Wednesday, 10th July, 1912.
Dear Frances,
You must be in Boston by now, and I hope you are having a lovely time. For some reason I keep imagining that it is snowing there. I suppose it’s because Little Women starts at Christmas. Though I know that in reality it must be jolly hot, even hotter than here, which is saying something. When Nora called over this morning she was bright red in the face. She was also on her own.
‘Where’s Grace?’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ said Nora. ‘Thank goodness. Gosh, it’s hot.’
I was confused. ‘Didn’t she like the tennis club yesterday?’
‘Oh, she loved it,’ said Nora. ‘But she’s not playing there until this afternoon.’
‘So where is she then?’ Nora can be very annoying sometimes.
‘She’s gone to visit the Menace,’ said Nora. ‘And I hope they’ll make each other very happy.’
‘Was she actually serious about that?’ I asked. ‘I knew she liked him, but I thought she was just, you know, being Grace.’
‘Apparently she was,’ said Nora. ‘She’s going to take him for a walk. Though I’m sure she’s regretting it now. He’s probably dragging her down the middle of Dorset Street even as we speak.’
I remembered my last attempt to take the Menace for a walk, and shuddered.
‘Let’s go to the Botanic Gardens then,’ I said. ‘I brought a notebook. We can climb a tree and finalise our song lyrics.’
‘Excellent scheme,’ said Nora, and off we went. But we hadn’t got far when we had an unexpected encounter.
‘Good heavens,’ said Nora. ‘Look!’
I looked. An incredible sight met my eyes. Grace was striding along the pavement, looking as happy as I’d ever seen her. She was holding a leather lead, and on the end of it, strapped firmly into his harness, was the Menace. And the astonishing thing was, he was not behaving in his usual menacing fashion. Whenever I tried to take him for a walk (‘tried’ being the operative word), he strained and strained at his lead the whole time, as if eager to get away. He does this when Mrs. Sheffield takes him for a walk too, by the way, so it’s not just me. But today he was very different. Today he was … prancing.
Yes. Prancing. Barnaby the Menace, the most badly behaved dog in the world, was bouncing along the pavement on his fluffy little legs, looking as innocent as if he’d never run away from an unfortunate girl who was meant to be looking after him, or never jumped up on the same unfortunate girl’s skirt and ruined it. (The stains still haven’t come off. There must have been more than dust on his horrible paws.) Even his button eyes looked less malevolent and more benign than usual as he approached us.
‘Hello, girls,’ said Grace. ‘Sit, Barnaby.’
AND HE SAT.
I was so astonished I couldn’t say a word. For a long moment Nora and I stared at the incredible sight, until finally I regained the power of speech and said, ‘How did you get him to do that?’
Grace tossed her curls.
‘You just have to treat him with respect,’ she said. ‘He’s a lovely dog.’
I have to admit I was genuinely impressed. I don’t think even Mrs. Sheffield has managed to get him to sit on command before.
‘Bravo.’ I meant it, too. ‘Honestly, Grace, he really is a Menace, I couldn’t possibly manage him. You must be awfully good with him.’
I don’t know who was more astonished by the fact that these words had come from my lips – me, Nora, or Grace, who was so surprised to hear praise from me she forgot to toss her hair or simper or look superior and just said, ‘Oh, thank you.’
‘Where are you taking him?’ I asked, hoping it wasn’t the Botanic Gardens. After Monday, I couldn’t bear another silent trudge. Besides, I really wanted to work on the song lyrics with Nora.
‘Down to the river,’ said Grace. ‘Mrs. Sheffield says he likes looking at the ducks.’
I could well believe that, though of course if Barnaby was looking at ducks, it was only because he was dreaming of chasing them. I wondered if he could swim. I bet he could, if only to unsettle people. The thought of him moving silently through the water, like the pike I once saw in the river when we visited Uncle Piers in Louth, was a very unnerving one.
‘Well, I hope it’s fun,’ said Nora.
Grace looked at her suspiciously. She clearly thought Nora was being very sarcastic. But I knew Nora was making a supreme effort to be polite, and I was awfully proud of her.
‘How was your first day at the club?’ I asked. I knew Nora had said she loved it, but that could have been wishful thinking.
‘Marvellous.’ Grace’s face lit up. ‘Miss Casey – she’s the lady we met on Saturday, you know – she really wants more girls to join the club. She thinks there should be just as many girls as boys. She’s very keen on fair play, you see.’
‘Goodness.’ I couldn’t help thinking of what Grace had said in the past about women who wanted fair play for girls, but I thought it was better to say nothing. ‘Well, we’re going to the Botanic Gardens.’
I was quite relieved that they don’t allow dogs there because it meant I couldn’t possibly ask Grace and the Menace to join us, even if I’d madly wanted to. The Menace looked up at Grace and gave a gentle tug at his lead. If he’d been with me, he’d have undoubtedly yanked it right out of my hand.
‘I’d better take him to see those ducks,’ said Grace, sounding almost normal.
We bade her goodbye extremely politely and watched as she and Barnaby, who was, miraculously, continuing to behave himself, trotted down the street in the direction of the river.
‘Maybe that Miss Casey is a good influence on her,’ I said. ‘She sounds very unlike herself today.’
Nora snorted. ‘I think she’s beyond good influences. Come on, let’s go to the Gardens.’
We didn’t get much further in our song-writing in the gardens. Or in our plans to join the protest. In fact, we got quite distracted because we bumped into Mary Cummins from school, who was there with her sister. Mary is awfully nice – you might remember that she was not unsympathetic to the cause when she found out we supported it. And she was horrified now when Nora told her about Grace.
‘In your room?’ Her face was a picture. ‘For a whole fortnight?’
Nora nodded. ‘But she’s joined the tennis club. So that’s been keeping her busy.’
‘Still …’ Mary shuddered. And maybe it’s because of my determination to be civilised, but I found myself feeling weirdly uncomfortable. It was one thing for me and Nora to give out about Grace, but talking about her behind her back with other people felt strangely catty. So I changed the subject and asked Mary how her holidays were going. Her family were going to Bray in a few weeks, but we arranged to meet when she was back and my family had returned from Skerries.
‘I think,’ I said to Nora, after we’d bidden Mary and her sister goodbye, ‘that Mary is a possible convert to the cause.’
‘I think you might be right,’ Nora agreed. ‘Though we won’t convert anyone if we can’t even come up with a song.’
‘We can do that now,’ I said. ‘Come on, let’s find somewhere nice to sit and we can write some new lyrics.’
But somehow we ended up sitting down by the river for the entire afternoon, talking about books. I finished Anne of Green Gables this morning and I have lent it to Nora. She already likes the sound of it, not least because, like Anne, she has reddish hair.
I feel a little guilty that we didn’t come up with a perfect song or banner, but we have an entire week to do it. And besides, even the most doughty campaigners need a rest sometimes, don’t they?
Best love and votes for women,
Mollie