Octavia

by Beryl Kingston

  Emmeline was looking at her again, wondering why she didn’t speak. Probably because they’d been talking about Squirrel, she thought. He’s such a bore. ‘And how is this college of yours?’ she asked, smiling encouragement. ‘You must tell me all about it.’

  ‘Well…’ Octavia said and cast about in her mind for things that would be interesting. The play had been a great success, she said, and she and Betty and their new friends were all going to see Arms and the Man on Saturday. ‘Although whether I shall be able to see much of it from the gods, I can’t say,’ she confessed. Sitting in the front stalls with Tommy and Squirrel in that long ago summer – oh, what a long time ago that summer was – she’d seen everything clearly, except the true nature of Tommy Meriton, of course, but now that she was demoted to the top of the theatre all the little distant faces had furry edges. ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether I need spectacles.’

  ‘It’s all that reading you have to do,’ Emmeline said sagely. ‘Reading weakens the eyes. Does it give you headaches? Ernest has terrible headaches sometimes. He says he can’t see the figures properly.’

  Octavia could sympathise. She rarely studied figures these days but print had developed a worrying tendency to blur. Sometimes she had to blink until it returned to normal.

  The baby gave a little burp and began to suck her fist. ‘Oh, what tales you tell!’ her mother said, beaming at her. ‘You couldn’t possibly be hungry again. I don’t believe a word of it. Not after all you’ve just eaten.’ And she turned to beam at Octavia too. ‘You never saw such an appetite. She’d suck all day if I’d let her. Tell you what, Tavy. When I’ve finished my lying-in, we’ll go down to the opticians together and get your eyes tested. And afterwards we can have tea and cake at Fullers. How would that be?’

  It was a happy outing, with the baby in her new pram, with a nursemaid to look after her, and Emmeline in her new clothes and the sun shining on them all. And the spectacles were really quite grand, steel-rimmed and as round as an owl’s eyes. Her father said they made her look quite the scholar but she was more impressed by how much more easily they enabled her to see. ‘I hadn’t realised how poor my eyesight was,’ she said to him. ‘It’s lovely to have everything in focus. I can see every word on the blackboard.’

  ‘Then we shall expect even higher grades,’ he said, teasing her.

  ‘I will do my best,’ she promised.

  The good grades followed, to nobody’s surprise, for she was working easily now that she could see clearly again. What was a surprise – but only to Octavia herself and certainly not to be revealed to anyone else – was that being suddenly sharp-sighted taught her a new and extremely useful trick. She discovered that if she watched people’s faces as they were speaking and was quick enough to catch the expressions that shadowed across them, she could tell what they were thinking. Even better, she was intrigued to notice that sometimes what they were thinking was at variance with what they were saying. It was like opening a window into their minds and made conversations extremely interesting. As the months passed she used her new skill more and more often, endlessly fascinated by the insights it revealed. It was like a private party trick. But it wasn’t until the end of her second year at college, when Emmeline was expecting her second baby, that she realised how useful it could be.

  The year examinations were completed, term was over, she’d just phoned Emmeline to see how she was and been told she was ‘getting a bit weary’, and at that moment she was sitting in the garden in the sunshine in one of her mother’s new cane chairs, composing a letter. Earlier in the term and urged on by Betty Transom and Dorothea Emsworth, she’d stood for election to the local committee of the WSPU and now she was the branch secretary and responsible for all the official business of the group. The letter she was drafting was about the summer demonstration the movement were planning. It was to be in Hyde Park on June 21st, which was just ten days before Em’s baby was due, and the organisers intended it to be the biggest yet. Women were coming from all over England, there were going to be at least a dozen platforms for the speakers, and provision had already been made for a crowd of over a hundred and fifty thousand. ‘Your support,’ she was writing, ‘will make…’

  But at that moment, Minnie the parlour maid appeared in the garden to announce that Mr Cyril had arrived to see her, ‘with his friend, miss’ and where should she show them.

  ‘Tell them to come through into the garden,’ Tavy said and prepared herself to do battle. Whatever happened next, it would be interesting.

  They breezed out of the back door as though they’d been visiting her regularly for months. Cyril pulled up a chair and sat opposite her on the other side of the cane table. ‘Grab a pew, old thing,’ he said to Tommy.

  Tavy watched them through her spectacles and was annoyed to see that Tommy was as sure of himself as ever, sprawling in the remaining chair with his long legs stretched before him and smiling at her as if they were old friends. Which they most certainly were not.

  ‘We’re off to have tea at the Ritz,’ Cyril said, looking pleased with himself. ‘Like to come? We’ve got seats for an absolute corker of a show. We thought tea first and then the show, didn’t we, Tommy? We shall probably go on for supper somewhere afterwards. Make a night of it. Get your skates on.’

  You really are insufferable, Octavia thought. You roll in here as if there’s nothing the matter and expect me to drop everything and go rushing off with you, just because you’ve asked me. ‘It might have escaped your notice, Cyril,’ she said, coldly, ‘but some of us have work to do.’

  Cyril wasn’t as abashed as she’d hoped he would be. In fact he wasn’t abashed at all. ‘You can work some other time,’ he said. ‘It’s a ripping show. Absolutely top hole.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tommy said, smiling at her. ‘Do come. You’ll love it.’

  And you’re insufferable too, Octavia thought. She picked up her notebook so that he couldn’t help noticing it. ‘Since I last saw you, I’ve been elected to the committee of the Hampstead WSPU,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m the secretary of the committee. The work I’m doing is for them and the cause, and just a trifle more important than a show – however ripping. Wouldn’t you say so?’ And she looked at him through her spectacles, observing.

  He was put out although he hid it quickly, rearranging his expression and smiling again. ‘Oh well,’ he said, lightly, ‘we mustn’t get in the way of the cause, must we, Squirrel? Another time maybe.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, still observing him, and even to her ears the word sounded cold. ‘I hope you’re going to visit your sister,’ she said to Cyril. ‘She’s only got a few more weeks before this baby is born and she’d like to see you.’

  ‘I might later,’ Cyril said. ‘I mean there’s no rush, is there?’

  You won’t go at all, Octavia thought, glaring at him. You’re too busy gadding about and it’s jolly selfish of you. It wouldn’t hurt you to put yourself out a bit. It’s no joke being pregnant, especially when it’s hot.

  Her scrutiny was making her cousin uncomfortable. ‘Better be off, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Things to do, don’t you know.’ And he got up and straightened his jacket ready to leave. ‘Time for tea and all that. Come on, Tommy.’

  Octavia watched as they disappeared into the house, Cyril waving and Tommy giving her a little bow, in that old-fashioned courteous way he’d done at the wedding when he’d kissed her hand. Was he upset? she wondered. It was hard to judge, his expression was so careful. But whether he was or not, she felt pleased with herself. I did that well, she thought. I was cold and I kept him at a distance. I’ll bet no one’s done that to him before. It’ll do him good.

  But as she picked up her pencil and returned to her notebook, she suddenly felt bleak. It would have been nice to have gone to the theatre with them, to sit in the stalls and laugh and joke, the way they’d done that summer. Oh, if only he hadn’t been so horrid!

  Cyril and Tommy went straight to the Ritz, where they made a very good tea
. It wasn’t until they were on their third plate of fancy cakes that they said anything about Octavia’s refusal.

  ‘Was she cross about something?’ Tommy wondered, pondering the cakes.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Cyril said, biting into a meringue. ‘After all, I mean to say, what’s she got to be cross about? Best seat in the house. Tea at the Ritz.’

  ‘I got the feeling she was cross,’ Tommy said, choosing an éclair. ‘That’s all. I mean, she’s never turned us down before.’

  ‘Always a first,’ Cyril said easily. ‘No, no, she wasn’t cross. She was just being Tavy. She can be dashed odd sometimes. You should have seen her when we were little. She was putting me down because I wouldn’t go and visit Em the minute she told me to. Hey, look who’s coming in. It’s old Tubby Ponsonby. There’s a bit of luck. Come and sit here, Tubby, old thing. We’re going on to a show. You wouldn’t care to join us, would you?’

  Preparations for the demonstration in Hyde Park took up all Octavia’s attention for the best part of the next four weeks and by the time the Hampstead party were climbing aboard their chartered charabanc for the journey into the city she was feeling decidedly jaded. It was going to be a very big demonstration, they were all sure of that, but somehow she couldn’t be hopeful of a happy outcome.

  ‘We shall pass our resolution,’ she said to Betty as the charabanc trundled through the Sunday streets, ‘and everybody will say how wonderful it is, and of course it will be wonderful, we all know that, but the politicians will ignore us.’

  Betty feared she was right. ‘But what else can we do?’ she asked. ‘We’ve just got to keep on and on, haven’t we?’

  ‘Or break the law,’ Octavia said.

  ‘I’m not sure I could do that,’ Betty admitted. ‘I don’t think I could stand being sent to prison. I mean, not knowing what we know about it.’ Mrs Pankhurst’s revelations about prison life had left her deeply troubled. ‘I mean to say, could you?’

  Octavia looked out at the quiet rows of shops, all so respectable and shuttered and well-kept, and wondered whether she could. If this demonstration fails, she thought, I shall have to decide. The thought made her sigh. ‘Ah well,’ she said. ‘We shall see, shan’t we?’

  It was an absolutely enormous demonstration. The crowds filled Hyde Park from one side to the other and stood packed together in front of all twenty platforms. The speakers wore elegant hats and sashes striped in the suffragette colours, purple, green and white. Annie Kenny brought a trainload of mill-girls with her from Lancashire and told her listeners that they had the support of men as well as women. Christabel Pankhurst asked the politicians to understand that the campaign had moved on from the days when it could be derided and belittled. It had now won popular support and they would ignore it at their peril. ‘You only have to look at the size of the crowd gathered here to understand what is happening,’ she said. ‘This is a great popular movement.’

  But although the great popular movement passed yet another resolution at the conclusion of its mass meeting, petitioning Parliament, yet again, to bring in legislation for an official women’s suffrage bill, it was completely ignored. And at the end of the month, two suffragettes walked into Downing Street and made their own personal protest by smashing the windows. Militancy had begun.

  The case for militant action was debated furiously at suffragette meetings and in committee rooms up and down the country. Octavia argued her own case passionately.

  ‘I don’t think breaking windows will do us any good at all,’ she said. ‘It will only irritate people and lose us support. And anyway, they’ll send for the glaziers and have them repaired in no time and it’ll all be forgotten. We should be looking for something to show we’re against bad laws but don’t wish to harm anybody by opposing them. We need something symbolic. Something that will break a small, unimportant law and catch attention without hurting anyone.’ But for the moment she couldn’t suggest anything suitable. And in any case she couldn’t really think straight with Em’s baby due at any moment.

  He was born on June 30th and was called Edward, and was a lot smaller than his sister had been. Octavia thought he looked rather frail, but she didn’t say so, naturally. She stood by the bedside with the child in her arms and told her cousin he was a little dear.

  ‘You’ve got a pigeon pair,’ Amy said, enjoying the sight of her daughter with a baby in her arms. ‘You clever girl.’

  ‘She looked jolly tired,’ Octavia said as she and her mother were walking home across the heath.

  ‘Giving birth is a tiring business,’ Amy told her. ‘But he’s here now and she’ll soon pick up again. Your Aunt Maud will make sure she has plenty of nourishing food. And she’s got the rest of the summer to be out and about. That will make her stronger too. I wonder whether Ernest will employ another nursemaid.’

  The summer was given over to Emmeline and her two babies. Octavia spent nearly every afternoon walking on the heath arm in arm with her cousin while the nursemaids pushed the prams and Eddie slept and Dora sat up and babbled at the view.

  The debate in the suffrage movement went on and various suggested tactics were attempted and failed. A group of women tried to rush the Houses of Parliament and were all arrested, another tried to smuggle their way in inside a furniture van, but were discovered and arrested too. Finally, at the end of October, a new and novel idea was mooted and Octavia knew at once that this was the demonstration she’d been waiting for, the one she had to join. She knew she would be arrested and would suffer for it, but it was the right thing to do and she would do it.

  ‘We are going to Parliament Square,’ she told her parents, ‘and we’re going to chain ourselves to the railings. It will be perfectly peaceable, Mama. We’re not going to break anything or shout or try to rush the building or anything like that. We’re just going to march up to the railings and padlock ourselves in. We shall be arrested and I expect we shall be sent to prison but nobody’s going to get hurt and with a bit of luck it will get into the newspapers and make people think.’ Her mother was upset and tried to persuade her against it.

  ‘You are very young, my darling,’ she said. ‘I know you say it’s going to be peaceable but you can’t be sure of it, can you? These things get out of hand and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until you’ve graduated and then do things?’

  Octavia put her arms round her mother’s poor tense neck and gave her a kiss. ‘I’m nineteen,’ she said. ‘If I hadn’t stayed on at school and gone to college I could have been out at work for five years. Think of that.’

  ‘But what if you get hurt?’ her mother worried.

  ‘I shan’t,’ Octavia said, with more assurance than she actually felt. ‘I promise you.’

  ‘J-J,’ Amy appealed. ‘You speak to her.’

  But he gave her a wry smile and said he was sure Octavia knew what she was doing. ‘Just so long as you write and tell us what happens,’ he said. ‘Or telephone us, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Amy sighed. ‘It’s such a worry. Well then, go if you must but don’t wear your spectacles. If they throw you about and the glass gets broken it could blind you.’

  So Octavia joined her first militant demonstration with her heart in her throat and her sight in her handbag.

  It was an afternoon of penetrating dampness and Parliament Square was uniformly grey, the air smoke-shrouded and smelling of sulphur, the sky leeched of all colour and coldly empty. The trunks of the nearly denuded trees were dark as coal, the grass in the central garden no longer green but a dull sludge grey that reminded Octavia of dirty linen, and the Houses of Parliament looked smudged and brooding, as though the great building was weeping sooty tears for all the iniquities of its long history.

  The pavements were crowded with waiting women, dark in their winter coats and hats, parading slowly, two by two, or loitering as if they’d stopped to gossip, and there were one or two watchful policemen too, standing guard outside the Houses of Parliament, dou
r in their black uniforms. The banners were still folded up and hidden away in bags and holdalls, ready to be unfurled at the signal, but for now everything was quiet and grey and watchful.

  Octavia’s heart was beating so powerfully it was making her throat pulse. She was glad she’d had the sense to wear a scarf and that the telltale signs were hidden. It wouldn’t have done to let the others know what sort of state she was in, especially as she wasn’t entirely sure what sort of state it was herself. Fear? she thought. No, don’t let it be fear. That would be shameful. Excitement then? But it was too raw for excitement. Too raw and too immediate. It was very nearly time. There was no going back.

  A whistle shrilled so suddenly it made her heart leap. She was propelled into action. Run! Now! No time to think. She rushed to the railings blindly, pulling out her chain and padlock as she ran. The grey scene broke into a jostling kaleidoscope, a gloved hand waved, a skirt swished, black boots skimmed the pavement, a hat fell from a tangle of hair, she had a glimpse of railings sharp as spears. Then the banners were out, unfurling in splashes of purple, green and white, bold as flowers in the darkness of the square. People were shouting, ‘Votes for women! Votes for women!’ She arrived at the railings, and clung to them, panting. Now! she urged herself. Quickly. Before they can stop you. The padlock engaged with a crunch. The gesture was made. It was done.

  After the rush, there were minutes of extraordinary stillness as the demonstration swirled around her and more and more women attached themselves to the railings beside her. Her heart steadied. Then she heard someone running, big boots heavy on the pavement, and a policeman’s face loomed in upon her, round and hot and cross under his black helmet.

  ‘Nah then,’ he said, ‘just undo that there padlock, if you please, miss. Let’s not be havin’ any trouble. You won’t gain nothing with this sort a’ carry-on.’

  ‘It can’t be done,’ she told him, pleased by how calm she was. ‘I’ve left the key at home.’