ACT 1, SCENE 8

LOCATIONS SIGNAGE: THE EAGLE AND CHILD

BILL and ESME are sitting at a table. TILDA makes her way towards them bearing drinks.

TILDA: Somehow, the barman always serves me first.

BILL: Fancy, I wonder why?

TILDA: It’s a mystery. There. Cheers all.

ESME: Uh. Cheers.

TILDA: How did you enjoy the play?

ESME: You were wonderful, Tilda.

TILDA and BILL laugh.

TILDA: Perfect! Thank you, my dear! See, Bill? I told you she was a clever one! She sets the rest of the production aside in one tactful swoop.

BILL: Fucking brilliant! (beat) Oh. Sorry, Esme.

TILDA: Don’t be sorry, Bill. Esme is a collector of words. She has an entirely neutral, almost surgical point of view that I find irresistible. If you’re lucky she’ll write that one down on one of her little slips of paper.

ESME: Well. Thanks to Mabel, I am familiar with that word already. But you’re right. The editors don’t like it. ‘Too vulgar to include in the Dictionary.’

TILDA: Ostriches, the lot of them, heads firmly in the sand! Anyway, I have a word for you, Esme.

ESME: Yes?

TILDA: ‘Suffrage’. How would you define that?

WORDS SIGNAGE: SUFFRAGE

ESME: I’ll need to think about that one.

TILDA: I thought you might, so … Allow me. (gets out prepared slip) ‘Suffrage’. Definition: A vote given by a member of any body, state or society. Quotation: ‘In all democracies therefore it is of the utmost importance to regulate by whom, and in what manner the suffrages are given.’ Blackstones Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765.

ESME: Definition and quotation! That’s impressive!

BILL: It’s a cheat. She had the quotation in the papers she lugs around.

ESME: Papers?

BILL: Her skill on stage notwithstanding, my energetic sister has recently thrown in her lot with Mrs Pankhurst’s suffragettes.

WORDS SIGNAGE: SUFFRAGETTES

ESME: Suffragists, surely?

BILL: No … These are a more radical group. The Women’s Social and Political Union.

TILDA: According to the newspapers – ‘A screeching, childless, husbandless Sisterhood’. Mrs Pankhurst decided we should co-opt the term immediately!

Enter MARIA and ALICE.

TILDA: Welcome, ladies!

MARIA: Tilda, my dear.

TILDA: I have taken the liberty of including my new friend, Esme. She is not yet one of us, but she has a very interesting mind that might relish the challenge of your company. Maria to your left. Alice to your right.

ALICE: Welcome, Esme.

TILDA: Bill, can you heave that parcel over to Esme?

BILL: Here it is. (to ESME) You want another lemonade, Esme? Or maybe a shandy?

ESME: A … a shandy, thank you, Bill.

BILL: Very good. Same for all?

TILDA: Whiskey!

BILL leaves the group.

TILDA: Sisters all, thank you for joining the fight. Mrs Pankhurst promised you’d come, and here you are. I’m grateful. And encouraged.

MARIA: So what’s the plan, Tilda?

TILDA: Just … arguing our cause at this stage. I’ve brought leaflets, and here is a map showing where each of us can deliver them. Esme, would you hand them out?

ESME: Me?

TILDA: Is there another Esme with bundles of leaflets at her right elbow in the room?

ESME: No. Uh. Yes. Of course. (hands leaflets to all)

TILDA: People will need to choose if they want to deliver them –

ALICE: Then not near Speedwell Street, please.

TILDA: Ah. Yes. The Magistrates’ Court. Your husband. Of course. Anyone else?

MARIA: My views are well known. And I have no husband.

TILDA: Sensible woman! Thank you, my friends. Mrs Pankhurst will be much cheered. Though I know, I know – you don’t all approve of her methods!

ALICE: No, Miss Taylor. And I like my husband!

TILDA: Forgive me, Alice. I’m sure he’s perfect. See you same time, same place, next week!

The women leave.

BILL: Here’s y’ whiskey, you wonder of tact and discretion.

TILDA: Oh, stop! But bless you for this. (she downs it in one go; then, to ESME) Drink up, Esme, my new friend. Night is coming on and we still have work to do. Here. A bundle for you.

ESME: I’m not sure I should, Tilda.

TILDA: Esme! Of course you should.

ESME: ‘Should’ I? I’m not like you, Tilda. Or your friends.

TILDA: You have a brain capable of deciding between one male politician and another, don’t you? You’re exactly like me and my friends. (ESME'S unconvinced)

Esme, Esme, Esme. This is not the un-blushable woman at the Covered Market! All we’re doing is putting pieces of paper in letterboxes. At worst they will be thrown in the fire. At best they will be read, and a mind might change. Anyone would think I was asking you to plant a bomb.

BILL: Leave off, Til. You’ve only just met.

TILDA: Back in your box, Billy-boy! Oh, look. I can see you’re scared, Esme. The problem is you’re scared of the wrong thing. Without the vote nothing we say matters and that should terrify you.

ESME: Should it?

TILDA: Yes! Now, Esme. You live near Jericho, don’t you?

ESME: Yes. Observatory Street.

TILDA: Well, it’s somewhat further but could you go home via Banbury Road? We have a gap there. (beat) You can say no if you must, but I think you’d regret it.

ESME: (beat) Yes. Yes, I probably would.

TILDA: Thank heavens for that! I thought I’d got you completely wrong for a minute there. Bill, go with her.

ESME: What about you?

TILDA: No one will be surprised to see me taking the night air without a chaperone, but you need a man on your arm. More’s the pity. See you back at the lodgings, Bill. Bye, lovely Esme! See you again soon!

TRANSITION …

ESME and BILL are walking. They come up to the postbox outside the Murrays’ house at Sunnyside.

ESME: 78 Banbury Road. (beat) ‘Sunnyside’.

BILL: ‘Sunnyside’?

ESME: It’s the Murrays’ house. Down the back is the Scrippy – Scriptorium – where I work. It’s kind of a glorified shed in their garden.

BILL: How long have you worked for the Dictionary, Esme?

ESME: In a way, all my life.

BILL: Then give the leaflets to me, maybe. I can do this lot.

ESME: That’s so kind of you, Bill. But Tilda would be disappointed in me.

BILL: Tilda is not here, is she? Beautiful Esme. We can only do what we can do.

ESME: Thank you, Bill. But this much I can – and I think I should – do. So I will.

ESME drops the leaflets in the letterbox on the gate.

BILL: Esme, Esme … You don’t talk like other girls do. And you’re brave and timid almost in the same breath.

ESME: I’m a curiosity?

BILL: You’re breathtaking. And you are beautiful.

ESME: You don’t need to say that.

BILL: Oh, I think I do.

ESME: Why?

BILL: I think I am falling in love with you.

ESME: That’s fast.

BILL: Maybe. But we can only do what we can do.

ESME: I’d better get home.

BILL: Yes. It’s late. Your father will be worried.

TRANSITION

Sun’s up. HARRY walks through with a leaflet. Hands it to ESME, who is a little shocked.

HARRY: This was in the letterbox, Esme. I thought you might find it interesting.

MURRAY: (holding leaflet bemusedly) I found something of a curiosity in this morning’s post, Miss Nicoll … (thought) I wonder if my daughters … (progresses to a slightly unwelcome suspicion) Surely not …

LIZZIE walks through. Tearing up the leaflet as she walks past ESME.

LIZZIE: These are all over the Covered Market. Mrs Ballard says they’re about ‘votes for women’. Ridiculous!