Crooked Pieces

by Sarah Grazebrook

‘It is not to deny them their right to decision-making that we have asked for this meeting to be held. It is to verify the status of those other organisers who, at times, have felt that the interests of their own branches have been denigrated in the rush to create and initiate policy.’ I could see even Miss Kerr was beginning to struggle with all those long words. ‘Our concerns arise from a sense of exclusion, where integration should be paramount. We therefore wish to ascertain and ratify the status of all our members with regard to future events and activities. It is as simple as that.’ She sat down.

  It is as well Miss Christabel is a lawyer or I cannot think how she would have known how to answer.

  She rose, cool and unflustered as ever. ‘I have listened to Mrs Despard’s eloquent submission and may I say that I understand only too well the sentiments that have given rise to it. It is a wish on the part of all organisers, no matter how small their membership nor how fragmentary their endeavours, to have an equal say in the running of this giant and ever expanding movement. To stay the enactment of spontaneous protest; to squander opportunity; to ponder and procrastinate while circumstances cry out for action. Immediate action.’

  ‘But surely,’ a large plump lady in purple struggled up, ‘these actions, Miss Pankhurst, require organisation, planning? What can be wrong with consulting the opinions of the other branches before going ahead? Surely success is more likely to flow from consensus than from ignoring the wishes of the majority?’

  ‘I do not ignore them, Mrs Gallagher. I welcome them. But I cannot wait for them forever. What use is it to my mother and me if we hear of a politician who will speak in Battersea at eight o’clock on Tuesday, if we must write to every branch in the kingdom for permission to protest the meeting? It would take weeks – months, the rate some of our organisers deal with their correspondence.’

  There was a distinct rumble at this.

  ‘We do not have the privilege of three posts a day in the provinces, Miss Pankhurst,’ a thin lady in crimson called out.

  ‘Much they would avail you, Miss Cateman, for you have yet to respond to one article I have sent you.’

  The thin lady turned close to the colour of her suit. ‘I have other things to deal with. London chit-chat does not book a hall or paint a poster.’

  Miss Christabel’s smile faded and for a moment the whole room held its breath, but she merely folded her hands and gave a little shrug. ‘Precisely. Thank you, Miss Cateman for making my point so eloquently for me. As you are occupied with local matters so, too, are we here in London. That is as it should be. You attend to your concerns and leave us to deal with ours, albeit yours may lie with the parish committee and ours with His Majesty’s Government.’

  Such a clucking and squawking broke out. ‘We have a right to be heard.’

  ‘We pay our dues.’

  ‘Are we not all equal?’

  ‘We demand that our representatives be allowed to speak at Conference.’

  ‘Because we do not agree, we have been silenced.’

  ‘We will be heard.’

  ‘We desire equality with women as well as men.’

  I could not but think they had a point, for although I am sure Miss Christabel and Mrs Pankhurst know far more than the rest of the ladies put together, it is a little strange that we are fighting for justice and equality, but cannot manage it inside our own movement.

  Miss Lake signalled me to open the windows and sure enough, as soon as they smelt the rotting fish, the protesters seemed to calm down a little and begged that I should shut them all again.

  Down they flopped. Hot, unhappy, feeling themselves beaten as no army of bobbies could beat them. Beaten by one of their own.

  It was then that Mrs Pankhurst rose to her feet, calm and serene as always.

  ‘I have listened to the arguments presented here this evening and it is clear to me that there is only one way out of this impasse.’ She reached into her bag and, pulling out a copy of our constitution, tore it into pieces, scattering them like so much birdseed on the floor in front of her.

  There was a dreadful silence.

  She looked around the room. ‘I give my thanks to all of you who have come here tonight. Your past help is valued and if you wish to remain as members of the WSPU, so will your future efforts be, but this you must understand: we are not playing a game. We are not a school for teaching women how to use the vote. We are a militant movement and we have to get the vote next session. The leaders of this movement are practical politicians; they have set out to do an almost impossible task. They are fighting the strongest Government of modern times and the strongest prejudice in human nature. They cannot afford to dally with the issue. Those who cannot follow the general must drop out of the ranks.’

  She sat down and for the first time in a week the room felt suddenly cold.

  And many did drop out. Mrs Pankhurst decreed all subscriptions must be returned and there should be none from now on. Members had simply to sign a pledge saying no politician could be supported till we had been granted the right to vote.

  Miss Sylvia was deeply upset by this for Mr Hardie had done so much to help us. She and Miss Christabel had a mighty row about it one evening just as we were closing up the office. They were out in the hall so Miss Kerr and I, who were the only ones left, did not like to walk past them. Instead we were forced to linger by the door, pretending to be very interested in buttoning our coats and making sure the umbrella stand was straight, and all the time this furiousness going on outside.

  ‘How can you even think of throwing him over after all he has achieved on our behalf?’

  ‘My dear sister, we are not “throwing him over”, as you so emotively put it. This is a purely practical and necessary move on our part. Surely you appreciate that we cannot be seen to be supporting one party over another unless that party specifically undertakes to promote the Cause?’

  ‘I appreciate that Mr Keir Hardie has put his career and his reputation on the line to assist the movement and that this is pretty poor thanks if henceforth we are to shun him.’

  ‘We are not planning to “shun him”. Stop being so melodramatic. It is merely we can have no more dealings with the Independent Labour Party until it makes women’s votes an issue. Keir Hardie agrees with me himself that it is the only sensible strategy to pursue.’

  ‘And what of all the hundreds of women who have subscribed to the WSPU? Are they to be thrown out, too, because they have canvassed for Members of Parliament in the past?’

  ‘No, of course not. Provided they agree to forego all such activity from now on.’

  ‘And if they do not?’

  ‘Then they must leave.’

  ‘That is ridiculous, Christabel. You are saying, are you, that women like Mrs Despard and Teresa Billington, who have devoted themselves selflessly and at great personal cost to fighting for women’s rights, should be made to leave the movement?’

  ‘No one’s making anyone leave. They just have to decide whose side they’re on, that’s all.’

  ‘Yours or women’s, you mean?’

  There was a silence that could have cracked a mirror, then Miss Christabel spoke.

  ‘I won’t continue this discussion. You’re obviously overwrought, Sylvia. Perhaps you should try to concentrate on your poster designs and leave the policy-making to Mother and me. I, after all, am a trained lawyer and possibly a little more au fait with the real world than an artist like yourself.’

  ‘I know which I’d rather be.’

  ‘Good, because there was never really much choice for you, was there?’

  There followed the sound of footsteps and the front door opening and closing. Miss Kerr and I glanced at each other then crept out, guilty as two pickpockets to have eavesdropped on such a falling out.

  Orders went out that we must return all subscription payments. This was worse than a nightmare for we had spent so long getting them in in the first place. I was up and down to the post office five or six times a day till the man behind
the counter asked if I wouldn’t like a job there, since I spent so much time in the place. I was beginning to think I might, for the feeling in the office was very bitter at that time, with ladies coming in to complain about their treatment, and Miss Sylvia looking sadder and more wretched every day.

  Miss Annie soldiered on for she was mostly concerned with the working women and so had not much to do with all the quarrelling and agitating of the society folk. She asked me one day how I was weathering it. I said I feared that if things were not resolved soon the whole movement would fall apart. She put her arm round my shoulders.

  ‘Don’t you believe it, Maggie. It’s like a dog with fleas. It’ll bear it so long then, all of a sudden, it has to be rid of them, come what may. So it shakes and scratches itself till they all fall off, and if that don’t work, it jumps in the pond and drowns them all.’

  I could not but smile to think how Mrs Despard would feel to hear herself likened to a flea. In the end she was not, for she, Miss Billington and several of the other ladies who had been with the movement since the Wednesday meetings, withdrew of their own accord.

  I was sad to see them go for all they sometimes frightened me with their cleverness. They set up another movement called the Women’s Freedom League which I liked much better for a name than WSPU, but a name is only a name, and there is not cleverness enough in the world to make me desert Miss Christabel.

  For all the difficulty and worry of this time there was never a morning I woke without a great burst of happiness. Because I knew that today, tomorrow, Sunday – whenever he was free, I would see Fred. And we would walk and talk, and he would hold my hand or put his arm around my waist, and sometimes, when we stood by the river, or under a tree, or really anywhere that there were no galloping horses, he would kiss me. First on the cheek and then on the brow, but after ever so little time, on my mouth, which is really very nice once you get used to it – like a sort of glorious shivery pain that you don’t want to stop. A soft, warm pain melting your insides till you are squishy as a jelly. I have never felt like that before. Maybe it is because I am grown up now. Maybe when the bleeding starts it washes out everything that was there before. Maybe I am a new person. Like a butterfly unfolding, ready to fly away to the sun, leaving its dirty old caterpillar body behind forever. I hope so. I hope so so much. I want to be new and clean and to deserve someone wonderful like Fred, then I would never be afraid of anything again. Or any man.

  He is the only man who has ever touched me gently. I did not think that was possible. Even Pa, when he hugs me, manages to bang my elbow or stand on my foot or something. It is as though men are made only to be rough and clumsy, but Fred is not like that. His hands are warm and quite soft and when he squeezes my fingers it is like a secret message, telling me I am safe, he is protecting me. From what? From everything, I suppose, except myself.

  I love him, like it is quite impossible to love anyone. My bones ache with thinking about him and when I see him I feel like I could float and never have to touch the ground again. He gets more handsome every day, not that he wasn’t the handsomest man who ever lived before I met him, but his hair gets goldener and his eyes greenier-brownier and his smile snowier and altogether he is quite perfect. And he is the cleverest man I ever spoke with – more than Mr Pethick Lawrence or Mr Keir Hardie or anyone, because he is so much younger than they are and I feel sure they would not have known half what he does when they were nineteen.

  We go to galleries and concerts and sometimes to a play and once, an opera! His sergeant at work had given him the tickets, not wanting to go himself, so I wore my blue shawl that Cook had knitted me and off we went like proper toffs.

  It was a very sad story about a young seamstress who falls in love with a poet but goes off with a nasty rich old man and dies of consumption. She sang a lot when she was dying which surprised me because Mrs Carter could hardly even speak towards the end, and I could not help thinking if the seamstress had had the vote things might have turned out better, but it is so wonderful to be just anywhere with Fred. I can talk to him like I’ve never talked to anyone before, even Miss Sylvia or Miss Annie, for though they are my best friends, they are not part of me the way Fred is. When I am with him I feel I can do anything, be anything. Nothing is too great or too difficult for me, and that is because he believes it, too, I am sure. We are like two sides of a coin. Different but equal. That is how all men and women should be.

  I wish we were married then we could be together forever. I would do anything for him. Even have babies if I had to. We would have two or three nice children that didn’t get ill and a cottage in the countryside (for he took me out to Wood Green one day and it is the prettiest place on earth, with flowers and trees growing wild along the roadside).

  I wish I could meet his family for he has told me so much about them and although his father is so strict he sounds a very fine and gentle sort of person, and his sister, too. Well, they must be to have a son and brother like Fred.

  But then, if I were to meet his family, surely he would want to meet mine? It is shameful of me, I know, but that is the one thing that clouds my happiness for I know how it would be. Ma would be quiet and seem so shabby to him, Pa would drink too much, Alfie…well, I don’t know how he would be. Will would howl, and Evelyn would probably try to give him a bath. Then on top of that – Lucy. Oh, I shall not think about it any more. If it happens, so be it, but not yet. Please, Lord, not yet.

  Miss Lake remarked the other day that it was a strange thing for a suffragette to be walking out with a policeman. I asked her, ‘How, strange?’ She said because they were against us. I said Fred was not and told her how he had refused to arrest me.

  ‘But someone else did?’

  ‘Yes, but that was not his fault.’

  ‘Of course not, but he cannot always look away. What will happen when he does take someone in charge?’

  ‘They will go before the court, I suppose.’

  ‘You suppose! Maggie, do you not see that it is bound to be, the way our campaign is organised?’

  I felt quite hot. ‘Well, so be it. I thought it was the purpose of the Cause to get ourselves arrested, in which case we should be grateful to the police for their help in the matter.’

  Miss Kerr was sorting through a pile of postcards. She said nothing but I could see her smile.

  It would have stayed there, I think, but that Miss Christabel happened to be next door. Quick as lightning her head pops round the door. ‘What’s this? Maggie walking out with a bobby? I didn’t know that.’

  Miss Lake gave a picky little smile. ‘And sees nothing wrong in it, neither.’

  I waited, expecting to be torn off a strip but knowing whatever was said, I must stand by my true feelings.

  Miss Christabel, however, positively beamed. ‘How very sensible of you, Maggie. That’s exactly what we need. A foot in both camps. Does this young man talk to you about his duties?’

  ‘Er…sometimes he does, miss,’ I stammered. ‘Not always. It depends.’

  ‘Of course it does. You wouldn’t want him to think you were spying on him.’

  I blushed crimson. ‘I shouldn’t want to think it myself, miss.’

  Miss Christabel became serious. ‘No, indeed. It was just a joke. Still it would be useful to know a little of the police plans in advance of our marches, don’t you agree? It might save people getting hurt. I’m sure your young man would prefer that, wouldn’t he, to all this fighting in the streets? After all, he wouldn’t want you to get hurt. See what you can find out.’

  I went home with a very heavy heart. I can see what Miss Christabel means and I am sure she is right. Fred would do anything to stop the arrests and violence, but to ask me to quiz him and then relay it all back to the office… It fills me with a feeling of…dirtiness, I suppose. And I am trying so hard to get clean again. I will not think about it any more. My eyes are closed.

  We have started our own newspaper. It is called Votes For Women and costs threepence. It co
mes out once a month, but we have a smaller one each week that costs only a halfpenny and sells like hot chestnuts.

  Mr Pethick Lawrence is in charge and he and Mrs Pethick Lawrence write brilliant articles about the Cause. Miss Christabel tells all about how things are going and what we are to do next, and Miss Sylvia writes about the history of the movement which I find most interesting of all. I read one day how a lady was sent to the lunatic asylum by her own father, rather than let her marry a common labourer she had met while doing charity work. A doctor came to her house on the eve of the wedding and asked her if she would leave off the engagement. When she refused he pronounced her mad and had her carted off in a strait-jacket.

  I suppose that’s one good thing about being common to start with, no one’s too low for me.

  One issue had a whole section given over to asking the branch leaders what had first brought them to join our movement. One spoke of seeing children with their toes frozen off for want of shoes; one, of a woman turned on to the street by her husband so he could set up his trollop in her place; another of a mother whose baby was taken from her when she ran away from a man that had burnt her with her own iron for making a scorch on his shirt. Miss Christabel asked me what I made of it. ‘That women are no better than slaves to be treated so, miss.’

  ‘Slaves. Exactly. So we must form a slave army and drive our oppressors back to the shores of the Adriatic.’

  ‘Will they not get drowned on the way, miss?’

  ‘I’m speaking metaphorically, Maggie. Downing Street will do for now. Have you heard of Spartacus?’

  I said I had not.

  ‘Ah, well you must read all about him. He was the leader of a slave rebellion in Ancient Rome. He achieved great things.’

  ‘Did he get the slaves set free, miss?’

  Miss Christabel frowned. ‘Not exactly. He was crucified along with most of his followers, but that’s not the point. He was a fine and noble leader. Ask my sister to rake you out a book about him. His strategy was much admired, even by his enemies.’