Daughter of the House

by Rosie Thomas

  ‘Wait,’ she told him.

  When she glanced down again the dressing table was bare except for her hairbrush and comb.

  The Shaws lived in a suburban enclave of substantial new red-brick villas to the north of Maida Vale. It was a highly respectable area marked out by pleached limes and encaustic tiles, leafy in summer and scented in winter with coal smoke and damp earth. The Shaws’ house had a projecting double-height bay topped off with a conical turret roofed in slate, for which Devil had mockingly nicknamed it Bavaria after one of Ludwig’s fantasy castles. Their own smaller, more gracefully proportioned house was a hundred years older but the stink of the tanneries to the east often crept around it, and decaying hovels and factories crowded at the margins of the canal basin only yards from their door. Yet Devil would not hear of a move to anywhere more rural. He loathed suburbia and claimed to have a physical aversion to open countryside.

  Matthew came to the door dressed in shirtsleeves and a woollen waistcoat. He loved his home and presiding over his table, and was always a happier man on his own territory. Devil was formal in a starched collar and a fitted coat. He raised an eyebrow as the men shook hands.

  ‘On your way up to bed, Matty?’

  Laughing, Matthew ruffled Arthur’s hair. Arthur bore this with good humour, even though in a year or so he would easily top his uncle in height.

  ‘Here he is, the scholar. You’ll be talking to us in Latin or Greek by Christmas, Arthur, eh?’

  ‘I already know Latin and Greek, Uncle Matthew.’

  Faith came forward, rosy-cheeked and handsome in a new blue dress.

  ‘So we are all together again. Rowland and Edwin have come from Town specially to give you a send-off, Arthur.’

  Rowland stuck out a hand. ‘Arthur, my boy. We’ve been waiting for you. Come out for a smoke with us?’

  ‘Rowland, please,’ Faith remonstrated.

  Arthur glowed. He admired his adult cousins and he liked nothing better than listening to their knowing talk about girls and business. The three of them went outside to a little stone-paved terrace bordered with azalea bushes and Japanese maples. Lizzie made a point of taking Nancy by the arm and leading her to the window seat at the other end of the room for a cosy talk. Cornelius sat calmly. As always he gave the impression of being busy with his own thoughts.

  The first breath of autumn in the air gave Matthew the excuse to light a fire, and as the day faded Faith turned on the lamps under their painted-glass shades. Pools of brightness lay on the rugs and fringed cushions and upholstered stools. The crowded, homely room was stuffed with mementoes. Faith loved to arrange framed photographs on the lid of the piano, showing her children at every stage from dimpled babyhood to the latest one of Edwin on a bicycling holiday with his friends from the bank.

  Later Matthew led the way into the dining room. Arthur was given the place of honour at the head of the table. Candles burned in a branched pewter candlestick and there were new napkins and a matching table runner.

  Faith had only one little housemaid and a daily char and she did most of the lighter domestic work and all the cooking herself. She was an excellent plain cook and her dishes always arrived hot at the table and in the proper sequence. This made a contrast with Islington, where matters were not always so smoothly arranged even though there were more hands to do the work. Domestic comforts always put Devil in a good humour. He tilted back in his chair and grinned across the table at his wife.

  Lizzie and Nancy carried plates up from the kitchen. Lizzie took the opportunity to continue the talk they had begun on the window seat, saying, ‘You do look a bit cheesed off, my girl. What’s up?’

  Cheesed off wasn’t exactly it, but Nancy was touched that her cousin had noticed.

  ‘I am a little, I suppose.’

  Lizzie’s dark eyebrows rose.

  ‘Battles at home, eh? Don’t tell me you are getting to be a rebellious creature, Nancy?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘If so let me tell you, life will not get any easier from now on.’

  Nancy glanced over her shoulder and said hastily, ‘Oh no, nothing like that. But can I ask you something?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  She blurted out, ‘Do you ever feel solitary? As if there are millions of people swarming around you, and yet no one knows who you are?’

  Her cousin shrewdly eyed her.

  ‘I used to, all the time. My dear brothers, you know, deaf and blind to half the world. My father is a Victorian figure and my mother is equally historic. Of course she is, and Aunt Eliza too. They don’t understand modern life. We have to make our own way, and we won’t allow the men to dictate to us. Gaining the vote is only the beginning of it. You’ll find out you’re not alone, just as soon as you start making your own women friends.’

  ‘I won’t always feel like an outsider?’

  Lizzie nudged her ribs. ‘You’re not an outsider. You’ve got me, for a start. You’ll grow into yourself. That’s what happens.’

  She enjoyed offering advice as a woman of the world.

  ‘Tell you what, Nance. Why don’t you come with me to one of my suffragist meetings? There are all sorts of jolly interesting women for you to meet, and there’s no boring formality to it.’

  ‘Aren’t they evening meetings? I shouldn’t think I’d be allowed to come.’

  In the dining room doorway Lizzie paused and winked.

  ‘Shhhh. We’ll say I am escorting you to … I know, to an orchestral concert.’

  Nancy had to laugh.

  Matthew brandished the carving knife. ‘Splendid.’

  Nancy slid into her chair, consoled by Lizzie’s brisk affection. She glanced round the circle of faces and told herself that here was a loving and happy family. The locket belonged to the Uncanny. And so did Helena Clare, née Feather.

  After dinner they enjoyed some music. Matthew had a strong tenor voice and Faith accompanied him for two or three songs, and then the sisters played a piano duet. Under protest, with his voice sliding and cracking, Arthur performed ‘In the Lion’s Cage’, a comic ditty that had been his party piece since he was six years old. Edwin joined in the choruses, miming the lion’s antics until they all shook with laughter.

  Finally Rowland rolled up his shirtsleeves, bit a cigarette between his teeth and crashed into a ragtime tune. He played with such wild energy that no one minded the wrong notes. The rugs had been pushed back and they were all laughing and dancing, even Cornelius. The two-step was beyond him but he hopped from foot to foot, managing not to trample on his sister’s feet.

  There had been a glass of wine for everyone at dinner, to drink a toast to Arthur and wish him luck, and Nancy felt the heat of alcohol flushing through her veins. She flung her arms around Cornelius’s jigging bulk.

  ‘I love you, Neelie,’ she smiled.

  He answered solemnly, ‘And I you.’

  Devil seized Faith’s modern glass fire screen. He tipped it on one side and balanced it on two stools. He stroked his wrists and flexed his hands, the signal for magic.

  A bright penny lay in the palm of his left hand. He threw it in the air, caught it and pressed it down to the glass. They all heard the clink.

  Devil made a show of crouching close to the screen. He slid his right palm underneath the glass so it matched the left and pressed downwards with great force. Then with a great sweep he lifted the upper hand and revealed the penny shining in the lower palm. It seemed that he had forced it through an unbroken sheet of glass.

  Everyone laughed and clapped. Arthur ran to his father.

  ‘Disguise, distraction, deception, misdirection,’ he chanted.

  ‘Very good, my boy. You are one-tenth of the way to becoming a magician.’

  ‘And I know the other nine-tenths, Pappy, don’t I?’

  ‘Practice,’ they all chorused.

  At the door as they were leaving Eliza kissed her sister.

  ‘That was a golden evening,’ she said.

  ‘It was, wasn’t it?’ Faith smiled.


  In the jolting murk of the train Arthur sighed.

  ‘I’m jolly well going to miss you all, you know.’

  Cornelius frowned. ‘I would say the same, Arthur, but no one would believe me.’

  ‘Idiot,’ Arthur mumbled. He was almost asleep.

  Eliza’s head rested against Devil’s shoulder and her gloved hand lay in his.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER FOUR

  London, 1919

  The fire in the outer office had sunk to an ashy heap with no more than a red glimmer at its heart. Glancing at the clock on the wall, Nancy set aside the sheaf of invoices she was filing. Only just four o’clock on a bitter January afternoon. The managing director’s secretary was in the inner office with the door closed. Nancy stooped over the hearth to stir the embers with the poker, then tipped a scoop of coke. A rising puff of dust filled her throat and made her eyes water. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, but that only reminded her that she had chilblains on her knuckles and the stubborn remains of a head cold.

  On the way back to her desk she stuck her head out of the door. She heard the rat-a-tat clatter of the small press running in the print room downstairs and a snatch of someone whistling before Jinny Main’s hooting laughter rose up the stairwell. Nancy sighed. Up here she had only the ticking clock and Miss Dent for company. She was hardly back in her seat before Jinny herself looked in.

  ‘Got a minute, Nance? I could do with a hand down there.’

  Nancy followed Jinny down the stone stairs. Her friend’s brown overall was ink-stained, pulled in at the waist with a thick leather belt. Her hair was tied up in a scarf to keep it clear of the machinery. During the war when she worked on the print floor Nancy had dressed the same, and she kept her own work coat hanging on a peg in the women’s lavatory at the back of the building. But in her new position as office assistant she must wear more suitable clothing, or so Miss Dent had advised her. Un-certain of herself and hoping for the best, Nancy now dressed in a jersey with a plain flannel skirt, fixing her hair with a pair of cloisonné combs Arthur had brought back from Antwerp.

  ‘Take the other end of this blasted trolley,’ Jinny ordered.

  Old Desmond the machine minder was shifting flat sheets ready for the collating machine and there was no one else free to help. Using the trolley they manoeuvred the finished copies of the left-wing magazine New Measure through two sets of doors to the dispatch room.

  ‘That’s my girls,’ the dispatch manager greeted them approvingly. Frank was another old man who had worked through the war at Lennox & Ringland. ‘Let’s pack ’em before that van driver sticks his ugly mug in here.’

  Jinny counted out the magazines in batches of two dozen, Frank wrapped them in brown paper and Nancy finished the packages with string. The job was soon done. It was only a short print run, a typical job for L & R. Frank stood upright, wincing.

  ‘The knee still hurts, does it?’ Jinny asked. She had sympathy for everyone.

  ‘I’ll live, darling. Look at you, Nancy Wix. Black smuts all over your pretty face.’

  Frank pulled a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and dabbed at her cheek. The hanky smelt bad and she craned her neck away. At least he hadn’t spat on it first.

  ‘So long, Frankie,’ Jinny called, taking her arm. ‘See you in the morning, eh?’

  The two girls escaped the pipe-smoke fug of the dispatch room just as the van driver arrived for the magazines.

  ‘C’mon. Let’s have a quick cuppa,’ Jinny muttered.

  ‘Ma Dent …’

  ‘You can tell Ma Dent we shifted and packed the whole run of New Measure for Frankie Fingers, can’t you?’

  There was a tiny kitchen beyond the typesetting benches. The girls passed behind two printers perched at the key-boards of the rattling Linotype machines, their copy pegged beside them and their hands flying over the keys. On occasions even Nancy had been called upon to work a machine shift, but since the armistice the men had come back to take up their old jobs. Jinny was relegated to the hand-setting benches and Nancy made the best of the uncongenial work upstairs in the office.

  Nancy filled the kettle at the single cold tap and lit the gas ring. She rinsed a pair of cups and swiped them with a drying-up cloth. The printworks floor was noisy and dirty, thick with oil and acrid fumes from the machinery, but she loved it.

  There was nowhere to sit down so when the brew was ready they leaned against the sink.

  Jinny smacked her lips. ‘That’s better. Here, Nance. Have one of these. The jam ones are good.’

  She took the biscuit and ate it while her friend rolled and smoked a cigarette. Even now, this made Nancy think of her cousin Lizzie.

  Poor Lizzie. Or not so poor nowadays, Nancy reminded herself. Lizzie had been unlucky, but she had refused to let circumstances get the better of her.

  Jinny’s cigarette tilted in the corner of her mouth. She was squinting at her friend through a haze of smoke.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Yes’.

  ‘Nothing there?’

  They rarely spoke about Nancy’s Uncanny but Jinny did not dismiss it, or even seem to regard it as particularly strange.

  ‘There are more things than we understand, I know that much,’ she shrugged. ‘I don’t need an old freak like Mrs Bullock Dodd to make me believe or not believe. Remember?’

  It was Lizzie Shaw who took Nancy to her first suffragist meeting in 1911, but by the time she was fifteen Nancy had been drawn into the Women’s Social and Political Union on her own account.

  Nancy knew how her mother’s independent spirit had been worn down by her circumstances, and she thought that her own future was unlikely to be any different unless women came together with a shared intent.

  Why should men own almost all the property and retain all the power?

  The answer came to her in the clear voice of the WSPU.

  Because the men gave themselves permission to do so.

  Nancy and her fellow campaigners believed that change could only come if women won the right to vote. Why should there not be women Members of Parliament, even, to speak up for other women?

  Her family were sceptical about her gradual political awakening. Eliza advised her that she would do better to find a steady, well-paid job and ideally a rich husband, but she made no particular objection to Nancy attending meetings in the meantime. Devil laughed and referred to ‘my daughter, the radical’, which was one way of not taking her seriously because she was only a girl. Cornelius was indifferent to politics and organised protest of any kind, but Arthur was opposed to all her ideas.

  ‘Why do you want to boss men around? Men look after girls, always have done, and you should be glad of that.’

  ‘I don’t want to boss anyone. I want my voice to be heard, the same as yours.’

  ‘What for?’

  Her little brother was now a head taller than her. He looked down at her in bafflement.

  As the years passed, at meetings and on marches Nancy made new friends. These women were different from the girls in her class at school, and even from the far less conventional company backstage at the Palmyra. They weren’t like Lizzie Shaw either. As Nancy had suspected she might, Lizzie turned out to be only a part-time suffragist. She loved the rhetoric, and the mischief of behaving badly, but she was too interested in having fun to spend her free time handing out leaflets in the rain or splashing paint on banners.

  Although they did not meet on that night, Jinny had been present at the first WSPU meeting Nancy ever attended. When she shyly followed Lizzie into a drab hall behind a Methodist chapel, the space was swelling with a sound that Nancy had never heard before. It was a loud chorus of women’s voices, rising unconfined, uncut by rumbling male noise. Their talk sounded as exuberant as birdsong.

  A woman had mounted the platform, dressed with refined elegance, a cameo brooch at her throat. Her grey hair was arranged under a felt hat with a purple, white and green badge pinned to it.

  �
�Good evening, friends,’ she said, and silence fell at once.

  Nancy learned that the Honourable Mrs Frances Templeton was the chairman of this section of the WSPU. She opened the meeting with a series of reports, from news of leafleting initiatives to the present condition of hunger strikers in Holloway Prison, and Nancy had been astonished and enthralled to find herself apparently at the hub of these important protests.

  After the business of the evening was concluded, Mrs Templeton had introduced a speaker. Mamie Bullock Dodd was an American Spiritualist who had lectured them on the links between their organisations.

  She boomed in a rich tenor voice, ‘Many Spiritualists are suffragists, and socialists too. “Those terrible triplets, connected by the same umbilical cord and nursed from the same bottle.” That is a quote, but I will not dignify the gentleman by speaking his name.’

  Mrs Bullock Dodd had attempted to conduct a seance but it had not been a success. The packed benches of militant suffragists did not give off the faintest whiff of psychism, and Nancy and Lizzie had got the giggles so badly that Mrs Templeton had frowned at them from the platform. Mrs Dodd struggled gamely on. Were they aware that Spiritualism was the only religious movement in the world that acknowledged the equality of women and men? They were all women of the twin spheres. A woman was a communication from heaven to earth and the spirits of the universe breathed through her lips.

  A bareheaded girl had jumped up.

  ‘Will the spirits breathe us rights at the ballot box, then? A vote’s what I’m after. I’ll ’andle my menfolk in my own way, thanks very much, wi’out the spirits’ ’elp. ’Cept those my ’usband drinks when ’e can afford ’em. I’ll worry about the hereafter when I gets there.’

  Lizzie had to cram her handkerchief between her teeth to stifle her gasps. But oddly enough Mrs Dodd’s vaporous claims had made Nancy feel better. As she represented them the Spiritualists didn’t sound threatening or even eerie and if this was Lawrence Feather’s domain, there was nothing to fear. The Uncanny still lay within her, and it was hers alone.