Sally laughed, picked up a wide white sash that hung over the wash stand. ‘Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Bin a long time since I’ve bin in a rough house!’ she smiled mischievously at Hannah’s doubtful expression. ‘Look – I’ve even done a bit of needlework for the occasion.’ She held out the sash. Hannah took it, laughed softly at the tiny words embroidered repeatedly around it. ‘Votes for Women.’ She shook her head, laughing still. ‘We aren’t supposed to give away who we are until we ask our question. We don’t want to be thrown out before we open our mouths.’
Sally took the sash back, held it about her waist. ‘There. You’d never know what it says.’ The needlework, in dark green to match the dress Sally intended to wear, looked simply like a decorative edging.
Hannah eyed her in surprised amusement. ‘I do believe you’re looking forward to it!’
Sally took a moment to consider that. ‘Yes. I do believe I am.’
When Hannah had left, still patting distractedly at her tumbling hair, Sally walked to the window, the sash still dangling from her fingers. Josie, a frequent and welcome visitor to this cheery little room had called the day before and had voiced much the same doubts. ‘There’s been real trouble at these meetings, Sal. All over the place. It’s been in the papers. Are you sure you should go?’
Sally had cocked a jaunty eyebrow, inviting laughter. ‘Sure? Of course I am. Blimey, girl, never let it be said that Sally Smith left a mate in the lurch. Perish the thought!’
A mate? She smiled a little at the unlikely thought, stood looking down into the tiny, neat patch of garden below. The black kitten, seeing the coast was clear had crawled from beneath the bed and fawned about her ankles, purring anxiously. Absentmindedly she bent to pick it up, soothing the ruffled fur. Thoughts of Josie had brought thoughts of her brother Dan; with whom the last time she had seen him, despite all her efforts and to Josie’s clear distress, she had quarrelled bitterly. For days she had been trying not to think of it, but the words that had been spoken so angrily still rang in her head, and try as she might she could not dismiss them. Dan – solid, dependable, obstinate and unimaginative Dan – had asked her to marry him. And she, inevitably, had said no. His disappointment and hurt, his incomprehension, had been painful to see. ‘But why, Sal? I’ve got a steady job – I’d care for you well. An’ Toby too. I’ve savings. We could buy a little house—’
‘Dan!’
‘I’d be good to you, Sal, you know I would.’
‘Oh, of course I know it!’
‘Well then? What is it? Is it that – you don’t care for me?’
She had looked at him in despair. If she could not entirely explain to herself why she knew so surely that she should not marry him then how, without hurt, could she possibly explain it to him? ‘Of course I care for you, Dan. You know it. As a friend. A dear and trusted friend. But – oh, Dan, I’m not ready to marry. Not you. Not anyone.’
Stubbornly he had held his ground. ‘Strikes me you don’t know what you do want. Give yourself a bit of time – time to think about it.’
‘No.’ He had flinched at the sharpness of the word. She had tried to force her voice to quiet, to reason. ‘No, Dan. It would do no good. I’m not a kid. I could think till kingdom come, and it still wouldn’t be right. I know it.’
He had turned from her then, a painful bitterness in his eyes. ‘What then? Too good for us now, are you? Is that it?’
‘Dan, no, of course that isn’t it.’
He had been too hurt, too humiliated to listen. High colour had risen in the blunt-featured face. ‘Dan Dickson’s not good enough for you I suppose? With all this readin’ and writin’ and speechifyin’, set your sights on somethin’ higher, have you?’
Quick and justifiable anger had stirred. ‘That’s a stupid thing to say.’
‘You think so? Well, seems to me Sal Smith that it’s not just the way you talk’s changed over the past few months—’
‘What do you mean? What the hell do you mean?’
He was too far gone in misery to curb his tongue, anger and mortification had fed his disappointment and turned it into uncharacteristic and irrational fury. ‘Gadding about with them votes for women females who’re old enough and ugly enough to know better! Making a spectacle of yourself – marching through the streets banging a bloody drum! I tell you straight I think you must have taken clean leave of your senses – you an’ them hoity toity new pals of yours.’
Sally’s own uncertain temper had slipped its leash. She winced now to remember the things she had said. Josie, hearing raised voices, had come in to try to calm them, but too late. The damage, as so often when tongues ran ahead of hearts and brains, was done. She sighed now. She had not, she knew, handled the situation well. She had not wanted to quarrel with Dan. Yet still his attitude to her suffragette friends stirred anger in her many days later. All the old, mindless arguments had been flung at her – the women who were ready to fight for political strength as a way to freedom were nothing but frustrated spinsters who couldn’t catch a husband, or man-haters who wouldn’t know what to do with one if they found him. Dry, unwomanly creatures. An outrage to the natural scheme of things, their aims nothing short of anarchic. They deserved nothing so much as a good thrashing from husband, or father, or any other good, strong – male – arm within reach. She had heard it all before, of course, to her amazement from some women as well as from men, but never in such a personal way and never from someone whose opinion she had until now always respected. Dan had, she learned later from Josie, regretted the hasty words almost as soon as they had been spoken, but spoken they had been and the damage could not be undone; the damage, that was, to her relationship with Dan, for if anything the incident had strengthened her feelings for the cause and for those who fought for it. ‘We fight’, Sylvia Pankhurst had said at the last meeting she had attended above the baker’s shop in Bow, ‘against ignorance, against cynicism and against wanton prejudice – and we shall win!’
She lifted the sash she still held and surveyed it pensively. Never in her life before had she felt herself to be anything but a lone individual, pitted against a hostile world. This simple and slightly absurd piece of embroidered material symbolized something that even now, as she contemplated it, astounded her.
III
Hannah woke after a restless night to mixed feelings of excitement and dread. This was The Day. Her turn had come at last.
It was very early, the strengthening grey light of a spring dawn seeped gently through the closed curtains. The house was still. In the distance Charlotte’s baby cried, a thin, tentative wail that was swiftly hushed. Hannah threw back the bedclothes and padded on bare feet to the window, drawing the curtains on a morning fresh and breezy and – even in these dingy London streets – bright as a new pin. The narrow road below was empty apart from a stalking cat. She watched as the animal picked its delicate way from doorway to doorway. Then, restless and unsettled, she moved about the room, touched her hairbrush, aimlessly rearranged the dressing table with its assortment of all but unused bottles and jars, its red velvet pin cushion into which, untidily, were stuck haphazardly half a dozen hatpins. She stood for a moment, brush in hand, tidying the jars, rearranging the pins. Then she slowly lifted her head to study with strange care her reflection in the mirror. Her face was pale and her eyes looked tired after a night of shallow and disturbed sleep. The shining cloak of her heavy hair hung about her shoulders, dark against the rumpled frills of her high-necked white nightgown. She did not, she decided wryly, look at this moment like any kind of crusader, let alone one preparing to martyr herself for her cause. Behind her, upon the wardrobe door, she could see the neat dark suit she had chosen to wear for the meeting this evening. She lifted her chin, composing her features to a severe and undaunted expression. ‘Mr Buxton,’ she asked her reflection softly, ‘will the Government – no, will this Liberal Government – give votes to women?’ Her voice sounded odd in the quiet of the room. She tried t
he question again, with a different inflection. Tried to imagine a crowded hall. A possibly hostile audience. ‘I will do it,’ she said suddenly. ‘I will!’ and with an odd lightening of her heart she began to brush her hair with long, sure strokes.
* * *
She was dressed and ready long before it was time to leave for the meeting. All day as she had gone about her normal tasks – dispensing the neatly packed baskets of milk to the mothers at the depot, visiting a woman in Angel Street whose new baby, the youngest child of eight and not by a long chalk the strongest was the latest to fall victim to the epidemic of measles that was spreading like fire through the crowded tenements, drinking afternoon tea with a Charlotte whose silence and tense, peaky looks disturbed even Hannah’s already over-preoccupied mind – there had been a constant, small, nervous stirring at the pit of her stomach that had made eating difficult and sitting still impossible.
‘Will this Liberal Government give votes to women?’
She would ask her question, and she would stand her ground until it was answered, or until they tired of her and threw her out.
She knew too well which of those two alternatives was most likely.
Promptly at six she, Ralph and Sally set out for the hall where the meeting was to be held, quietly finding themselves seats just a few rows back from the front and in the centre of the row where it would be difficult for anyone to reach her from the aisles. Flanked by the other two she sat, straight-backed and calm, as the hall filled around her. Upon the bunting-draped platform were a long table and half a dozen chairs. Jugs of water and tall glasses were set ready. The back of the stage was adorned by large pictures of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Prime Minister, a man who whilst openly and personally supporting the principle of the franchise for women refused adamantly to take the political risk of committing his Government to bringing in the necessary legislation. Sally fidgeted a little beside her. Hannah glanced at her and the other girl flashed a quick and mischievous smile, the warmth of conspiracy in her eyes. Hannah found herself smiling back. The hall was almost full now. Self-important-looking stewards with large yellow rosettes in their lapels were ushering people to the few empty seats. The buzz of talk died, and a hush fell as the platform party filed on to the stage.
Hannah heard nothing of the introductory speech. She sat very still, trying to control the oddly irregular beating of a heart that rarely behaved in any way but calmly. She focused her eyes upon a half-empty jug of water upon the table and concentrated fiercely on marshalling her nerves and her dignity. Her hands were very cold but perfectly steady upon her lap. She saw Sydney Buxton rise, floridly prosperous-looking and completely at his ease, heard his thanks to the constituency for inviting him, for organizing the meeting so splendidly, for supporting it so well. For half an hour, then, he spoke eloquently and well, answering questions as they arose from the hall, talking of the Liberal Government’s record as a power for radical change, of its honest desire to see the working man’s lot improved –
Hannah stood.
‘Will this Liberal Government give votes to women?’
Her voice was very clear and very steady in the quiet.
The speaker looked at her, tight-lipped for the briefest of moments then, ignoring her completely, took up his theme again. ‘We plan the introduction of a national insurance scheme that—’
‘Mr Buxton, will this Liberal Government give votes to women?’
‘Sit down!’
‘Be quiet!’
‘Shut yer bloody silly mouth, woman!’
‘Let the lady speak—’
The sudden pandemonium of shouts drowned the speaker’s words as, his face determinedly turned from Hannah, with ferocious determination he attempted to plough through the interruptions. From the corner of her eye Hannah saw a large man with a rosette in his lapel hurrying from the back of the hall. Another had moved from the side door to the end of the aisle.
‘I ask again. Will the Liberal Government give women the vote?’
Someone behind her caught the jacket of her suit, pulling at it, trying to force her to sit down. Beside her Sally turned, umbrella at the ready, and the tugging stopped abruptly.
‘Throw ’er out!’
‘Shut ’er up!’
‘Shut up yerself! Why shouldn’t she ask a question, same as everyone else?’
There was confusion now on the platform. The organizer was on his feet, Buxton held his hands, palms out, trying to calm the rising crescendo of noise, of shout and countershout, of fierce argument from row to row. ‘Ladies and gentlemen—’
‘Answer the question!’ someone shouted from the back of the hall.
‘Votes for women!’ Sally was on her feet, umbrella brandished like a banner in the air. ‘Votes for women!’
‘Throw them out!’
‘Let them be! Answer the question!’
In the pandemonium Hannah stood her ground, head thrown back, her eyes fixed on her target who, she noticed, face blotched with anger, looked anywhere but at her. ‘Will this Liberal Government give women the vote?’ Her voice and the reiterated question were all but lost in the hubbub. Sydney Buxton with a gesture of irritation sat down. The Party Organizer, on his feet, waved his arms angrily. ‘Order! Order!’
‘Votes for women!’ Sally’s hoarse and cheerful voice rose gleefully above the din. ‘Votes for women!’
A burly steward was fighting his way along the row towards them. Ralph with a mildly apologetic smile and a shaken head blocked his passage. Other stewards were converging on them.
‘Votes for women!’ Sally shouted again grinning blithely, the light of battle in her eyes.
‘Get out of my way!’ The big steward pushed Ralph hard and unceremoniously in the chest, almost tipping the slighter man over into the row behind. The chairs, linked together like a metal chain tilted and then swung, catching Sally behind the knees almost knocking her from her feet. With the agility of a cat she regained her balance and jumped on to the chair. ‘Votes for women!’
‘Sling ’em out!’
‘Let ’em be!’
‘Shut yer mouth, yer stupid female!’
‘Good beltin’s what you need!’
The steward had doubled Ralph up with an elbow harshly and effectively in the midriff and was reaching for Hannah. An elderly woman in the row behind clipped him smartly over the head with her umbrella. Sally grinned. ‘That’s the ticket!’ In the brief respite Hannah opened her mouth once more. ‘Will this Liberal Gov—’ A rough hand was clamped over her mouth and she was lifted bodily over Ralph’s gasping form and dragged to the end of the row. She made no attempt to resist – struggling, she knew could simply encourage more violence.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ Sally launched herself after them, the shattered umbrella wielded two-handed. The surprised steward’s grip on Hannah slackened. She struggled free. Other hands reached for her as stewards from all over the hall converged. Sally swung her umbrella. There was laughter as one of the stewards yelped and clutched his ear.
‘Votes for women! Votes for women!’ Sally started the chant. Hannah’s was not the only voice in the hall to take it up. ‘Votes for women! Votes for women!’
The heavy hand closed upon Hannah’s mouth again, rough and hard, painfully crushing her lips against her teeth, suffocating. It reeked revoltingly of tobacco. Tasted of it. A steward had taken Sally from behind, an arm like an iron band about her narrow waist, lifting her with ease a foot or so from the floor.
‘Shame!’
‘Leave them be!’
‘Throw them out!’
The hall was bedlam.
‘Votes for wom—!’ Sally’s strong, hoarse voice was cut off too by a brutally rough hand. Kicking and scratching she was being dragged towards the back of the hall. The hand slipped. Blood streaked her chin. ‘Votes for women!’
The hand that covered Hannah’s mouth covered her nose too. Panic stricken she threw her head back, desperately trying to breathe. Her cap
tor grunted, grabbed her arm, twisting it viciously behind her back. Both the crack of bone and her sharp shriek of pain were lost in the general uproar. Sally was fighting every inch of the way. Her hair was down, her blouse torn, an ugly bruise stained her cheekbone and one eye was all but shut. Blood from her broken lip ran down her chin.
‘Shame!’ a man’s voice shouted. ‘Give ’em a chance to speak!’
‘Votes for women!’ Sally shrieked, the power of her voice almost gone.
‘Votes for monkeys!’ someone else shouted.
‘Votes for cats! Votes for dogs! Votes for donkeys!’
Hannah’s shoulder was a ball of fiery pain. She could not breathe. She twisted, burying her teeth in a horny finger. Her captor swore, released her mouth, twisted his hand instead into her thick, loosened hair dragging her head savagely back. Tears of pain filled her eyes. Ralph was nowhere to be seen.
‘The coppers,’ someone said. ‘’Ere come the coppers. They’ll take care of the little bleeders!’
They were dragged to the back of the hall and out on to the steps beyond the doors. With huge and entirely unnecessary force the steward who held Hannah thrust her forward, all but throwing her down the flight of steps and into the arms of an obviously bemused young policeman. A moment later the bundle of flailing arms and legs that was Sally Smith followed, if anything even more forcibly, it having taken three men to subdue her, two of whom would certainly bear the scars home to their wives. Sally landed on hands and knees, her hair wild about her shoulders. The stewards who had manhandled her from the hall stood above her, dusting their hands and grinning. She sat back on her heels, almost on the enormous shining boot of a portly, fatherly looking moustachioed policeman, lifted her head to look at them. And in tones as pleasant and clear as a bell in the silence that had fallen she told them in a few most picturesque and imaginative phrases garnered directly from her early life exactly what she thought of them, their mothers, their brothers and their sisters, and what they could do with themselves now that they had finished defending their masters from two frail women.
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 17
