Dangerous Destiny

by Chris Longmuir

  ‘We must get you home.’ Martha led Kirsty over to the carriage and helped her inside, gesturing to Ethel to follow her. Martha climbed in to join them once both girls were settled.

  ‘I’m sorry to be a bother to you,’ Kirsty said, with a smile which didn’t quite succeed, as she wiped tears from her cheeks with a handkerchief.

  Ethel slung an arm around Kirsty’s shoulder and hugged her while Martha leaned forward from the seat opposite. Kirsty kept her eyes on the direction the coach was travelling and did not look back at the house she was leaving forever.

  ‘Was it very traumatic?’ Martha grasped Kirsty’s hand.

  ‘It wasn’t pleasant. I don’t know what my father will do. He forbade me to be a suffragette – he expected me to obey him.’ Tears glistened on Kirsty’s eyelashes. ‘But I defied him, and he threatened to put me in an asylum.’

  ‘Can he do that?’ Ethel asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He would need to convince a doctor that your mind was disturbed.’ Martha tightened her grasp on Kirsty’s hands. ‘That might not be so easy.’

  ‘No doubt he would say I was hysterical.’ A single tear rolled down Kirsty’s cheek. ‘He brought up what he calls my “misdemeanour”. He’d use that, as well.’

  ‘Your misdemeanour? What do you mean?’

  Kirsty twisted the handkerchief around her fingers.

  ‘I have a child,’ she said at last. ‘A daughter. Ailsa.’ Her voice was so low, Martha had to strain to hear it. ‘But I’m not allowed to acknowledge her, and that’s agony. My mother is bringing her up as my sister.’ Kirsty gulped in air as if she hadn’t breathed for days. ‘But she’s not my sister. She’s mine.’

  Ethel pulled Kirsty into her arms and shushed her while her friend sobbed into her shoulder, releasing years of held-back pain and anguish.

  After a few moments, Kirsty looked up.

  ‘You must think me terrible, but it wasn’t my fault. He was a family friend, and he forced himself on me. My father blames me.’

  Martha’s mind whirled. This was something she hadn’t anticipated.

  ‘This changes things, Kirsty. Your father could make a case you were in moral danger, and that would be enough for a doctor to commit you to the asylum. We cannot let that happen. We must stop at your aunt’s house to collect your belongings and you will spend tonight with me. But there is one thing I must know first, and that is how you feel about leaving your daughter behind.’

  ‘That’s my main reason for deciding to leave. I can no longer tolerate living in the same house as Ailsa and being unable to be a mother to her. Even if I did claim her, what life would she have as my illegitimate child?’ Kirsty struggled for breath. ‘It’s far better for both her and me that I remove myself from her life.’

  ‘Very well,’ Martha said, satisfied that Kirsty had reached her decision with reason. ‘Tomorrow, we will make plans for your departure from Dundee.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Sunday, 19th July 1908

  Kirsty woke before Ethel. She had found it peculiar but strangely comforting to share a room with her friend. Downstairs, she could hear sounds of movement. She slid out of the bed and shrugged a robe around her shoulders. Raindrops trickled down the window. The summer heatwave had ended, at last. Was the change of weather an omen, signalling the change in her own life? Kirsty stared out to the glistening streets below. So much had happened since yesterday; her life would never be the same again.

  A woman stopped in front of the church steeple and looked up towards the window. Kirsty started. It was Aunt Bea. Her aunt crossed the road. She was coming here. Kirsty grabbed her clothes and pulled them on hurriedly. Aunt Bea never visited anyone before ten in the morning. What had happened to make her break her own, strict rules?

  Ethel raised her head from the pillow as Kirsty’s fingers fumbled with the buttons of her blouse. She buttoned the final one before grabbing a hairbrush and dragging it roughly through her curls.

  ‘What’s the hurry? Has something happened?’ Ethel dug her elbows into the pillow and pushed herself up.

  ‘My aunt’s heading in this direction. I spotted her in the street.’

  ‘So? She probably wants to check you’re all right.’

  ‘You don’t understand – Aunt Bea never leaves the house this early; she thinks it a mortal sin to call on anyone before ten. Something must have brought her here.’

  ‘I’ll come downstairs with you.’ Ethel swung her legs out of bed.

  ‘Can’t wait, sorry – see you down there.’ Kirsty ran through the door, letting it slam behind her. She was out of breath by the time she reached the drawing-room, where Aunt Bea and Martha were deep in conversation.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Bea rose from her chair and hurried across the room to her niece.

  ‘Your father is furious, and I felt it necessary to come and warn you.’

  ‘Warn me of what?’

  ‘He intends to have you incarcerated in a lunatic asylum and plans to arrange for a physician to detain you there. Your mother tried to talk him out of it, but she has been unsuccessful, and, of course, he never listens to me.’ Bea stopped and drew breath. ‘I cannot stand back and see you locked up in an asylum, Kirsty. I had to warn you.’

  ‘How much time do I have?’

  ‘He has arranged an appointment with the physician from Dundee District Asylum for later this morning. You are safe until after church comes out.’

  ‘Pack your belongings,’ Martha said. ‘We must act quickly.’

  Bea leaned forward to embrace Kirsty.

  ‘I will go now. It would not be wise for me to know where you are going.’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Bea. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.’ Tears gathered in the corners of Kirsty’s eyes as she watched her aunt leave, and she brushed them away with an impatient hand.

  ‘Where will I go?’ she asked Martha.

  ‘Leave that to me. There is a safe house with Miss McGregor at Inverkeilor. You and Ethel can stay there for a few days, which will give me time to make arrangements for you to travel to Edinburgh.’

  Kirsty rushed upstairs.

  ‘We’re leaving this morning,’ she said, throwing her clothes into a valise.

  ‘This morning?’ Ethel’s eyes widened.

  ‘Yes,’ Martha confirmed, entering the room. ‘I have found a carpetbag for your belongings, Ethel, and I’ve ordered a carriage to take you both to Inverkeilor. The faster I get you girls out of Dundee, the better.’

  ‘Why are we going to Inverkeilor, wherever that is? I thought we were going to Edinburgh or Glasgow.’ Ethel placed her few possessions in the carpetbag.

  ‘We have to get Kirsty to safety quickly, and you will be safe at Abbethune House,’ Martha said. ‘But within the week, you will be on your way to Edinburgh.’

  Half an hour later, the packing was completed. Both girls took a last look around the room which had been their haven, then hurried out to the carriage waiting at the kerb.

  Kirsty’s heart thumped as she stepped out of the close and on to the pavement, but a nervous glance along the street reassured her that her father wasn’t lying in wait for her. Her skirt caught around her feet as she jumped into the carriage with unseemly haste. Ethel and Martha followed after her, both looking anxious.

  Kirsty’s eyes flicked back and forth as they sped through the streets of Dundee and she only breathed easily again once they were rumbling through the countryside. She was heading for safety and freedom; towards a destiny she felt was preordained. But it was a destiny which was to take her into the unknown, and who knew what dangers she might find along the way.

  Kirsty settled back in her seat. For the first time in her life, she realised she felt free, and as long as Ethel was with her, she didn’t care how dangerous her destiny would turn out to be.

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  Historical End Note

  A plethora of women’s groups and societies arose durin
g the mid-1800s to advocate women’s suffrage; the right to vote for parliamentary members who would address issues that concerned women. Many of these groups have faded from history, but they formed the background to the three main suffrage societies which arose at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. These groups, detailed in the order they came into being, are as follows.

  The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS)

  The NUWSS was formed in 1897, when several suffrage organisations banded together to present a common front in the pursuit of women’s suffrage. Millicent Fawcett was a prominent member of the NUWSS and, in 1907, became its president. The aim of the society was to secure the vote by passive and diplomatic means, such as peaceful protests and petitioning the government. NUWSS members were known as suffragists and they abhorred the violent tactics that developed with the formation of new suffrage societies.

  Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)

  The WSPU was founded in 1903, at a small gathering of women at Emmeline Pankhurst’s home in Manchester. It remained a small society until the adoption of militant tactics in 1905, after which it was to become the largest and best-known organisation in Britain fighting for women’s suffrage. The Pankhursts remained in charge and operated the WSPU as an army; their members were expected to obey orders without question and weren’t allowed to make independent decisions. Their motto was ‘Deeds not Words’. With the increase in support and membership, they moved their headquarters from Manchester to London in 1906, and the first branch in Dundee was opened the same year.

  The first militant act recorded was when Christabel Pankhurst spat on a policeman, and she and Annie Kenney fought against their arrest. Christabel and Annie were the first suffragettes to be sentenced to seven days in Strangeways Prison, in 1905.

  Women’s Freedom League (WFL)

  The WFL was formed in 1907, after some members of the WSPU became dissatisfied with the autocratic nature of the organisation. These members proposed that the WSPU should be run on more democratic lines but this was resisted. Among some of the more prominent WSPU members who were instrumental in founding the WFL were; Charlotte Despard, Teresa Billington-Greig, and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. Charlotte Despard became president of the WFL.

  The league never became as large an organisation as the WSPU, but it had a strong base in Scotland. Why this should be the case is unknown, though it has been speculated that it might be because the Scots are an independent race and they didn’t take kindly to the autocratic rule of the Pankhursts. Several notable WSPU members in Scotland were expelled by the Pankhursts for not following orders; some of these women found a home with the WFL.

  The WFL continued to be run on democratic lines. They supported a militant approach to the fight for the suffrage cause but did not favour the extreme militant methods of the WSPU, which involved a risk to life with fire-raising and bombing.

  Women’s Suffrage in Scotland

  Similar to the situation nationally, before the formation of the main suffrage societies, there were various groups supporting women’s rights. However, the NUWSS and WSPU remained based in England, though two of the Scottish societies for women’s suffrage (one in Glasgow and the other in Edinburgh) affiliated to the NUWSS in 1903. It was only later that branches of the main societies were opened in Scotland. The WFL Centre opened at Gordon Street, Glasgow, in 1907. The WSPU opened a branch in Dundee in 1906, and their Scottish headquarters in January 1908, at 141 Bath Street, Glasgow. In 1909, the Scottish Federation of Suffrage Societies formed under the NUWSS umbrella. They had a branch office at 12 Meadowside, Dundee.

  At the time this book takes place, the WFL and WSPU were operating in Dundee. The WSPU had premises at 61 Nethergate, in a building shared with a cabinet maker, an artist, a plumber, and a tobacco pipe manufacturer. There is less certainty about the WFL headquarters, and references have been made to Lila Clunas’s house at 1 Blackness Avenue and a possible office at 5 Cowgate, at a later date. For the purposes of the story, I have appropriated the shop premises of C.S. Scott, the tobacconist, at 88 Nethergate, for WFL headquarters, and given Martha the house above the shop.

  After 1905, suffragettes became involved in militant activities in London, initially creating disturbances and accosting members of the government. Over the years, as they became more frustrated, this escalated into fire-raising and planting bombs. The escalation took longer in Scotland, although militant suffragettes travelled regularly from Scottish towns to London to take part during the earlier years. The first time that suffragettes were imprisoned was in 1905, after which it became a regular occurrence. No suffragettes were sent to prison in Scotland (although many Scottish suffragettes were imprisoned in London) before 1909, when the first suffragettes were sentenced to prison by a Dundee court. Likewise, women were being force-fed in Holloway prison from 1909, whereas the first person to be force-fed in Scotland was Ethel Moorhead in Calton Prison, Edinburgh, on February 21, 1914.

  The suffragettes in this book are members of the WFL, which allows them to have militant tendencies without the restrictions imposed by the WSPU.

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  About the Author

  Chris Longmuir was born in Wiltshire but now lives in Angus. Her family moved to Scotland when she was two. After leaving school at fifteen, Chris worked in shops, offices, mills and factories, and was a bus conductor for a spell, before working as a social worker for Angus council (latterly serving as Assistant Principal Officer for Adoption and Fostering).

  Chris is an award winning novelist. Her first published novel, Dead Wood, won the Dundee International Book Prize and was published by Polygon. She writes contemporary and historical crime fiction as well as historical sagas, short stories and articles which have been published in America and Britain.

  She confesses to being a bit of a techno-geek, and builds computers in her spare time.

  Chris is a member of the Society of Authors, the Crime Writers Association, and the Scottish Association of Writers.

  Also by Chris Longmuir

  Dundee Crime Series

  Night Watcher

  Dead Wood

  Missing Believed Dead

  Kirsty Campbell Mysteries

  Death Game

  Devil’s Porridge

  Death of a Doxy

  Suffragette Mysteries

  Dangerous Destiny: A Suffragette Mystery

  Historical sagas

  A Salt Splashed Cradle

  Non-Fiction

  Nuts & Bolts of self-Publishing

  Crime Fiction and the Indie Contribution