The hall was full of flamboyant hats – bold, curvaceous, positive hats – nodding in the gallery, busy above the wooden seats in the body of the hall, embellished by swoops and swirls of extravagant trimming. There were sunflower hats, tilting their petalled faces to the light from the high windows; birds’ nest hats, shimmering with feathers; fur hats, crouched over their owners’ foreheads as though they were about to spring upon the nearest prey. Whatever else the politicians and leader writers might say about them, and they usually had plenty to say and most of it detrimental, the ladies of the Women’s Social and Political Union dressed in formidable style.
There were very few men in the audience but that didn’t worry Professor Smith, for this was just the sort of revolutionary assembly in which he felt most at home. He tucked Octavia’s gloved hand into the crook of his left elbow and escorted his three charges to the nearest row of empty seats, smiling to right and left as he progressed.
Octavia was too overawed to smile. She settled beside him quietly, looking at the grand clothes of the platform party and the huge banner that hung above their heads declaring ‘DEEDS NOT WORDS’ in bold green letters. It made her remember how she’d felt years and years ago, when she was six, half-hidden in the shadows of her father’s study, watching the great and the good as they arrived for dinner, knowing how small and young she was and yet feeling hopeful and uplifted and breathlessly excited to be so near to the people who were going to change the world. And now here she was, half-hidden among all these strong, determined women, in this grand high-ceilinged hall, feeling almost exactly the same – only not quite so small. And as she looked around her, she suddenly remembered what hard work it had been to clean the tea stains from the carpet and recalled, in sharp still-shaming detail, the little pale brown splashes on Mr Morris’s famous wallpaper. How odd, she thought. Memory is very peculiar.
The platform party were discussing something, looking round the half-empty hall and conversing urgently, their fine hats dipping towards one another, like great birds in flight.
‘Time to start, I think,’ Professor Smith observed.
‘There aren’t many people here,’ Betty whispered.
‘It’s not the quantity that counts on occasions like this,’ he told her, ‘it’s the quality.’
Which was more or less what the chairman said when she made her opening remarks, thanking her audience for attending and expressing the hope that the speech they were about to hear would make them feel that their journeys had been worthwhile. ‘We have a great task in hand,’ she said, ‘and every person who supports our noble cause is valued and valuable. I welcome you most warmly, one and all.’ Then she introduced the speaker, ‘somebody who is so well known to us that she hardly needs any introduction at all. Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst.’
The applause and the expectation were intense, for this was the lady who had founded the WSPU and was the driving force behind all its activities. She stood, elegant in her grey suit with the thick white frill of her blouse framing her chin, smiled, waited until her audience had settled and began, speaking in a voice so soft and gentle that they had to strain forward to hear her.
Octavia listened with all her attention, determined not to miss a word, for what was being said was right and true and needed saying. The world was neither just nor fair – she had always known that – and something had to be done about it – she knew that too – and now here was a lady who knew exactly what it had to be. Before long she was nodding in agreement as each new point was made. If a woman does the same work as a man she should receive the same rate of pay. Of course. If she has studied law at university and earned a degree she should be allowed to practice alongside her gentlemen colleagues. Quite right. If her husband deserts her she should be allowed to petition for divorce, in exactly the same way as he could were the position reversed, despite the recent ruling in the High Court. Of course, of course. It was all so reasonable, so correct, so utterly sensible. She felt as if she was flying, up and up, lifted on stronger and stronger wings with every stated truth. Yes, yes, of course.
‘However,’ Mrs Pankhurst went on seriously, ‘it must be said, here and now, and over and over again, that legal, economic and educational inequalities will not be redressed until women have the right to make their will known through the ballot box. Without the vote women will continue to be second-class citizens. Without the vote we are without a voice. Without the vote we have no rights and no power. It must also be said that, in this country, the right to vote has never been given willingly and never without a struggle. During the last century, men were gradually granted the suffrage for which they fought but only by grudging degrees. The Chartists began their campaign in the 1830s, as you will remember, but it wasn’t until the third Reform Act in 1884 that they were finally taken seriously and even now, although five million men are enfranchised, this is by no means the universal suffrage the original Chartists sought. All these new voters together only make up two-thirds of the adult male population. We have a long and difficult struggle ahead of us, but it is a noble struggle. Our cause is just, ladies and gentlemen, and in the end we will prevail.’
The applause was immediate and prolonged although a little muffled because so many hands were politely gloved. Octavia took her gloves off for better effect and clapped until her palms were sore and by then the audience was on its feet and cheering and Mrs Pankhurst was acknowledging a standing ovation. ‘Hurray!’ Octavia called. ‘Hurray! Hurray!’ Dust motes swirled in the air before her, like specks of gold in the gaslight, the applause rose and fell in reverberating waves of sound, the banner throbbed in the current of their approbation as if it covered a beating heart. ‘Hurray!’
‘I must join,’ she said to her father, as the cheering subsided.
He was putting on his own gloves. ‘I thought you might.’
‘Now,’ she said passionately. ‘This minute. I want to shake her hand and tell her how wonderful she is.’
‘So do I,’ Betty and Gwen said together and amended it, half-laughing, to, ‘So do we.’
‘Then you will all need a shilling,’ he said, smiling at them.
‘Shall we?’ Octavia said.
‘Indeed yes,’ her father said, as he took the coins from his pocket. ‘That is the price of commitment.’
Oh, what bliss it was to stand in such a splendid line with so many strong-minded determined women and to know that she and her friends would soon be part of this extraordinary union. What a thrill to touch the gloved fingers of her new heroine and to hear herself welcomed – by name, what’s more. ‘You have joined a great crusade, Miss Smith.’
She was still glowing with the wonder of it all as she climbed aboard the tram for her journey home. ‘Didn’t I always say I’d find a cause?’ she asked her friends, rhetorically. ‘And now I have, we all have, and it couldn’t be a better one. We shall make history. Think of that. Once we’ve got the vote, the world will never be the same again.’ It was a perfect, blissful moment, the cause so right and just, her friends thrilled and happy, beaming at her, her father so obviously proud of her. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell Mama.’ She was taut with excitement, twisting in her seat to talk to her friends behind her, turning back to look at her father, her hair tousled and her cheeks flushed.
‘Perhaps you had better leave me to break this to your mama,’ J-J said as he eased into the slatted seat beside her. ‘We don’t want to make her anxious.’
‘Why should she be anxious?’ Octavia said, amazed that he would even entertain such an idea. ‘She’ll be proud. As I am. How could she be anything else? Oh, Pa, my dear, dear Pa, this is the most wonderful moment of my life.’
Her father gazed at her rapturous face with affection and concern. ‘You must be prepared for heavy opposition, my dear,’ he said. ‘It is not an easy road you have chosen.’
But Octavia was beyond warning. The future was full of hope; difficulties would be faced and overcome no matter how hard they might be; this great change was possible, necessary, inevitable. She was still talking as they delivered Betty and Gwen to their gate and still tremulous with excitement when they reached South Park Hill. It was a dark evening and the gaslights were globes of such very bright yellow that the windows below them gleamed with their reflected gold. To her dazzled eyes it all seemed just as it should be, richly coloured, bright and welcoming. How could it be anything else on such an evening? Then she reached the front path to her own house and saw that there were people in the parlour. She could see someone’s silhouette against the blinds.
‘We’ve got company,’ she said to her father. ‘I wonder who it is.’ And she led the way into the house, ready for warmth and welcome, eager to tell Mama her good news and to share it with their visitors.
The parlour was hot after the chill of the night air outside and prickling with excitement, as if they knew her news already. Mrs Wilkins, who was bending over the hearth to feed fresh coals to the fire, had cheeks as red as the coals, and their visitors were so excited she could hardly recognise them. Aunt Maud was sitting beside Mama, with her hair tumbling out of her bun like straw from a stack and giggling like a schoolgirl, and Emmeline was sitting in Pa’s armchair, which was unusual to say the least. There was something different about her, an air that Octavia couldn’t quite place, as though she were a queen receiving company – no, that wasn’t it – or the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland – no, that wasn’t it either. You couldn’t compare Em to a cat. Never mind, she thought, pushing the puzzle aside. Wait till she hears what I’ve done. She’ll be just thrilled.
‘Mama,’ she said, striding into the room. ‘It was the most amazing—’
But she didn’t get any further for Aunt Maud was interrupting her. Actually interrupting her. Whatever next? You never interrupted people. It was one of the ground rules of politeness. Pa said so. But it was being done, ground rules or no.
‘My dears,’ Aunt Maud said, beaming at them all. ‘Such wonderful news. Emmeline is engaged to be married.’
‘And I’ve just…’ Octavia struggled on. ‘We’ve just…’ But she was wasting her breath for Emmeline was on her feet and tripping towards her. Her news would have to be deferred. ‘How lovely,’ she said to her cousin. ‘When did this happen?’
‘This afternoon,’ Emmeline said happily. ‘He asked Papa before dinner. I wanted you to be the first to know. We’re going up to the West End on Saturday to choose the ring. He says it’s to be a ruby and diamond and I’m to choose the one I want. Oh, I’m so happy, Tavy, you wouldn’t believe.’ And she flung her arms round Octavia’s neck and hugged her tight.
‘Oh, I would,’ Octavia said, kissing her cousin’s hot cheek. ‘Dear Em, it’s what you’ve always wanted. I’m so glad.’ For a second it was on the tip of her tongue to ask which of Em’s many suitors she’d chosen, but she checked herself in time. Just as long as it wasn’t the bank manager one, Ernest Whoever-he-was. She stood back to look at her cousin’s rapturous face. ‘And guess what,’ she said. ‘You’ll never believe this. I’ve got what I wanted tonight too.’
Emmeline blinked with surprise. ‘Have you?’
Now her news could be told. ‘I’ve joined the WSPU,’ she said proudly. ‘I’m going to be a suffragette.’ And she smiled into her cousin’s face, expecting pleasure and approval. But Emmeline was pulling away, her expression changing.
‘Oh, Tavy!’ she said. ‘You can’t have.’
‘I have though,’ Octavia said, misunderstanding the changed expression and still beaming. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? You and me both. On the same day.’
‘But you can’t have,’ Emmeline insisted. ‘I mean, they’re dreadful people. They’re leading the country to rack and ruin.’
Her disapproval was like a slap in the face and so unexpected it stopped Octavia’s breath. ‘Oh, Em!’ she said. ‘How can you say such a silly thing? They’re not dreadful, they’re wonderful. I’ve just spent the evening with them, and I’ve never heard such sensible women in my life. You should have been there.’
Emmeline’s face was beginning to flush with distress but she stood her ground. ‘They’re dreadful,’ she said doggedly. ‘Ernest says so. They’re telling people to break the law.’
It would be Ernest, Octavia thought. I knew he was a fool. ‘If a law’s wrong it deserves to be broken,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows that. And this law’s as wrong as it can be. Why should a man have the vote and a woman be denied it, just because she’s a woman? You tell me that.’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Emmeline told her. ‘But the law’s the law and if it’s the law you have to keep it.’
‘No you don’t,’ Octavia said, passionately. ‘That’s the whole point. If it’s a bad law, you have to change it.’
Aunt Maud was on her feet, smoothing her hair, hanging her handbag over her arm. ‘Time we were off, Emmeline,’ she said, too brightly, and looked at her sister, her expression part appeal, part annoyance. ‘We only came over for a minute just to tell you.’
‘Of course,’ Amy soothed, touching her arm in a placatory way. ‘You can tell us everything else on Sunday when you come to tea. There’s so much I want to hear, Emmeline my dear. And by then you will have your ring, won’t you?’
Emmeline agreed that she would and tried to smile although her face was crinkling towards tears and she couldn’t look at Octavia. It was horrid of her to quarrel, she thought, and especially tonight. She took her mother’s proffered arm and made as good an exit as she could, her head held high and her spine stiff with distress and anger. Amy escorted them to the front door, gentling all the way, and J-J followed, tugging at his beard with embarrassment. It was a very difficult departure and left on her own in the overheated room Octavia felt guilty for it, as though she were an infant caught out in some childish transgression. But really she could hardly have stood silent and allowed her foolish cousin to say such abominable things. Not that it was Emmeline, of course. It was that pompous fiancé of hers. But whoever it was she had to speak up. She couldn’t allow such prejudice to go uncorrected. That would have been cowardice and this wasn’t a time for cowardice. It was a time for women to speak up. She could hear the voice of her heroine, ‘You have joined a great crusade, Miss Smith.’ What would she have thought if I’d stayed silent at my very first test? No, she thought. I did the right thing. The only thing. It might have upset Emmeline for the moment but she’ll thank me for it when she understands.
There was a cross swish of skirts and her mother was back in the room. ‘That was no way to treat your cousin, Octavia,’ she said. ‘She was most upset.’ She spoke gently but her annoyance was plain from the set of her mouth.
‘Then she shouldn’t have said such stupid things,’ Octavia said, fighting back. ‘I couldn’t believe my ears. “Leading the country to rack and ruin.” The very idea. That was just prejudice, and if there’s one thing this campaign must do it’s to speak out against prejudice.’
‘At a political meeting, maybe,’ her mother told her, taking her seat by the fire, ‘but not in your own home and not to one of your guests. That is discourteous and unkind and I cannot allow it. You will write to Emmeline and your aunt this evening before you go to bed and apologise.’
‘No, Mama,’ Octavia said, flushing at the distress of disobeying her mother but determined to follow this through. ‘I know this will grieve you but I cannot possibly do such a thing. It would be tantamount to admitting I was in the wrong.’
‘You are in the wrong,’ her mother told her implacably. ‘You were discourteous to your guests and now you must apologise.’
J-J was standing beside the dresser pouring himself a whisky, trying to look unconcerned and failing. ‘Pa,’ Octavia said, turning to him for support, ‘you know what this means to me. Tell Mama it isn’t possible.’
His answer was a profound disappointment. ‘Your mother is the arbiter of proper behaviour in this house, my dear,’ he said, ‘and, as such, I stand by her decision. My advice to you would be to apologise with a good grace and put this whole rather silly business to rest. Any other course of behaviour would prolong the unpleasantness.’
‘Any other course of behaviour would be preferable to cowardice,’ Octavia said hotly. ‘Can’t you see what you are asking me to do?’ The longer they talked about it the more deeply entrenched in her opinion she was becoming. ‘It isn’t possible. It would be treachery.’ And then tears began to swell in her throat and she had to leave the room before she lost control of her feelings. She managed to pause at the door to wish them goodnight but then she had to move away as quickly as she could.
Oh, how can they be so unkind? she thought, as she ran up the stairs to her bedroom. I’m not a child. Why can’t they trust me to do the right thing? And she flung herself face down on her counterpane and wept with abandon.
It was a long sleepless night. She relived the quarrel, endlessly and word for word, sure she’d been entirely in the right, but getting more and more upset to have quarrelled with her dear Em and wondering how on earth it could have happened. Her thoughts rolled over and over, as the hall clock turned the hours like pages and the darkness pressed in upon her like guilt, and when morning finally lightened the sky, she was no further to knowing what she ought to do. I’ll talk to Betty Transom, she thought, and see what she has to say.
Betty Transom was indignant. ‘For your own cousin to say such things!’ she said. ‘How could she be so insensitive? It beggars belief. Well, don’t take any notice of her, that’s my advice. She’s just being silly. Apologise if you must. You don’t have to mean it. I’ve apologised hundreds of times in my life, over and over for all sorts of silly things and I’ve rarely meant it.’
‘That wouldn’t work for me,’ Octavia told her, sadly. ‘If I say a thing, I have to mean it. It wouldn’t be honest otherwise.’
The bell was sounding for the end of break. ‘Well,’ Betty said, ‘it’s too great a cause for any of us to go back on it now. My lot weren’t happy about it either. My ma thinks I shall be sent to prison. But I’m not going to take any notice of any of them. Cheer up. I’m with you. And so is Mrs Pankhurst. It’ll all come out in the wash.’
Unfortunately it was a tea party that Octavia had to face, not a washday, and the tea party was even worse than she feared.
For a start her mother was distinctly chilly with her, which was more upsetting than she cared to admit, and to make matters worse, she was uncomfortably aware that her father was ill at ease. He was frowning and stroking his beard and watching the conversation as if he was guarding it. Emmeline wouldn’t so much as look in her direction, but that was understandable because she’d been placed at the end of the lengthened table, well out of the way, wedged between Podge, who was a big boy for a twelve-year-old and took up an inordinate amount of room, and Cyril, who talked about Oxford pretty well non-stop and stole the marzipan from her plate when she wasn’t looking. Emmeline and her fiancé were in the seats of honour at the centre of the table, she quietly contented, displaying her new ring, eating very little and gazing at her lover with admiration, he holding forth – about the dependability of modern banking and what a first rate career it was ‘for the up and coming young man’, about stocks and shares and how happy he would be to advise his host on such matters, even about education, which he claimed provided the backbone of the nation, ‘always provided it was administered with sufficient rigour and discipline.’ The longer he talked, the more Octavia disliked him. She’d come to the table prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt because, to be fair to the man, she’d only met him on two or three occasions, and then only briefly, when he was arriving to take Emmeline out for the evening, and she really didn’t know very much about him except that she didn’t like him. But one meal was more than enough to give her his measure.
‘He’s pompous and boring and self-opinionated,’ she told Betty Transom the next morning. ‘I can’t think what she sees in him. He isn’t the least bit handsome. His face is too fat and he’s got tiny little eyes and messy looking teeth and he oils his hair so much it sticks to his skull like a nasty bit of black leather and he talks about money all the time.’
‘Ugh!’ Betty grimaced. ‘If that’s what husbands are like it’s just as well we’re not going to get married.’
‘Amen to that,’ Octavia said. And that made them both laugh and cheered her a little.
But the real cheer came the following morning when she brisked in to breakfast to find a letter waiting for her beside her plate. It was from the WSPU, signed by somebody called Dorothea Worth, welcoming her to the union and asking if she would care to assist them in their shop on Hampstead High Street. ‘There is always work to be done,’ she said. ‘We meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays and you would be most welcome, should these days be agreeable to you.’
They were more than agreeable. They were essential. She and Betty, having decided that they would start work at once, walked to the shop as soon as they’d had their tea that very afternoon.
It was an interesting place and not a bit like a shop, although there were the usual plate glass windows outside and the usual bottle green paint everywhere and pamphlets for sale on a counter just inside the door. But the real work was being done in the room behind the shop, where three young women were hard at it typing letters and addressing envelopes.
Dorothea turned out to be a plump middle-aged woman with hair almost as untidy as Aunt Maud’s and the same preoccupied habit of patting it and tucking it while she was speaking. ‘We’re sending out information about the Manchester demonstration,’ she told her new recruits. ‘We want it to be the biggest and best there’s ever been, so we can use all the help we can get. You’ll be joining us, of course.’
Oh, of course. It almost went without saying. Although as they walked rather wearily home after an evening of letter folding and stamp licking, they both confessed they were none too sure about what their parents would have to say about it.
‘Your pa won’t mind,’ Betty said cheerfully, but added with a little more doubt. ‘Will he?’
Octavia had to admit that she really didn’t know. It would depend on what her mother had to say, and with that horrible apology still not given and Emmeline unapproachable – and the deplorable Ernest everlastingly around to prejudice her – it was hard to predict what anyone would say. Luckily it was only her father who was at home to greet her that evening. Amy was still at her sister’s ‘discussing menus or some such’. And her father approved.
‘Capital,’ he said. ‘I can just see you carrying the banner, you and young Betty. Will Gwen be going too?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Octavia had to admit. ‘She’s on late shift this week so she wasn’t there and we’ve only just sent out the letters. I expect so, though.’
‘Well, you’re sensible girls,’ J-J said. ‘You won’t do anything foolish.’
And that, rather surprisingly, was her mother’s opinion too, although she added a proviso. ‘If anything untoward were to happen you must promise me you would get out of the way of it at once.’
It was a promise easily given. For after all what could possibly go wrong when there were going to be so many of them and they would all be together to support one another?
The morning of the demonstration was cold and overcast, threatening rain, and as she dressed for this first public test of her affiliation, Octavia was tremulous with nerves. Ever since she’d joined the WSPU and had that silly quarrel with Em – oh, how she regretted that quarrel! – she’d made a point of reading every newspaper article about the suffragettes that she could find and she’d been appalled at the level of prejudice she’d discovered, especially in the cartoons that all depicted campaigning women as ugly and deformed. So she’d given a lot of thought to what she would wear, knowing how important appearances could be.
She’d chosen her dove grey costume and the prettiest blouse she possessed and had topped them off with a brand new, far too expensive hat, dove grey to match the costume and loaded with artificial fruit and flowers. Even though it was probably immodest to say so, she was pleased with the image she presented, and glad that Betty and Gwen were equally prettily dressed. The three of them strolled into Euston like visiting royalty, using their umbrellas as walking sticks and gathering admiring glances.
But the journey increased her nervousness with every mile. Her two friends gossiped and giggled and didn’t seem at all perturbed by what was ahead of them, but Octavia rehearsed every possibility in her mind and the possibilities grew more alarming the nearer they got to their destination. What if they were arrested? Would she know how to behave if they were? What if there were fisticuffs? Or if she were hit by a truncheon? How would she cope with that? And the wheels sang a mocking accompaniment as they rattled along the rails. ‘What if you were? What if you were?’ It was quite a relief to hear the brakes take hold and to know that they’d arrived.