reliant, in need of comfort!
‘Why couldn’t you sleep?’ Kitty asked, taking hold of her hand, uncurling her clenched fingers.
‘It’s been so awful,’ she said after a moment. ‘And I don’t know whether I’m being a fool or not. To even think of jeopardising my chances. And then what happened yesterday – to Aunt Lydia … Kitty, I never remember two worse hours than those after the police came to tell us.’
This was Bridget she was hearing. Rational, sensible Bridget, who never lost her cool hold on every facet of her own life. Making no sense whatever. Or rather, a vague idea as to what all this might be about had begun to stir, except that Kitty couldn’t see in the least what it might have to do with Mama.
‘What have you done?’
She seemed to have grown a little calmer. ‘I haven’t done anything, nor has Emma. Nor has anyone else, for that matter. Or not much, as it happens.’
‘You’re not making sense.’
After a silent moment or two she said, ‘You’re right, I’m not. Let me see if I can do better.’
‘You can start by telling me about this Emma, then. Emma who?’
‘Emma Pavell.’ Her whisper was exasperated. ‘Oh, Kitty – Emma – your maid!’
Kitty had never before heard Emma’s surname. The servants here were never called simply by their last names, as in some households. Although Lydia had never actually said so, Kitty knew she would have thought that demeaning – to both parties. ‘What has Emma to do with you?’
‘Well, we – she and I – she’s become quite a friend.’
‘Emma?’
‘Sh! Why not? Kitty, you should get to know her better. If you knew what she’s like, you’d see her quite differently.’
It was true that Kitty had never seen Emma as a person, never looked beyond the cheerful, brisk young woman who brought her a cup of tea in the morning, who had lately been doing up the complicated hook-and-eye back fastenings of her new dresses, and sometimes helped her to put her hair up. Until now, she hadn’t needed a maid of her own but she soon would have done if things had gone as expected, and it had been understood that Emma would be offered the position. She was quite handy with a needle, Mama had said, and would be quick to learn all the other things she must know. But perhaps Emma – this unknown Emma that Bridget seemed to know better than Kitty did – wouldn’t be interested.
‘What you mean to say, Bridget, is that she’s one of those suffragette women as well.’
Bridget went quiet but after a while she repeated, ‘As well? You know then, Kitty.’
‘You shouldn’t buy white dresses with purple and green sashes if you don’t want anyone to know where your sympathies lie.’
In fact Kitty had had her suspicions long before seeing that dress. For all her avowals about not wanting anything to do with them, she knew Bridget had been itching to join those protesting women, which had frightened her. Being Bridget, Kitty doubted she would be content to play a passive role in anything, and what could happen to those who chose not to be passive, those who saw themselves as activists, soldiers for freedom, was simply too awful to contemplate.
After a while Bridget said, ‘I should have had the sense not to underestimate you. But I’m not “one of them”, as you put it.’ She did not say ‘yet’ but Kitty couldn’t help feeling it was there. She went on to say how she had found out about Emma’s sympathies, and how much she admired her for the work she put in after her long, hard day’s work here. ‘But she’s willing to do it because she’s really dedicated. A woman in her position, the sort of life her mother has led – and all the other women she knows – has more reason than most of us to want things to change. It’s so hard being a woman, Kitty, but for women like them, it’s a hundred times harder.’
She wouldn’t have liked to hear it said, but it struck Kitty that Aunt Ursula was right – there wasn’t that much difference between Bridget and her brother Jon, when it came down to it.
‘She comes from the East End, you know. You can’t imagine what life is like for them. I’ve begun to feel so – so sheltered and pampered. It’s so unfair.’ Her voice shook with emotion.
At first Kitty could find no answer. She had no experience of those sort of things Bridget was talking about, any more than Bridget herself had. She longed to stretch her wings but she’d hardly been allowed to venture further than the streets around Chelsea or Mayfair, or to look out of the bars of her cage on to anything but her own tiny, proscribed world. Now, she was suddenly conscious that there was all London out there and she who’d lived here all her life knew hardly any of it. Especially not the East End, where all those terrible shootings had happened – where the murderous men who called themselves anarchists lived. The men the police suspected her mother of being involved with.
They were speaking in low voices, though no one was likely to hear them, unless they too were wandering around the house in the middle of the night. The whispers made what Bridget went on to say seem all the more alarming as Kitty learnt how she’d gone with Emma to that first meeting – purely out of interest, of course – and then to several more.
‘Let’s hope it hasn’t got to the college authorities in Cambridge, then,’ Kitty said. They wouldn’t be pleased to hear that someone who’d gained one of their coveted places was preparing to throw it away.
‘Why should it?’ Bridget answered quickly, then sighed. ‘The truth is, I’m in such a muddle, Kitty. I almost wish now I’d never made that first move. You can’t go and listen to what they have to say without sympathising with what they’re trying to do. You get drawn in—’
‘You haven’t—!’
‘Of course not.’ She said it as though what Kitty was implying was unthinkable, but Kitty wasn’t so sure she was telling the truth. Visions of Bridget hurling bricks through shop windows and facing arrest by the police, prosecution and even prison didn’t seem too far-fetched, yet she could see she was being pulled both ways, one half of her on the side of those who advocated a rational and more cautious approach to the problem of women’s suffrage, the other, more aggressive half leaning the other way. She felt horribly afraid because if it came down to it, she didn’t see Bridget as being reasonable where something she truly believed in was concerned.
‘No,’ she repeated, but this time so forcibly Kitty heaved a sigh of relief. ‘You know me. I’m almost sorry to have to admit it but I do have my priorities, and I can’t – I won’t – throw away everything I’ve worked for, so you needn’t worry. Besides, your mama might have had a point, saying all this violence only achieves the very opposite of what we want. Only hardens the politicians’ attitudes against us, reinforces their opinions of us as viragos.’
Kitty began to have an inkling as to what the quarrel with her mother had been about, but she didn’t want to get into a circular argument, the sort she knew from experience her cousin could keep up indefinitely, the sort Kitty never won. ‘What did happen on Sunday?’ she asked.
After a moment, Bri
dget told her. It was half a dozen of the more militant suffragettes out of a group she attended, despite the truce that had been agreed, who had planned that demonstration in Hyde Park during which Lydia had been shot.
‘Bridget, you don’t mean—’ Kitty was so choked by suddenly seeing the obvious explanation for Bridget’s terror when they had heard the news about Lydia that she couldn’t continue. No! Such a thing was impossible.
Bridget understood immediately what she was thinking. ‘No, of course I don’t mean that! There are plenty of hotheads in the movement, Heaven knows, but they wouldn’t go as far as shooting anyone, or even carrying a gun. Only think what that would mean if they were apprehended by the police.’
‘Then why were you so worried after we heard what had happened to Mama? You were, I know – until Emma came back and presumably told you that her being shot had nothing to do with your friends. What made you think they might have had anything to do with it?’
‘Kitty, I was only relieved that the demonstration hadn’t come off. I always did think it was a mistake.’ Kitty knew she was prevaricating, but before she could say anything else, Papa’s clock on the landing struck the hour and Bridget slid out of the bed. ‘Thank you for listening, I needed to get it off my chest. I’m going back to my room now to get some sleep. You try and do the same.’
Kitty grabbed her hand, held it tight and refused to let go. ‘Not before you’ve told me what you really came to tell me.’
She was called Sabrina, Bridget’s new friend, but she only answered to Rina.
‘You want to watch her, Bridget,’ said Emma, who had at last agreed to drop the ‘Miss’, at least when they were away from the Challoner house. She had lost her reserve with Bridget, who for her part was becoming accustomed to the forthright opinions Emma voiced. It meant they were friends, and usually what she said was common sense. But this time …
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