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Nancy Dickenson had been born in Portsea, ten minutes’ walk away from Garden Cottage. A ten-minute walk but, for residents of elegant and wealthy Southsea, an unbridgeable distance. They knew that Portsea existed, of course – why should they not know, seeing that it existed within easy walking distance – but Southsea knew as little of Portsea as Vladivostok knew of Cincinnati.

Much the same applied to the Portsea families, who often spent most of their lives in the dockland area without so much as walking over the boundaries into Portsmouth or Southsea, the large stores and shops of which were only one mile distant. Portsea, Portsmouth and Southsea were, for most civic purposes, a single entity, with a tram service and railway station serving all. It was not, though, a single entity to the people of the Portsea dockland area; to those many long-established families, theirs was an entirely separate community. Generations having lived, worked, married and died within it, never needing or wishing to go outside.

Nancy Dickenson was different. Although she was born into one of those old dockland families, she now found that Portsea was becoming too tight, too restricting. She had dreams of going places and doing things. Nancy worked in Southsea and her Mum lived in Portsea. During the tourist season Nancy lived in. In recent years she had been quite lucky.

‘It’s a lot better doing holiday-let domestic. I always hated hotel work, hardly any money in it, if it wasn’t for tips. Fetching and carrying, clearing up and laying up from morning to night. Kids bringing in jellyfish and seaweed and hiding them in the po-cupboard till they stink rotten; people leaving sopping towels on the floor. Wouldn’t do for my mum, she’d whop your ear smartish. Lord! you should see some of the things I’ve seen, you would never credit it. They wouldn’t do it in their own homes – perhaps they would, though. This mistress is different, about the best I’ve ever had. People behave better in holiday lets than they do in hotels. I stopped being surprised at hotel guests donkey’s years ago.’

How many years ago? It could not have been too many, for by the time that she was doing cook-general work for the Moths, she was still only twenty-four years old. But she had left school at thirteen, so that she had eleven years’ service to look back on.

Working for her present mistress suited Nancy just right, for the lady read books all day whilst resting her waterlogged legs, and so sent Nancy frequently to the library with a list. Nancy was surprised to discover that many on the list were romantic novels, which Nancy had always assumed only shop-girls and domestics read. Nancy had tried one or two and, though she had quite enjoyed them, had found them to be all much of a muchness, the girl always ending up getting married which, from Nancy’s observation, wasn’t much of a prize, even though she was really keen on Wally who drove a London tram and had courted her from a distance.

Nancy was concerned for her kindly mistress and her bloated condition. My mum had legs like that every time she was in the family way. It’s water that don’t get peed out properly. It goes away soon as the baby’s born. It was the midwife that told me about water in the legs: first time I helped my mum, and her waters broke, I thought that must be what it was, you know, water coming out of her legs – like a boil bursting.

Mrs Moth liked Nancy.

And even though Nancy was only twenty-four, Anne Moth felt quite secure with her. There were still several weeks before her confinement, which was to be in a London clinic, but should anything untoward occur, then Nancy was the kind of person one wanted around at such a time. There was not a lot of work to be done in the cottage. No fires because it was summer, no range or boiler – the old place had been thoroughly modernized, with gas laid on and good plumbing. Jack seemed to like eating out at what dubious places his mother did not know or want to. So cooking amounted to a breakfast of eggs and bacon, a light lunch for Mrs Moth and Esther, then supper for the three at six o’clock. All of which, plus the employment of a washer-woman and a weekly odd-job man, left Nancy with more time to read than she had ever had before. A kind of bond existed between servant and mistress, both of whom devoured books.

‘Your last choice of books was excellent, Nancy. I will leave it to you to select two more for me.’

Anne Moth thought how George would have drawn his mouth down at the idea of having one’s servant choose one’s reading material, and how Mama would have disapproved, and her sisters would have tut-tutted and reaffirmed the twice-told tale that Anne’s behaviour had always been extreme – witness her behaviour when it came to choosing a husband. But George was not here to comment on the easy-going relationship, nor Mama and the sisters.

‘Nothing too taxing, Nancy. Something a touch romantic. With a happy ending. Try to find one set in Paris… oh, how I loved Paris when I was a girl. How I loved everything when I was a girl.’

When she reached the library, Nancy came across a knot of people in hot discussion with a uniformed town hall doorman who, having realized that he had lost the battle, retreated into the protection of the grandiose public building. His parting shot, ‘Sweated labour! You lot wouldn’t know sweat if it hit you in the eye. Clear off or I’ll have the lor on you’, was drowned by a dozen female voices singing.

As would any servant encountering something interesting when out on an errand, Nancy sauntered to see what would happen.

A woman was issuing handbills to anyone who would accept them. Having read it, Nancy enquired whether they were members of the NUWSS.

‘We are!’ She spread her arms to encompass the other girls and women. ‘The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.’

‘Suffragettes.’

‘Not too much like them. Suffragist. Universal suffrage. We are for all women – the “have-nots” as well as the “haves”. Look, we are holding a meeting in Portsmouth, could you come? It’s in the evening. We like local women to act as stewards. Would you do it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

‘Please. You wouldn’t be alone, there are other Portsmouth women helping. The NUWSS is not only fighting for the vote, at this meeting we are campaigning for better working conditions for the shirtmakers. You see naval officers everywhere in this town, but did you know that the girls who make their uniforms do so on starvation wages?’

‘Do I know? Better than most. I’ve lived all my whole life with them, I’d be one myself if I hadn’t got a bit of luck and got into hotel work.’

‘Perfect! The perfect steward. You must join us. You belong with us.’

From her reading of the Dreadnought and her association with Wally, she was not entirely ignorant of the women’s movement, but it was never wise to let everybody know everything about you first off. ‘I wouldn’t be no use in chaining myself up or knocking off copper’s hats. I’ve got my living to earn.’

‘Of course you couldn’t, neither could we. That’s the difference between the NUWSS and the Pankhursts: they can afford to pay fines and if they go to prison they have servants to see to their homes and families. I’m not saying that they are not brave, but they are in a position to choose to be. We believe that we can win our cause by public acclaim through rational argument and democracy.’

The young woman’s eyes shone, and Nancy felt her own cheeks begin to burn by association.

‘We know that working women and poor women and women with family duties cannot afford the luxury of martyrdom or imprisonment. But of course with your first-hand experience you will know this.’

Nancy wondered whether the woman always talked as though she was making a speech. Even so, she felt that she was with someone of like mind.

‘Women like yourself are the most valued in our movement, Miss…?’

‘Dickenson, Nancy Dickenson.’

‘You could be invaluable as a member. Come to our meeting, Nancy, we are in desperate need of stewards.’

‘All right, then. I will!’ Nancy said, thrilled at having committed herself to something that Wally would approve of. ‘All right, I’ll give it a try.’