Chapter Five

In which I am not very ladylike

If I had not felt so endangered I believe I might have found the march uplifting. There was something stirring about seeing women of all ranks marching side by side united in their belief that women should have a say in how our country is governed and that we are more than the playthings of men. I confess I do yearn for the day that womankind will be recognised for our intelligence, allowed to take control of our own lives, and become more than creatures who are thought only to find their reason for being through marriage. As the song swelled around me I knew that my unusual upbringing, with my education from my learned father and my association with men such as Bertram Stapleford and even Fitzroy, had placed me among men who valued me, not as an equal¹³ but as that ‘unusual’ thing, a woman with a brain.

Estranged as we were from my grandfather, there was always a slight chance my brother might inherit some of the family property through the machinations of the law, but for me, as a woman, and for my mother, a widow, we had had no choice but to forge our own way in the world. When I left my home after my father’s demise, there had been but two options open to me, to enter service or to become a fallen woman. Richard Stapleford, when I was offered employment in his house, had assumed that because I was well-spoken, I was a high-class woman of the night who for her own reasons had chosen to enter service. Even Bertram had assumed that at the best I was the illegitimate child of a man of position. (Bertram’s assumption placed no blame on the man in question, though; such things happened. It meant rather that it was somehow my fault if I had indeed proved to be illegitimate.)

I shook my head. The cries of the Sisterhood were affecting me. The world might be run unfairly (and in my opinion, unwisely) by men, but the random violent actions by some suffragettes made it foolish and dangerous for any woman to join a public march.

I knew it was unfair, but I also knew we were in danger.

I glanced at the pretty young woman to my left, who was singing her heart out. I judged her to be about eighteen years of age. Her face had the pinched look of one who does not always manage to eat three meals a day, but she took pride in her appearance. Her face was scrubbed clean and her light brown hair tightly braided. Her eyes shone with, I thought, hope rather than fanaticism. She was simply dressed and obviously of the lower working classes. I surmised she was a woman who had always had to work hard and who life had no doubt treated less than fairly. She believed in this cause in the way a child of an orphanage might cling to the idea that one day their real parents might come to rescue them.

I ventured a whisper. ‘Do you know how long we will be marching?’

Immediately her expression turned to concern and even, I thought, fear. ‘No, m’um,’ she replied, and after that sang a little quieter. The flame-haired young woman on my other side nudged me none to gently in the ribs and stopped singing for a moment. ‘Emily Davidson,’ she said, ‘we will march for as long as it takes!’ Then she turned away from me returned to her song, inflating her thin chest with effort, but not before I had caught the glint in her eye.

I did my best to calm myself. Who was I to think I saw the evidence of fanaticism in her face? Being part of this large throng, for the crowd snaked away into distance both before and after me, was affecting. There might well be hundreds of women here, singing. I did not have the knack of estimating a crowd like Fitzroy. It was hard to resist both the feelings of sisterhood and righteous indignation that were coming in emotional waves from the women around me. Deep breaths, I told myself, do not become hysterical. I knew this was the phrase most commonly banded about by the newspapers. I sneaked a glance at the faces on either side of me. Both were flushed with excitement? With the exercise or with fervour? I twisted my head round to look to for Richenda. The lady who had placed me so carefully in line must also have indicated a place to Richenda. Sense dictated that it could not be that far away, but it is difficult to look around when around when marching in formation. We were not unlike a moving version of one of my little brother’s toys, dominoes. There was a sense that I struggle to describe of each of us buoying the others up, that we were more than ourselves and had become part of a greater whole. Should I stumble I feared I would disappear underneath this body of women as they marched on over me. Perhaps others too would fall, but like the ants I had seen as a child in the country, I could not shake the fantasy that the march would carry on, bodies beaten under the unison of marching boots. Perhaps I had indeed become infected by the ways of Madam Arcana, when she had first told me, that I had preternatural capabilities.¹⁴ But whatever it was I could not shake my feeling of dread.

Richenda, I thought ruefully, would be having a grand time. She had few friends in real life, and of her family, there existed affection only between herself and her brother Bertram. Feeling as she did now, that Hans no longer desired her, I could well understand her desire to feel part of something bigger, to be welcomed into the suffragette fold, and to march shoulder to shoulder with women whom she could pretend were her sisters.

I knew I was being nasty, that these were unkind thoughts about Richenda, but I latched on to the seething annoyance inside me that she had dragged me into this mess and at my own stupidity for not realising the significance of the colours she had been dressing me in for some time. She had played me for a fool. Yes, it was better to hold onto to this anger than give into the creeping fear that threatened to swallow me. I glanced sideways at Emily Davidson. Her reticule was small. Could it contain a brick? It was tied with a feminine bow, so I doubted it. If I was bringing a missile for use, I would have ensured although hidden it was also easy to access.

The noise was tremendous. Women may in general have lighter voices, but get enough of them together and they will prove to you that their lungs have as much capacity as any men’s. And while men may hold this image of gentle women tripping lightly along the woman in this march took every step with decision, with pride, with determination, and their boots rang with headache-inducing rhythm.

Again I tried to look about me, beyond the forms of the women surrounding me. I glimpsed buildings, but none were familiar to me. Another snatch of panic fluttered in my stomach. I was lost. I had no idea where we were heading and no idea how to return to the hotel. Be calm, I again silently urged myself, London is full of cabs. But would any of them take a suffragette home?

Along the road we were marching I became aware of spectators. From the start people had stopped their business to gawp at us.¹⁵ But now the spectators were no longer merely watching. Even over the noise of the song, I became aware of male voices. The words were difficult to distinguish, but the tone was hostile. We passed one man and I saw his face contorted in anger. Windows were opening. Men were hanging out of them, shaking their fists at us. We must be coming into the heart of the city, for there were more and more of them. Then the missiles began. Not from our side as I had feared, but people, both men and women began to throw things down from the windows. The contents of a bucket were launched over some women in front of me, who shrieked with alarm and revulsion. They were not to be the only victims.

And now I saw police lining the road. Perhaps they had been following us for some time, or perhaps they, unlike I, had always known where this march was headed. Surely I thought they would intervene. Insults were one thing, and I suspected the suffragettes were all too accustomed to them, but missiles? Stones, old books, even a saucepan landed close enough to me that I had to step quickly to avoid being hit. My anger took a different turn. We were unarmed women. We were being attacked! There were more and more police lining the road, but not one man moved to aid us.

As we turned a corner, marching into a square, where there was a platform waiting, no doubt intended for us to listen to speeches, where it was easy to block the exits – it was then they sent the horses in.

In the initial moments of the onslaught by the police the women held firm, but police both on foot and on horse waded into the ranks of women, batons raised. It quickly became clear it was not enough for them to disperse this march; they were intent on taking prisoners. And worse yet, they had no hesitation in using violence against us.

My first thought was to find Richenda. I twirled wildly on the spot, trying to see through the heaving masses and keep my balance. Surely, with her flame-red hair I would be able to spot her.

Near the centre of the square, bodies jostled me from all sides. The smell of perfume mingled unpleasantly with the smell of sweat. We had been marching hard and now we were being forced closer and closer together. For now, I was caught among the women away from the police, who were skirting the edge of the square. Through the crowd I thought I caught sight of police vans blocking one of the square’s exits. The shy girl who had stood on my left cringed fearfully, unable to move. ‘You need to get away from here,’ I told her. She was mere inches from me, but I had to yell so she could hear me. Instead of heeding me she curled in on herself, crouching lower to the ground. I hauled her up by the arm. ‘Keep moving,’ I shouted, ‘stay on your feet or the crowd will crush you!’ She looked at me with wild and frightened eyes. I knew I could not leave her.

I pulled her after me, not making for an exit, but wading deeper into the crowd. ‘Richenda!’ I called, but my voice was lost. The mood in the square was changing fast. The singing continued in snatches across the square, in groups and the single women who held firm, but mostly the air was shrill with cries of outrage and screams.

Some of the women had been carrying flags on poles. I saw these now raised as weapons. Who struck first I could not in all honesty say. It was mayhem. A woman pushed past me wielding her flag before her. She headed towards the side where we could now hear the whinnying of horses.

Hans will never forgive me if I do not find Richenda, I thought, but the likelihood of doing so seemed remote. Indeed, if I, and the terrified girl who had attached herself to me, were to get away, we had to go now.

I cursed Richenda a thousand times as I turned my back on her. I could only hope her stout form and strong temperament would bring her through. Even then I could not bring myself to believe that the London police would use force against women. I told myself they were only trying to frighten us.

I pushed through the crowd. The tidy rank and file had disintegrated. It seemed to me that the women were a mixture of those who were ripe for battle and those who desperately wanted to flee.

This is not a happy mix for any army in close quarters, for army we were about to become. The policemen advanced into the throng. Batons raised, they lashed out around them. I glimpsed one women, her straw hat askew and blood running down her face. Her companion, a matron long past middle years, thumped the policeman heartily with her flag, beating him off her colleague. Two men came up behind her and grasping her by the arms dragged her back, with no thought given to her age or fragility. I saw her mouth open, whether she was screaming or cursing I could not tell, but they bore her off. Her companion bloodied and confused stumbled back into the fray and I did not see her again.

To my right I heard the whinny of a horse. Unbelievably the police had ridden their horses into the heart of the crowd. Women scattered from the beast’s path as the rider lashed out right and left with his baton. I tried to pull my charge out of the way, but I was too slow. The baton came down and caught her a glancing blow on the cheek. She gave a small cry and slumped to the ground, the horse above her. Without thinking I leapt for the horse’s reins, and pulled it sharply round to the right, so the hooves fell close, but not on her. The rider struck at me with his baton, and with a strength I did not know I had I grabbed at his belt and hauled him from his seat.

The horse, wanting even less than its rider to be among the crowds, made off. The rider attempted to struggle to his feet, but already my actions had been noted. A cry of triumph arose around and women surged forward beating at the man with umbrellas, flags, reticules, and even in one old woman’s case, her shoe. I might have feared for his life were it not that the unseating of the rider had been noticed and forces quickly despatched in our direction.

Within moments my arms were pulled behind me by two policemen who addressed me in such language that I had never heard before in my life. Instinct warned me this was no time to fight. These men’s blood was up, but so was mine. I managed to twist hard to my right and bite one man savagely on the hand. I tasted blood.

The next moment a blow of such force landed on my head that the world went completely dark.

¹³ Even I am not so foolish as to believe this!

¹⁴ See my journal A Death in the Asylum.

¹⁵ What my mother would have made of me making such a spectacle of myself I shuddered to think. I could only have made things worse if I had marched in my petticoats.