Mabel Beaton laboured half-heartedly with a wooden spoon in the large cracked bowl. She sighed and put down the cake mixture, her arms aching from the effort. Why was it, she thought with vexation, that she was not more pleased with Susan’s engagement to Richard Turvey?
The young Londoner had approached her and asked for her daughter’s hand in marriage with all his usual charm. These days he wore a new air of prosperity about him since he had secured a new office job down on the quayside. Susan had been delighted with his move from what she saw as insecure and dubious employment in the entertainment world to respectability, and Mabel was encouraged by this show of responsibility too. Richard had been vague about his new job, but from what she could gather, she understood it was to do with exporting armaments for one of Pearson’s subsidiary companies. Yet she had never quite trusted him after Maggie’s attack in town in which she privately suspected he had been involved in some way.
But perhaps it was just the upset over Maggie’s arrest and the exhaustion of the past weeks coping without her wages that had left her feeling weak and depressed, Mabel thought. At first she had been worried at Maggie’s disappearance, then furious at her brief notoriety at the launch and in the local press after her court appearance. Mabel had refused to let any of the family attend and had given Jimmy a severe beating for conspiring to get clothes to Maggie. She had refused to speak to Granny Beaton for a fortnight on discovering she had squandered her expensive cape on the escapade and told the old woman that she did not care if she froze this winter as a result. Her mother-in-law was becoming an increasing burden since Maggie’s arrest, with her mind withdrawing into a haunted past.
But it was now two months since Maggie had been imprisoned and Mabel’s anger was spent. She missed her daughter and fretted over her treatment and knew that old Mrs Beaton did too. Yet it still perplexed her why Maggie had so readily given up her good job and secure future for this obsession with women’s rights. Mabel had invested all her hopes in her brightest daughter and now they were as spent as the ashes in the grate.
‘Let me finish that, lassie,’ Granny Beaton interrupted her thoughts, hobbling across from the fire where she had been sitting in a reverie.
Mabel took up the spoon and began to beat again.
‘I can manage,’ she said shortly.
‘Why don’t you go and lie down for a wee bit?’ her mother-in-law suggested gently. ‘You look tired.’
‘I’m all right,’ Mabel answered crossly, hating attention being drawn to her ill health. Last week she had taken to her bed for two days with pains in her chest and arms, and Susan had to help Helen with the clothes business. Her thick hair, of which she had been so proud, was now completely silver and thinning on her scalp. When she looked in the mirror she saw a puffy grey-faced woman of nearer sixty than her forty-eight years. These days she felt old as well as looking it.
‘What are you making, dearie?’ Granny asked, staring half-blindly at the bowl.
‘The cake for Susan and Richard’s betrothal party,’ Mabel said, pausing again. ‘I told you before.’
Granny Beaton looked at her vacantly for a moment.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already, Mrs Beaton?’ Mabel said in irritation.
‘Susan’s getting married?’ Granny Beaton asked.
‘Aye, to Richard Turvey, the lad from London.’
‘Richard?’ For a moment the old woman seemed to struggle with her memory, then, ‘Och, aye. The boy from London.’
The old wife! Mabel thought impatiently. She doubted her mother-in-law would remember Maggie when she finally came home. Then the older woman surprised her with a moment of lucidity.
‘I think we should’ve waited for Maggie to be with us before having a party. They’re just young and it wouldn’t harm them to wait a wee bit. You won’t let them marry while Maggie’s still in prison, will you, Mabel?’
‘Don’t fuss, Mrs Beaton, they’ll not be marrying before next summer,’ Mabel answered shortly, though she silently shared the old woman’s concern. Susan was full of haste and seemed to have rubbed Maggie from her mind, for she never spoke about her absent sister.
The next moment Susan bustled in at the back door, putting a stop to Granny Beaton’s anxious questioning.
‘Look at this, Mam!’ she cried breathlessly, tearing at a package she was carrying before even unbuttoning her coat. ‘Richard bought it for me - at Fenwick’s!’
The name of the grand department store brought Helen rushing out of the parlour where she had been reluctantly sewing on buttons.
‘What’ve you got?’ she demanded, tossing back her fair ringlets to stare at her sister’s purchase.
‘A new hat!’ Susan tore feverishly at the soft paper wrapping inside the box.
‘A new hat in its own box!’ Mabel exclaimed. ‘I’ve never seen one o’ them before.’
Susan discarded her old wide-brimmed hat and lifted the new one carefully from its nest of tissue paper. It was a neat black and white toque with two brilliant feathers of vivid green and china blue. She perched it on the front of her head while the others gazed in awe at her sudden chic appearance. It drew the eye away from the plumpness around her chin and highlighted the curve of her cheeks and brow, whereas her old, all-enveloping hat had accentuated her dumpiness.
‘What a bonny picture you look!’ Mabel gasped at her eldest child. ‘You look a grown woman, our Susan.’
‘Well, that’s what I am,’ Susan preened. ‘Eeh, we went to that new Terrace Tearoom an’ all. Had a real orchestra playing and proper table linen on the tables. And Mam, you should’ve seen the cups and saucers - gold trim.’
Mabel caught the look of speechless envy on Helen’s face and answered swiftly, ‘Well, you better get laying our battered old crockery or there’ll be no party the night. And you just watch your step with that young man - you’re barely engaged.’
Yet she was pleased to see Susan so animated and happy. Hers had been a long, dull growing up, with few treats and too many family burdens and it was time, Mabel thought, that she had a bit of fun.
‘Can I try it on?’ Helen gulped, trying to hide her admiration.
Susan looked unwilling. ‘You might damage the feathers... ‘
‘I won’t,’ Helen insisted. ‘Just for a minute. Haway, Susan.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Susan agreed with reluctance and Helen had it on her head in an instant. She dashed straight into the parlour to admire herself in the mirror.
‘It suits me, don’t you think. Mam?’ Helen demanded through the open door. ‘White and black are all the mode this autumn,’ she added with affectation.
Mabel silently agreed. Above Helen’s large blue eyes with their startlingly dark brows and lashes, the effect of the expensive hat was striking.
‘It suits an older lass like Susan better,’ Mabel lied. ‘Don’t you go thinking we can afford hats like that for you. Now give it back and help your sister set the table.’
Helen’s face turned sulky. ‘Why do I always have to wear my sisters’ cast-offs? Why can’t I have something new for a change?’
‘Just be grateful for what you’ve got,’ Mabel snapped wearily.
‘Well, I’m not!’ Helen shouted. ‘Why should I be grateful for carting a load of smelly old clothes around town while our Susan’s having tea with the posh lot in Fenwick’s?’
‘Don’t you speak to Mam like that!’ Susan scolded, grabbing her hat from Helen. For a moment Helen held on and they tussled with it when suddenly the bright blue feather became detached and fluttered in a crazy zigzag to the scrubbed wooden floor.
They both stopped their struggling and stared in horror at the damaged toque. Helen seemed as aghast at the crime as her sister and immediately released the hat. But it was too late.
‘Look what you’ve done!’ Susan shrieked and instantly burst into tears, running into the bedroom and slamming the door behind her.
Susan so seldom cried that the sudden show of emotion upset her mother. Mabel dropped the wooden spoon and lunged round the table before Helen could escape, raised her hand and slapped her daughter hard across the face.
‘You selfish little madam! Why do you always have to spoil things for our Susan? And after the way she’s brought you up and looked after you!’
Helen glared back, nursing her cheek and trying not to cry. ‘I never wanted her to! You’re me mam - you should’ve been there to look after me, not that bossy cow. But you’ve always put Susan and Maggie before me, ever since me dad died. You’ve never cared about me! None of you ever cared about me!’
Mabel was appalled by this outburst. She had done everything she could to keep her family together after Alec was killed and she was still working herself into an early grave so that they would never again be homeless or hungry. It was not her fault if she had been unable to give the demanding Helen the attention she constantly craved. She had done her best and the effort had wrung her dry of all reserves of energy and love. The injustice of Helen’s words made Mabel’s pulse race furiously.
She seized the girl by her curly hair and propelled her towards the back door which stood open to let in the fresh September breeze.
‘Get out of my sight, you ungrateful little waster!’ she shouted.
‘Ah-ya, Mam! Please don’t,’ Helen wailed.
Pushing Helen down the steps, Mabel hauled the hysterical girl across the moss-covered yard to the coal shed.
‘You can stay in there till you learn some manners.’
‘No, Mam! I’m sorry!’ Helen screamed. ‘Please, Mam. I hate it in there. It’s dirty ...’
Mabel flung her inside and banged the door shut, forcing across the two bolts. She walked away shaking with her own violence, shutting out her daughter’s terrified wails, and wondered how her life had ever come to this.
Once, long ago, she had loved all her daughters with a possessive passion. Now they filled her with worry, disappointment and fatigue that reduced her to locking her youngest in an outhouse to keep order.
As she mounted the back stairs, ignoring the curious stares of the Smiths from their kitchen window, she thought herself no better than the gaolers who kept Maggie imprisoned and wondered again about the fate of her other rebellious child. She had gone once to visit, but they had not let her in and being semi-illiterate she had been too embarrassed to leave a note.
Re-entering the kitchen she found only Granny Beaton sitting staring into the fire, sucking her gums and mumbling to herself in Gaelic. Mabel was suddenly seized with panic that her family was collapsing in on itself like poor baking.
‘It mustn’t happen,’ Mabel said aloud, ‘or all the hard graft has been for nowt!’
Granny Beaton looked up at her in confusion. ‘What was that, Peggi?’
Mabel had no idea who the old woman thought she was. ‘I said it’s time we got that cake in the oven, Mrs Beaton. We’re going to give Susan the celebration she deserves.’
‘Susan?’ Granny asked with childlike interest. ‘What is the lassie celebrating?’
Mabel sighed and went back to her mixing.
***
Maggie had no idea how long she spent in solitary confinement, but it came close to breaking her spirit. There was nothing in her cell; even the bed was removed at the start of the day. In the ordinary cell there was a high window that let in the light and to whose ledge tame birds would come and sit and twitter for food. But the punishment cell was like a tomb which shut out the light and the noise of other prisoners until Maggie lost all sense of what day or hour it was. The force-feeding continued relentlessly and eventually she put up no opposition to the assault.
After what seemed like an eternity, Maggie was returned to the main landing and a degree of liberty to shuffle around the larger cell and talk to the sparrows who darted into view.
One day, young Stevens lingered behind to clear up the spillage and bile from a feeding session.
‘It’s daft, this carry-on,’ she said. ‘Nobody gives a dickybird what happens to you in here. So what you ganin’ on for?’
Maggie just looked at her with silent contempt, too weak to argue, but Stevens persisted, with a nervous glance over her shoulder.
‘You see, everyone outside’s forgotten what you did. If you’d been a posh lady they might have taken more notice and got you out by now, but who gives a toss about ordinary lasses like us, eh? If you died the morra no one would make a fuss, would they? So why don’t you just tell them what they want to hear?’
‘And what’s that?’ Maggie croaked.
‘Say you were wrong to do what you did. Say you’ll give up being a suffragette,’ Stevens urged in a whisper, ‘then they’ll leave you alone and you can gan home. I tell you, me and the other lasses are pig sick of forcing you to drink that muck every day. It’s not right making us do that to another lass. Them doctors aren’t right in the head, they’ve worked too long with people they think are worse than animals.’ Stevens darted to the door to make sure she wasn’t overheard.
Maggie felt her resolve disintegrating with the girl’s concerned words. She had weathered the abuse, the humiliation and the violence and had resisted the temptation to give in, even as her body withered before her sunken eyes. In the dark of the punishment cell, Maggie had clung to the certainty that her cause was just and that her friends outside would be willing her to keep faith. At times she had felt their presence like a comforting pair of arms holding her up and giving her courage.
But now, to be told that the world did not care about her or her sacrifice was shattering. After all, no one had written to her, not even Rose and her mother and she had had no news from any of her family. Maggie felt an overwhelming sense of failure and bitterness at being abandoned.
How pathetic that her only friend appeared to be this solid, anxious wardress who had the humanity to worry over her and wish her ordeal to end. Maggie hung her head and felt painful tears prick her eyes and water her swollen throat. How easy it would be to give up the struggle now, she thought. And why shouldn’t she? She had suffered for over three months and could endure no more. Nobody could demand more of her.
‘Eeh, Maggie,’ Stevens said in concern, ‘are you crying?’
A dry harsh sob wrenched itself from Maggie’s throat. ‘I can’t...’ Maggie tried to voice her despair but could not.
‘Burdon says you’ve never cried,’ Stevens said, putting an arm about her skinny shoulders. ‘Says you’re not human that way.’
‘If I agree to say - what you said,’ Maggie gulped, ‘will that be an end of it? Will they let me go home?’
‘That’s what Miss Holland says, and she’s head wardress.’
Maggie suddenly yearned to be free and at home, she longed to be forgiven and taken back into the heart of her family, made a fuss of by Granny Beaton and hugged by her mother. She felt faint for want of physical contact and loving arms to nurse her back to life.
‘If only someone had written,’ Maggie sniffed, ‘I could have borne it if just someone had written to me.’
‘Aye,’ Stevens nodded, ‘you’ve Burdon to thank for that. Now, can I tell Miss Holland you’ve agreed to sign the papers and you can tell them doctors to go pick their own noses?’
Maggie looked up in confusion. ‘What did you say?’
‘About signing the papers.’
‘No, about Burdon,’ Maggie asked.
Stevens stood up and gave a nervous glance towards the door. ‘I shouldn’t really say.’
Maggie put out a scrawny hand and gripped Stevens with what strength she had left. ‘Tell me!’
‘You did get letters but Burdon threw them out, said they would only encourage you to be difficult. Don’t you dare say I told you, mind,’ Stevens said sharply.
Maggie closed her eyes in relief. How close she had come to betraying her friends.
‘Go away,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll sign nowt!’
Stevens looked vexed. ‘You’re bloody daft.’
‘Gan on,’ Maggie hissed. ‘I’d sooner die a suffragette than give in to them bastard doctors.’
Stevens hurried from the cell.
For the next three days, Maggie clung to the knowledge that she had not been forgotten, that someone had tried to keep her spirits from flagging by writing to her. She adamantly refused to sign any papers renouncing her allegiance to the WSPU. But her physical strength was ebbing rapidly.
Finally, in the fourteenth week, when she was too weak to stand, a third doctor was called in to check her heart.
‘If you carry on with the feeding, you’ll kill her,’ he grimly told the prison governor.
The next day Maggie was unceremoniously told she was to be released on licence until she was strong enough to carry out the rest of her sentence. She knew this was how the infamous ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act kept suffragettes at the mercy of the authorities for months or years as they were shunted in and out of prison. But she felt a lifting of her spirits to think she was about to see the outside world again and smell its vitality after the months of incarceration.
She was given her old clothes to dress in; they hung on her gaunt frame like those on a scarecrow. That afternoon she was bundled into an ambulance and escorted out of the prison. She lay terrified by the speed of the motor vehicle and wincing with pain at the jolts it gave her bony body. She was too exhausted by the journey to notice in which direction she was driven and so it came as a shock to find herself being carried out of the ambulance in front of a large white-bricked house surrounded by trees shedding their coppery leaves. She looked around in panic and confusion.
‘Where am I?’ she whispered in fright to a round-faced woman with a starched cap and apron who leaned over her in the sunlight. ‘This isn’t me home. I want to gan home.’
‘You’re in safe hands,’ the woman assured her with a kind smile. ‘I’m Sister Robinson.’
***
Alice Pearson paced along the edge of the water garden, beneath the golden willows. Autumn had a grip on the trees and the wind blowing up from the Tyne was raw with the smell of oil and cinders and the promise of icy rain.
But Alice hardly felt its coldness as she squelched through the mud in her leather boots, Rosamund snuffling happily behind her among the fallen leaves. There was too much occupying her mind.
Should she go and see Maggie Beaton at the convalescent home in Gosforth or not? she fretted. Sister Robinson had said it was too early for visitors and that her patient was in an extremely weakened state and so Alice had an excuse to stay away. She was partly thankful to do so; she did not want to draw attention to her links with the WSPU at this moment, but part of her longed to see Maggie Beaton and try to make amends for her punishing imprisonment.
Not that she was in a strong position to help the girl, except to give her moral support. Perhaps when this storm with Herbert and Felicity had blown over, she might be able to offer Maggie a job in her household ...
‘Ruddy Felicity!’ Alice growled aloud. She knew that her sister-in-law was at the centre of the family battle to curb her independence and bring her to heel. Alice recalled with anger the way her beloved Hebron House had been appropriated by her brother and his pretty, vindictive wife. She despised Herbert all the more for sending their father to do his brutal work for him, but then that was so like Herbert to hide behind the actions of others, Alice thought with disdain.
She had known that something was wrong when her father turned up unannounced and refused to stay for dinner as he was accustomed to do.
‘You’ve disappointed me, Alice,’ Lord Pearson had said curtly, firing his words across the length of the upstairs drawing room. It had been a hot day in August and the room had been flooded with light and warmth that made the air smell of dusty fabric and polished wood.
Alice had stood with her back to the huge marble fireplace and looked at him steadily with her prominent brown eyes.
‘I had nothing to do with that girl’s protest, Papa,’ she told him for the umpteenth time.
‘I may believe you but the Prime Minister does not,’ her father snapped. ‘It’s done untold harm to our reputation. We’re seen as being a potential target for further sabotage. So,’ he said, turning to scrutinise something through the long sash window, ‘I’ve decided we must keep a closer eye on your activities. I’m not going to force you into marriage as your mother wants, but you can no longer live here alone.’
‘You’re going to find me a suitable companion?’ Alice asked mockingly. ‘To keep me in check?’
‘I won’t need to,’ he answered in his most businesslike manner, turning from watching a gardener weeding the beds below. ‘Herbert and Felicity have decided to move back to town where Herbert can pursue his political career. It might even encourage him to take more interest in the business and stop spending the Pearson fortune, so I’ve agreed to the plan. They will take over the running of Hebron House at once.’
Alice had gawped at him in shock. She had expected to be chastised for the affair at the launch and was even prepared to spend more time at Oxford Hall at her mother’s endless social gatherings, but she had been quite unprepared for this intrusion into her private life.
‘You mean Felicity will take over the running of my home?’ Alice spluttered. ‘She’s behind all this, isn’t she? She’s never forgiven me for doing Herbert’s dirty work and getting rid of Poppy Beresford, her lover!’
‘Don’t be so vile,’ her father shouted. ‘Felicity is a charming girl and the mother of my grandson - the heir to my empire. If she finds the country too quiet and wishes to return to town then you’ll not stand in her way. Remember, Alice, this is my house and you live your liberated life here at my discretion. Don’t give me cause to change my mind about that. You’ll welcome Felicity here and curb that tongue of yours.’
They had glared at each other, while Alice choked on words of anger.
‘If,’ her father had continued more evenly, gripping the back of a flowery chintz-covered sofa, ‘you prove that you have no more to do with your militant friends and that you can live here peaceably with your brother, I will see that you have more to do with the business. I might even consider a place on the board - all in due time, of course.’
Alice had almost spat the offer back at him. She was furious at the humiliation and being spoken to like a naughty child. She was thirty-six! How dare he speak to her like that! But as always, she backed down in the face of his opposition, comforting herself with the thought that she would still be living in the house she loved and still able to work in the business, albeit unofficially.
Now, standing looking back at Hebron House, its windows winking in the autumn sun like eyes in the soot-blackened elegant building, she cursed her cowardice. Felicity ran the house with a vigour and style that she had never had and it was she who now arranged the entertaining for Lord Pearson’s clients and business associates. The two women stood at an uneasy truce, with Alice keeping out of Felicity’s way and retreating more and more to her photography and the darkroom she had created out of a former pantry under the servants’ staircase.
Sometimes she caught Felicity watching her with resentful pale eyes and knew that she would never be forgiven for getting rid of Poppy Beresford. Although members of Newcastle society came and went, Felicity did not seem to have any close friends and in that respect, Alice thought, they were alike. Two women adrift in a hostile sea, each trying to cling to the successful Pearson fleet and grab at what rich flotsam came their way.
‘Neither of us has any freedom of choice,’ Alice said bitterly to the panting Rosamund. ‘No matter what our class, we women are ruled and restrained by men.’
It made her think again of the convalescing Maggie Beaton and this time Alice decided she would risk being found out and go and see the invalid.
***
Maggie spent her first two weeks at the discreet Gosforth nursing home in torpor. She could do nothing to shake off her depression after the initial euphoria of being released. The kind and patient Sister Robinson coaxed her to eat, but Maggie had lost all sense of taste and food held no interest for her.
‘Try and remember what it tasted like before,’ the nurse suggested as she presented Maggie with a small plate of poached fish.
‘Never had fish this good,’ Maggie smiled wanly, pushing it away and closing her eyes.
‘Drink the tea then,’ Sister Robinson said patiently. ‘You must try and regain your strength.’
‘Who’s paying for all this?’ Maggie asked, waving a bony hand at the large airy bedroom with its view out over a rambling garden secluded by large beech hedges. Maggie’s one pleasure was to sit in the bay window and gaze out over the trees as the autumn wind tore off red and gold leaves and scattered them across the lawn like confetti. It was her only activity and it occupied her for hours at a time.
‘The Movement,’ the nurse answered after a moment’s hesitation, ‘so you mustn’t worry about how long you stay here.’
‘They shouldn’t spend their money on the likes of me,’ Maggie said forlornly. ‘I’m not worth it.’
‘Of course you are!’ Sister Robinson was brisk. ‘The Movement values you highly, and we want you to get better so you can go on fighting.’
‘I can’t fight any more,’ Maggie whimpered. She had never felt so listless. Despite the brightness of her surroundings, it was like living in shadow where everything she saw or touched was a deep dull grey. ‘I just want to go home.’
Sister Robinson removed the tray of food and came to sit beside her, taking Maggie’s hand gently in her own warm grasp.
‘Dear girl,’ she said softly, ‘you can’t go home. You’re still, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner. You’ve seen the constable standing at the front entrance every day - they’re watching you in case you try to escape. As soon as they see you walking around again, you’ll be re-arrested. If you run home, that’s the first place they’re going to look for you.’
‘Oh God!’ Maggie moaned and covered her gaunt face with her hands. ‘I’m so alone! If I can’t go home, why does no one come to see me here?’
‘They won’t allow it. And it wouldn’t be safe for your militant friends to visit - they would only be followed and questioned and harassed and watched to see if they tried to help you leave.’
‘So - I’m a fugitive?’ Maggie asked in bewilderment. ‘I’m never going to be allowed to lead a normal life again, am I?’
Sister Robinson shook her head slowly. ‘You stepped over the line when you stood up to the Prime Minister. Until we women get the vote, they will carry on hunting you and locking you up and treating you like a pariah.’
Maggie crumpled as she covered her head with her arms and buried her face in her lap. Then, for the first time since prison, she cried aloud, deep racking sobs that rose up from her guts and filled the room with her misery. How could she carry on living, she thought desperately, if she was never to see her family or friends again? For the bleak choice appeared to be to submit to further torture in prison until her sentence petered out, or go on the run and attempt to hide from the police, always looking over her shoulder in fear.
She became aware of the nurse’s arms about her, trying to comfort.
‘You do have friends, Maggie,’ she insisted, ‘and they’re not going to desert you. We’ll think of a way to get you out of here to a safe house where you can recover your spirits. It’s perfectly normal to feel depressed after what you’ve been through. But you must believe that what you did was worthwhile to the movement and worth all the sacrifice.’
Maggie had little recollection of the following days, except that the nurse’s staunch words kept on coming back to her, until a week or so later she found her interest in small things returning. Tea began to taste pleasant and she started to comb and pin up her dark hair. She dared to look in the mirror and instead of staring at the garden from her bedroom window, she ventured across its dank lawns for her first walk, leaning heavily on a stick.
She nearly fainted from the heady scents of newly turned earth, heavy dew and the sweet acrid smell of burning leaves. As nature began to droop and turn in on itself for the winter, Maggie found herself emerging from her depression and rediscovering a will to live.
She ate. Her appetite returned and she finally began to regain weight. Sister Robinson observed that it was time to act.
One frosty morning, Maggie was completing her circular walk round the garden and contemplating joining the other elderly residents in the sitting room when Sister Robinson beckoned her inside.
‘You have a visitor,’ she told her, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. ‘She’s waiting for you upstairs.’
Maggie hurried for the stairs, but the watchful nurse took her arm and helped her up. At the top, Maggie was breathless but carried on in a fever of anticipation. Surely it would be Rose come to see her at last with news of the outside world. Or maybe even her mother had sought her out...
‘Good morning, Maggie,’ a cultured voice spoke as she pushed open the door with her walking stick.
There before her stood Alice Pearson.