Suffragette Girl

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Do you think Grandpops would have approved of – of me? Of what I’m doing?’ For the first time, Florrie was unsure.

  Augusta put her head on one side and thought for a moment. ‘I think so, though I have to say he abhorred violence of any kind. He would have agreed with the principles of the suffragettes, but perhaps not condoned all their actions. He didn’t even agree with some of the wars that went on during his lifetime.’

  ‘Didn’t he?’ James was surprised. ‘But – but I thought he fought in the Crimea? Father’s always telling me how proud he is of him and how I should follow in his footsteps and join the army.’

  ‘He did,’ Augusta said shortly, ‘but it didn’t mean he agreed with it.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Of course, I knew nothing about it at the time. I was only – let me see – about ten. Although I lived on the estate and knew the family, Nathaniel was this very handsome son and heir—’ She smiled pensively. ‘So far above me – and so much older – I never thought for one moment that one day he would marry me. I do remember him going off to war, though. All the estate workers turned out to cheer him on his way, and he looked so smart in his uniform. I think all the girls in the neighbourhood were in love with him. He was away six months and came home wounded. Nothing life-threatening, though his stay in the Scutari hospital could have been the end of him. The conditions were appalling and disease was rife, never mind no proper treatment for wounds.’

  ‘But – but I thought that was where Miss Nightingale was?’ Florrie said.

  Augusta nodded. ‘It was, but he was there in the October just before she arrived in November. Later on it was so much better, but Nathaniel was lucky to survive. He was invalided out of the army because of his wound. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life, but like I say, he was lucky.’

  ‘I can just remember him walking with a stick,’ James murmured.

  ‘And we always had to sit on his right knee, never his left,’ Florrie smiled, remembering the bewhiskered old gentleman fondly. She always thought of him as a ‘Father Christmas’ figure. Perhaps, within the family, he had been.

  ‘Why did he join the army then, if he didn’t believe in the war?’ James asked tentatively.

  ‘To please his father,’ Augusta said bluntly as if it answered everything. And it did. Augusta chuckled. ‘The only time he defied the old man was to marry me.’

  ‘And did his father ever forgive him?’ James asked.

  The tone of the young man’s voice made Florrie glance at him. There was something troubling him. She knew him so well. It seemed Augusta sensed it too, for she squeezed his arm. ‘Oh, Grandfather Maltby huffed and puffed for a while – your father’s very like him – but he came around in the end. Parents forgive their children most things, you know. In time.’

  The three of them turned away from the grave and walked back to the path and to the carriage waiting at the gate. Augusta and Clara were driven to church, whilst the rest of the family and their servants walked across the fields. Edgar stalked ahead, swinging his cane.

  ‘I think he’s angry with Grandmother and – and you,’ James whispered.

  Florrie chuckled. ‘Of course he is. He doesn’t agree with all this “suffragette nonsense”.’

  ‘You’re very brave to flout him, Florrie. I – I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to go against what he wants me to do.’

  ‘Oh, you will.’ His sister was confident. ‘If you believe in something strongly enough, you will.’

  James said no more and, for the rest of the way home, seemed lost in his own thoughts.

  Florrie was dreading New Year’s Eve. This year the celebrations were at Candlethorpe Hall. She loved Gervase dearly, but like another brother. Knowing he was going to propose again, it became a game between them. All through dinner and the family games afterwards, she teased him by sitting close to him one moment when all the family were around them, but when there was the slightest chance of them being alone – even for a few moments – she avoided him.

  At last, just before midnight, during a variation of Hide and Seek, Gervase found her hiding in a huge cupboard on the landing. ‘Aha, caught you.’ He squeezed in beside her and closed the door behind him, plunging them into darkness. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’

  ‘Oh, dear Gervase, please don’t—’

  ‘Miss Florence Maltby, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ Though he was serious, there was nevertheless a bantering tone in his voice.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir, for the great honour you do me,’ she said in the same light manner, ‘but my answer must be the same as last time.’

  He gave an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. ‘Oh dear, another year to wait then.’ But there was a lightness to his tone and she knew he’d fully expected her answer. They waited in the darkness and the cold for someone else to find them. She shivered and he put his arm around her.

  ‘When are you going back to London?’

  ‘Next Monday.’

  ‘You – you will take care, won’t you? I don’t want to see you get arrested again.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t be,’ she said airily. ‘I’ll stick close to Isobel. She seems to be able to avoid arrest.’

  Gervase chuckled. ‘She does, doesn’t she? And so does Lady Lee. Mind you, she served time a few years ago.’

  ‘She keeps in the background now. She organizes us. Sometimes she marches, but she doesn’t do any – um – she doesn’t take part in anything more – well . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘In any of the acts of violence, you mean?’

  ‘Mm.’ Florrie was reluctant to discuss it with him. Whilst Gervase supported the emancipation of women, they differed on the means by which to achieve it.

  ‘Just so long as you keep yourself out of trouble, darling girl. That’s all.’ A moment later, the cupboard door opened and James was squeezing in too.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho, you two. Caught you.’

  They whispered together in the darkness, stifling their giggles, until Augusta found them. ‘If you think I’m squeezing in there,’ she chuckled, ‘you’re quite mistaken.’

  They scrambled out, dusting down their clothes. ‘So what shall we play next?’ James asked.

  ‘Charades,’ Augusta replied promptly.

  Florrie pretended to groan. ‘That’s because you always win.’

  Laughing, the four of them descended the stairs for another game before it was time to greet the New Year of 1914.

  Sixteen

  For the first few months of the year, Florrie was taken up with the activities of the Movement. She marched in protest, handed out leaflets and obtained hundreds of signatures on numerous petitions destined for 10 Downing Street. In March they joined a demonstration in Trafalgar Square. Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested on her way there and the following day her mother was arrested in Glasgow. Then Mary Richardson was arrested for slashing a valuable painting in the National Gallery.

  ‘You got off lightly,’ Isobel remarked drily. ‘Mary’s got six months. So, just be warned, they won’t go so easy on you next time. Do be careful, Florrie.’

  But towards the end of May Florrie was one of a number of women arrested outside Buckingham Palace trying to hand in a petition to the King. And this time Isobel did not escape either. They were both charged with ‘causing a disturbance’ and sentenced to twenty-eight days. But inside the jail they were kept strictly apart and Florrie had no way of knowing how Isobel was coping with her first time in prison. At once, Florrie went on hunger strike, drinking only water. She saw Isobel fleetingly one day and, by the sight of her friend, knew that she had taken the same action. Florrie lost weight rapidly and was thin and pale by the time she was released after serving only half her sentence. Isobel had been released on licence two days earlier and was waiting for her outside Holloway with Lady Lee.

  ‘We’d better get you both back to Lincolnshire,’ Lady Lee said as she helped Florrie into the carriage. ‘They’ll only arrest you again if you stay i
n London. Gervase will be here by tonight to take you both home tomorrow.’

  This time, Florrie insisted on going to Candlethorpe Hall. ‘I’ll face the music with my father,’ she said. Her voice was husky and weak, but her spirit refused to be broken. ‘It’s not fair to inflict myself on you and Gervase again.’

  Isobel laughed. ‘I don’t think he’ll see it that way.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Florrie murmured and Isobel sighed, torn between sisterly loyalty to Gervase and understanding for her young friend.

  ‘Well, I hope you’ve got this nonsense out of your system. You’re a disgrace to the family. If I had my way—’ Edgar stopped, as if unwilling to admit that he was not, in practice, the head of the household. ‘Oh, get out of my sight,’ he growled. Florrie went, glad to escape.

  Slowly, she pulled herself up the stairs, one at a time. She’d no strength left. Her hair was lank and dull. Her clothes hung limply on her thin frame and she felt ill and exhausted. But before she went to her own room, she had to see her grandmother.

  ‘My dear child.’ Augusta, seated near the window in her first-floor sitting room, held out her arms. ‘You look dreadful.’

  Florrie smiled wanly and her voice trembled a little as she knelt down beside her grandmother’s chair. ‘I know I’ll always get the truth from you, Gran.’

  Wearily, she leaned her head against the old lady’s knee and closed her eyes. ‘I used to sit like this as a little girl. And James would sit on your lap whilst you read to us both.’

  Augusta stroked her hair. ‘I’m so proud of you, Florrie. Was it very bad?’

  ‘Pretty bad, but not so awful as last time. There’s no force-feeding now. They’ll just rearrest me in a couple of weeks’ time.’

  ‘If they can find you,’ Augusta said grimly.

  ‘Oh, they’ll find me if they want to.’

  ‘And Isobel?’

  ‘She’s come home too. Lady Leonora sent us both home for a couple of weeks to recover.’

  ‘You’re going back?’ Even Augusta was surprised this time.

  Florrie gritted her teeth. ‘Oh, yes.’ The determination was evident in her tone. ‘The fight goes on, Gran. Until we get the vote, the fight goes on.’

  Augusta rested her cheek against the girl’s hair. ‘Oh, my dear girl, how brave you are.’ She held her close for a few moments and then she said briskly, ‘Now, you must ring for Beth. A nice hot bath and into bed with you. Plenty of rest and good food – that’s what you need.’

  As always, Augusta was right. Florrie slept for two days, rousing only to eat the food that Beth brought to her on a tray. On the third morning, her grandmother came to her room after breakfast. ‘Now, child, up you get. You need some fresh air.’

  Florrie snuggled in the soft feather bed and pretended sleep, but Augusta grasped the covers and pulled them back. ‘Up you get. Gervase is here. He’s going to take you for a drive.’

  Florrie groaned.

  ‘Now, I won’t hear a word said against the boy. Where you might have ended up without him, I don’t know. I know his sister was involved, but he’d no need to bother with you, now had he? He’s been very good to you.’

  ‘Yes, he has,’ Florrie murmured as she sat up. ‘Too good.’

  She exchanged a glance with Augusta and the old lady nodded. ‘I expect the poor boy’s still hoping, but I think he would’ve done it all anyway. He’s a good friend to us all, apart from the fact that he’s besotted with you. Now, come along. He’s waiting. The least you can do is go for a drive with him.’

  A short while later, Florrie descended the stairs towards Gervase, waiting in the hall below.

  ‘So, are you going to let me have a drive, then?’ She forced a gaiety she didn’t quite yet feel.

  Gervase looked up at her and smiled, though the anxiety never quite left his eyes. He held out his hand to her. ‘If you promise not to run it into the ditch.’

  He didn’t say a word about her thin face or the way her clothes hung loosely on her as he helped her into the driving seat of his motor car. But he tucked a warm shawl around her shoulders, making the excuse, ‘It can be quite draughty.’

  Gervase gave her a few basic instructions and moments later they were bowling down the long driveway of Candlethorpe Hall and out of the gateway onto the main road. Florrie turned the wheel to the right and headed towards the coast.

  ‘I’ve a mind to see the sea,’ she yelled above the noisy engine. ‘It makes me feel I’m really home.’

  They parked the car near the pier at Saltershaven, climbed the steps and passed through the entrance. The tide was in, so they hadn’t gone many yards before the waves were splashing beneath the boards on which they walked. The wind whipped in from the sea, catching the plumes on Florrie’s hat and trying to tear it from her head. But she’d fastened it firmly with a scarf for her drive in the motor car. She breathed in deeply, closed her eyes and raised her face to the breeze. ‘How good it feels. How clean and fresh.’

  ‘It must do – after Holloway.’

  ‘Now, now,’ she said, putting her hand through his arm. ‘We’re not going to talk about any of that today. Tell me what’s been happening here.’

  They walked and talked until they were about halfway down the long pier. ‘I’ll have to sit down a moment, Gervase,’ Florrie gasped. ‘My knees have gone all wobbly.’

  ‘Oh, Florrie, I’m sorry. I should have realized. I was doing my best not to fuss.’

  ‘Quite right too.’ She sat on a seat and looked up at him. ‘I’d have only got cross if you had. I’m fine. I just need a little rest and then we’ll walk back.’ She looked down the length of the pier that stretched out into the sea and said regretfully, ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end. Not today.’

  Gervase sat down beside her and stretched out his long legs. ‘They do say this pier is a third of a mile long, so you’ve done very well.’

  She wanted to snap, ‘Don’t patronize me’, but for once she bit the end of her tongue – quite literally – to stop the words spilling out. He was being so kind and trying so hard not to irritate her, she knew.

  ‘So,’ she asked, ‘what do you think to my driving?’

  He chuckled. ‘You’re a natural.’ And this time there was no hint of a patronizing tone in his voice. His compliment was utterly genuine.

  She laughed. ‘There’s no need to sound so surprised.’

  ‘Sorry – but I honestly didn’t expect you to get the hang of it so quickly.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Are you sure you haven’t been driving secretly in London and haven’t told me?’

  She shook her head. ‘No – it’s a little scary in London. All those people and other vehicles, horse-drawn and motorized. I’m much safer learning in the country.’ She touched his hand. ‘Thank you for trusting me. It was very generous of you to put your precious motor car in the hands of a complete novice.’

  He raised her hand to his lips as he murmured, ‘You’re far more precious to me than any motor car.’ The words, though seriously meant, were said lightly and, before she could make any reply, he got up and hauled her to her feet. ‘We should be getting back. I don’t want you catching a chill. Even though it’s June, it’s quite blustery and we are almost out at sea.’

  They returned to the car and Florrie drove all the way home.

  Her grandmother had been right – as always. Florrie felt so much better for the outing. The bracing sea air had brought colour to her cheeks and given her an appetite.

  ‘You’ll stay to dinner, won’t you? Perhaps we could send word to the Manor and Isobel might join us too.’

  Gervase grimaced. ‘I’d love to, Florrie dear, but I must get back to Isobel. She’s still rather under the weather. She hasn’t quite got your stamina.’

  ‘Well, it was her first time in prison. She did remarkably well.’ And then Florrie castigated herself silently. Now who’s sounding patronizing?

  At the end of June, Florrie and Isobel returned to London, where they w
ere rearrested to serve the remainder of their sentence.

  On their release, Lady Lee was waiting for them outside the jail. Her eyes were anxious. ‘I don’t know how much you’ve heard whilst you’ve been in Holloway, but – well – war looks inevitable now.’

  The two young women gaped at her with wide, horrified eyes.

  ‘War!’ they cried together and Isobel added, ‘But – but why? What’s been happening? We’ve heard nothing.’

  ‘Let’s get you home, bathed and into bed – both of you – and then I’ll explain everything.’

  A little while later, the two girls snuggled into Isobel’s huge four-poster together and nibbled at the food that Lucy had brought up to them on a tray.

  Lady Lee entered the room. ‘Are you feeling better, my dears, now that you’ve got rid of that dreadful prison smell?’

  Though she was trying to be cheerful, they could both see that she was agitated. She perched herself comfortably on the end of the bed.

  ‘Did you know about the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife? It happened two days after you were rearrested.’

  The two young women glanced at each other and then shook their heads.

  ‘Who’s he?’ Florrie asked.

  ‘The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.’

  ‘You don’t get to hear much about what’s happening in the outside world in there,’ Isobel explained. ‘They keep all the suffragettes segregated – deliberately, I feel. And we spend most of the time alone in our cells. If we’re allowed out for exercise, we’re not supposed to talk to anyone else.’ She smiled grimly. ‘It can mean extra days added onto our sentence, so we tend not to risk it. At least,’ she added wryly, ‘I didn’t. I couldn’t wait to get out of that place.’ She shuddered dramatically. ‘I don’t know how Florrie stood that awful force-feeding. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to.’