Suffragette Girl

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘I think you should know, Florence,’ Edgar had told her when the armistice had been announced, ‘that I intend to leave Candlethorpe Hall and the estate to Richards. Now that we know he is safe and will return, there is no better person to inherit. No doubt – after everything that’s happened – the chap will come to his senses and find himself a suitable wife. He should have no difficulty in finding one. There’ll be plenty of choice now.’

  Florrie raised her head a little higher. ‘And what of your grandson?’

  Edgar glared at her, his eyes hard and cold. Slowly and deliberately he said, ‘I have no son. I have no daughter. I have no grandson. The Candlethorpe Estate will be in good hands with Richards.’

  ‘I have no doubt of that, Father,’ Florrie replied. ‘But what if he should choose not to marry?’

  Her father stroked his moustache and his eyes narrowed as he delivered his final knife thrust. ‘Then everything Gervase Richards owns will pass to his nephew – his legitimate heir.’

  For a long moment, Florrie had stared at her father, then, giving a slight nod, she’d turned on her heel and left his study.

  Now, as they sat together with Augusta in the morning room discussing arrangements for their lives to return to some kind of normality, Florrie wondered if Gervase knew what her father intended.

  ‘So, you’ll all come?’ Gervase was insisting.

  ‘Well, I can’t speak for my son – or Clara,’ Augusta answered. ‘Her courage might fail her when it comes to the point, but we’ll be there, won’t we, Florrie?’ Her level gaze met Gervase’s as she added pointedly, ‘With Jacques.’

  Gervase smiled and said softly, ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mrs Maltby.’

  As she saw him out, accompanying him to his motor car, Florrie asked, ‘What, no Bates? Are you driving yourself?’

  ‘Yes, it’s much more fun than being driven. And besides, Bates’s arm isn’t quite what it should be. It causes him quite a lot of pain, and turning the steering wheel aggravates it.’

  ‘But what about your leg?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not too bad. Driving doesn’t seem to bother it.’ He chuckled. ‘But, of course, if I ever need a driver, I can always ask you.’

  She linked her arm through his. ‘It was thanks to you and your motor car that I was able to be useful in the war.’

  Gervase’s face sobered. ‘It was very dangerous work. I worried about you all the time.’

  ‘Did you? And I worried about you.’ She hugged his arm to her. ‘I couldn’t have borne it if you – if you – hadn’t come back.’

  He turned to face her and took her hands in his. ‘Florrie, I can’t wait until New Year’s Eve. I’ve missed two years already. Darling, will you marry me? And please, before you answer, think carefully. I’d look upon Jacques as my own – I promise you that. I’d adopt him, if you like. All that I have would be yours and, one day, would be his. He’d inherit everything . . .’

  Tears ran down Florrie’s face, but through them, she laughed. ‘You make it sound like the wedding service.’

  But Gervase was serious. ‘The words of the wedding service have great meaning.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, serious now. ‘And should not be taken lightly. Dearest Gervase, you’re a good man and – and deserve better than me.’

  ‘Never say that, Florrie. Not to me.’

  She was shaking her head slowly. ‘I can’t, Gervase. I can’t do that to you.’

  ‘There’s someone else? You’re still in love with Jacques’s father?’

  Florrie hesitated. How she longed to tell him the truth . . .

  But Gervase misread her hesitation. Sadly, he raised her hands to his lips. ‘I understand, my dear.’

  Before she could utter another word, he’d turned away and the moment was lost.

  Forty-Four

  Florrie was restless. Whilst Jacques was the focus of her days, the growing child had Beth as his willing slave and Augusta, and even Clara, to dote on him. He didn’t really need her, Florrie told herself, ignoring the fact that it was her he ran to every morning with arms stretched wide, her he cried for in the night or wanted close if he was ill.

  The battle for women to be allowed to vote was almost won. At the end of December 1918 women over thirty cast their vote for the first time.

  ‘Such ridiculous nonsense,’ Edgar declared at the quiet dinner party held at Bixley Manor on New Year’s Eve. They’d all been surprised that he’d come, especially as the two children – Charlie and Jacques – sat at the table as a special treat. But Florrie thought she knew the reason. Edgar didn’t want to offend Gervase. ‘They’ll only vote as their husbands or fathers tell them to,’ he went on. ‘The whole notion is preposterous. What do women know of politics or running the country?’

  Florrie opened her mouth to retort, but Augusta beat her to it. ‘What arrogant nonsense, Edgar. You really do surpass yourself at times. I can assure you I cast my vote last week and I had no need to ask you for advice before I did so.’

  Edgar’s face grew red and he ‘harrumphed’, his usual reaction to his mother’s censure. Then he looked puzzled, as the realization of what she’d just said sank in. ‘But how come? You’re not a landowner, Mother. Nor do you hold a degree.’ It was a deliberate barb, a cruel reminder of her upbringing.

  Augusta regarded him through narrowed eyes. ‘Ah, but Edgar dear, have you forgotten? I own the Dower House on the edge of the Candlethorpe Estate. Nathaniel had the foresight to leave that to me. Just in case,’ she added mildly as she glanced at Florrie, ‘I should ever have need of it.’

  ‘And I didn’t ask my husband how I should vote,’ Mrs Ponsonby put in. ‘And as for Florrie – I know you’re not quite old enough, my dear, and perhaps do not meet the other requirements yet, but when you do—’ She turned her attention back to Edgar Maltby now. ‘Surely her experiences in the war have given your daughter an insight into how the country should be run? She’s an intelligent young women and it’s in the hands of people like her – men and women – that our future lies.’

  Edgar glared around the table and muttered, ‘Then God help us all.’

  But in the following December Lady Astor took her seat in the Commons and a new era was born.

  As a new decade dawned – the Twenties – Florrie grew ever more restless.

  ‘You need a cause,’ Augusta said tartly. ‘It seems that caring for your son isn’t enough.’ She paused and then eyed Florrie shrewdly. ‘I thought you said you were going to start a campaign to obtain a pardon for all those unjustly shot at dawn?’

  ‘I was – I am, but no one seems interested to help. I’ve spoken to Mr Jervis. He was sympathetic, but suggested – very gently – that I should mind my own business and not meddle in matters that I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s too soon,’ Augusta said sensibly. ‘Emotions are still raw and the authorities daren’t admit to being wrong. Not yet. It would cause an outrage.’ She sighed sadly. ‘It’ll take years, my dear. I doubt I shall live long enough to see my poor grandson’s name cleared, but you might. So just leave it a while, Florrie. Then you can begin the fight. Talk to other relatives, get their backing. But not now. It’ll still be far too painful for them all.’

  She watched her granddaughter move restlessly around the room.

  ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, go and stay with Isobel in London for a week or two,’ Augusta said at last. ‘Jacques will be fine with Beth, your mother and me. And he’ll soon be starting lessons with the governess I’ve appointed. Though he’ll miss you,’ she added as a warning note that Florrie should not take this as a permit to stay away from her child for too long.

  So Florrie cut her hair into a fashionable bob, shortened her skirts and took the train to London, where the young danced the night away and drank champagne into the early hours. Despite her love for Jacques, the child could not hold her at Candlethorpe Hall for more than a few weeks at a time. After the excitement of fighting the Cause and being needed as a nur
se, Florrie found daily life in the countryside dull. And, even in the city, the endless round of parties, the flippant proposals from idle, rich young men, seemed empty in a meaningless existence that began to pall after a while.

  Florrie was listless and unfulfilled. If only, she thought, she could go to Switzerland. Perhaps if she saw Ernst again and told him the truth . . .? But no, she argued with herself, there was no way back. She’d made her decision and she would abide by it. For Jacques’s sake if nothing else. But just sometimes, in the loneliness of the night, she longed to see Ernst again.

  When Charlie turned eight years old in 1923, Isobel moved to the Richards’ town house for the major part of the year, returning to Bixley only during the school holidays.

  ‘I can’t bear for Charlie to be a boarder. I’d miss him so, yet I know Lady Lee wants him to go to Tim’s old school. And he would’ve wanted that too. But they’ve started taking day boys now, so we’re going to live in London during term time.’

  ‘And don’t think, young lady, that you can do the same with Jacques next year when he’s eight,’ Augusta said when she heard of Isobel’s plan and saw the devious light in Florrie’s eyes. ‘That boy stays here and it’s where you should be too, Florrie. I fought your father long and hard that James should not be sent away to boarding school until he was at least ten, and I shall do the same for his—’ She paused and glanced at Florrie with a strange look in her eyes. ‘His nephew. And whilst we’re on the subject, Florence.’ At her use of her full name, Florrie held her breath. ‘It’s high time you spent a little less time plastering your lovely face with cosmetics and smoking cigarettes in those ridiculously long holders. And you’re hiding your lovely figure – or at least you’re trying to – by wearing this new style of shapeless dress. And another thing—’

  ‘Gran!’ Florrie was genuinely surprised. ‘I never thought you, of all people, would begrudge me a little fun.’

  Augusta sighed and her manner softened. ‘Oh, Florrie dear, I can quite understand why you young things have gone a little light-headed – a little mad. You’re trying to forget the horrors of the war. All of you, I know that. And I indulged you at first because I thought – despite everything – you deserved a bit of fun.’ Her mouth twitched with amusement. ‘If I were your age, I’d be the first to try all these outrageous new fashions and hairstyles and the decadent dances from America that are all the rage. But, my dear,’ she was utterly serious once more, ‘you’ve a child to bring up. And,’ she added simply, ‘when you’re away, he misses you.’

  Florrie was torn. Her grandmother was quite right. She was trying to escape from her bitter memories. Not only the terrible sight of the wounded and dying that still haunted her nights, but also the face of a handsome Swiss doctor whom she’d loved and thought had loved her. If only she could forget. She’d tried hard enough. Tried to blot out everything with wild excesses, dropping exhausted into her bed in Isobel’s London home with the dawn light. But the visions still invaded her alcohol-induced sleep.

  The young men of the ‘deb set’ were feckless and shallow, the young women even more so. There was no substance to her life any more.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know what’s the matter with you,’ Augusta said. ‘You’ve nothing to do any more. No cause to fight for. No banners to wave. No soldiers to nurse. You’re bored, Florrie Maltby. That’s all that’s the matter with you.’ She sighed. ‘Seemingly, being a – a mother isn’t enough for you, as it is for Isobel.’

  Florrie glanced at her, but Augusta’s expression was blithely serene. Her face gave nothing away. But there were times when Florrie wondered.

  ‘There’s plenty of good works you could do around here. You don’t need to go to the capital. There are still plenty of war veterans – even five years on – who can’t find work and whose families are living on the breadline. Oh, Gervase is good and so, I have to admit, is your father, when it comes to seeing that all the wounded and maimed who live on our two estates are found something useful to do. But through the county there is still a lot of hardship. Why don’t you take up their cause?’

  She tried, but Florrie’s heart wasn’t in it. Involvement with the war veterans brought back too many painful memories. Even Mrs Ponsonby, who’d thrown herself wholeheartedly into trying to find employment for the wounded since the day of the armistice, couldn’t persuade Florrie to join in her work. Instead, each season Florrie returned to London. She danced with earls and honourables, one of whom actually proposed, but was laughingly refused. ‘You’re drunk, Percy. And what would your father say to you taking up with a fallen woman?’

  When he sobered up the next day the young man realized he’d had a lucky escape. He had nightmarish visions of his father ‘cutting him off without a penny’.

  But in the early months of 1926, there was a cause that ignited Florrie’s enthusiasm once more.

  Augusta had been reading the London newspapers avidly, no longer bothering to keep the fact secret from the rest of the family. Since she now proudly cast her vote, she deliberately turned the conversation to politics and the state of the nation at every meal time, watching Edgar’s face with mischievous amusement.

  ‘So, Edgar, do you think there’s going to be a national strike?’ she asked him over dinner one evening in April.

  Edgar eyed Augusta. Secretly – though he would never admit it in a thousand years – he admired his mother. He always had done and, in his innermost heart, though he was loath to recognize it, Florrie was very like her. If only the girl hadn’t disgraced herself by bringing home an illegitimate child, he could have forgiven her for having refused Richards’ proposal. Maybe, Edgar ruminated, arranged marriages or marriages of convenience weren’t the best idea. Not in this day and age. He glanced at Clara. His own marriage hadn’t been a love-match and now – in his advancing years – he could see that they’d each lived out their separate existences. She’d not been a wife to him in the fullest sense of the word for several years. And now he rather envied the love-match that his own mother spoke of with such fond memories.

  ‘It’s the miners, isn’t it?’ Florrie was saying, bringing his thoughts back to the question. ‘Who can blame them? They’re being asked to take a reduction in their pay and an increase in their hours of work.’

  The girl does know what she’s talking about, Edgar had to admit. If only James had had half his sister’s spirit . . . His mind shied away from thoughts of his son. He tried never to think of him. Tried to blot out all the memories, but with Jacques in the house it was hard not to be reminded of him; the boy was so like James had been at the same age. Edgar would never have thought that a child could resemble his uncle so closely.

  He cleared his throat. ‘It seems the miners are calling upon the TUC to back them.’

  ‘And if they succeed?’ Florrie regarded him with her clear gaze.

  ‘If they do, we’ll likely see a series of strikes right across the nation. The country could be brought to a standstill. Literally.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to London tomorrow.’ Florrie’s eyes were alight with a fire that had been missing for years. ‘That’s where it’ll all be happening. I want to be part of it. There are big changes in the air. I can almost feel it.’

  Augusta eyed her thoughtfully. ‘Well, mind you don’t stay away too long. And talking of changes, I need to speak to you – and to you too, Edgar – about Jacques’s education. It’s high time—’

  ‘Harrumph,’ Edgar made his usual disapproving sound. He rose from his chair and threw down his napkin. ‘Sort it out between you. I want nothing to do with it.’

  Augusta thumped the table with a rare show of swift anger. ‘Edgar, sit down. It’s high time you took some interest in the boy. He’s your grandson!’

  Edgar glared at her for a long moment, whilst at the opposite end of the table Clara gave a little squeak of dismay, rose and scuttled from the room. Slowly, Edgar sank back into his chair, his mutinous gaze still locked in a silent battle with his mother�
��s.

  Florrie glanced from one to the other. What was her grandmother talking about? Jacques’s education? The boy was perfectly happy with his governess. But Augusta, it seemed, had other ideas. As was her habit, she came straight to the point.

  ‘It’s high time that boy mixed with others of his own age. It’s time he attended school.’

  ‘I don’t want him to go to boarding school,’ Florrie put in quickly and, without thinking what she was saying, went on impetuously, ‘James wouldn’t—’ She stopped, appalled. She’d been about to blurt out ‘James wouldn’t have wanted it’, but just in time she caught herself. She glanced at her father. It was the first time she’d ever mentioned her brother’s name in front of him since the tragic events of the war. Thankfully, it explained her hesitation and gave her time to alter her words. ‘James wouldn’t have recommended it. He hated boarding school.’

  Edgar frowned, but still he said nothing.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of boarding school.’ Augusta’s mouth twitched. ‘My family had no such privileges.’

  Edgar’s frown deepened.

  ‘You mean he should go to the local school?’ Florrie asked, but Augusta shook her head.

  ‘No, I mean he should go to the same school as Charlie. He’ll be ten when the new school year starts in September, and I’m sure Isobel would agree to you both living with them during term time. We could come to some acceptable financial arrangement, I’m sure.’ She glanced at Florrie and added tartly, ‘And Jacques might have the chance of seeing more of you.’

  It was a reprimand and a well-deserved one, Florrie recognized. Staying away from him for weeks, even months, was not the action of a devoted mother. She blushed and bowed her head. ‘Yes, Gran,’ she murmured with surprising meekness.