Saturday, 20th July, 1912.
Dear Frances,
I don’t know where to begin. I thought Thursday was a dramatic day, but I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was last night. I really thought someone was going to die. It wasn’t exciting, like the police raid, and it didn’t feel like fun afterwards. It was just very, very frightening. In fact, just thinking about it makes my hand go a bit shaky, so I apologise if my writing is less legible than usual.
Just after I finished my last letter yesterday afternoon, Phyllis came into my room brandishing a newspaper. Of course, she hadn’t knocked.
‘Have you seen the Evening Telegraph?’ she said.
‘And hello to you too,’ I said. ‘No, I haven’t.’
Phyllis thrust the paper into my hands. The headline read ‘LADIES WHO HAVE NO RELIGION – ONLY VOTES FOR WOMEN.’
‘And this is typical,’ she said. ‘The Irish Independent called what happened a “Reign of Terror”. People are out for our blood. Turn to the Telegraph letters page.’
I flipped through the pages until I found it. Phyllis pointed to one letter.
‘That’s why I don’t want you going out tonight,’ she said.
I quickly read the letter. The writer, whoever he was, declared that suffragettes deserved to be thrown in the Liffey and said that he hoped someone would do just that. It was very strong stuff but …
‘But it’s just a silly letter,’ I pointed out. ‘No one will take it seriously.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’ Phyllis’s face was grave. ‘The hatchet wasn’t the only thing that happened last night. Some English suffragettes set fire to a box in the Theatre Royal. And there was an explosion there too.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’ I said.
‘No, thank heaven,’ said Phyllis. ‘I suppose they did it because the Prime Minister is speaking there tonight. But I want you to swear that you won’t go to Beresford Place. On Mother and Father’s lives. And your honour as a suffragette.’
Telling a measly little lie to Phyllis was one thing, but I simply couldn’t break such a solemn vow.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ I blustered.
‘Am I?’ said Phyllis. ‘I know you. Go on, swear you won’t try and go to the meeting.’
‘I already told you I wouldn’t,’ I said, but I suspected she wouldn’t be satisfied with this. And I was right.
‘That’s not the same as swearing a sacred oath,’ Phyllis insisted.
I couldn’t think of what to say to that. But by a great stroke of luck, I didn’t have to say anything, because the door flung open and Julia rushed into the room.
‘Have you seen Mignon?’ she said. ‘I can’t find her anywhere.’ Mignon is a doll that Mother’s aunt who is a nun brought Julia from France a few years ago. She is large and has a china face and hands and the most astonishing clothes, including a beautiful little corset that is just like a grown-up one.
‘Aren’t you a bit old to be playing with dolls?’ said Phyllis, which was jolly rude of her if you ask me. Julia drew herself up to her full height and gave Phyllis a disdainful look. (If she could have raised an eyebrow like Phyllis herself, I bet she would have.)
‘I don’t want to play with her,’ she said. ‘Christina is coming and we’re going to make Mignon some new clothes. Mother said we could use her sewing machine.’
‘She’s on the chest of drawers.’ I pointed at Mignon, who was wearing a very impressive plumed hat. ‘Maggie put her there yesterday when she was cleaning the room.’
‘Thank you.’ Julia grabbed the doll. I must say that she’s definitely the most polite member of my family, even if her praying and virtuous expressions can be a little annoying. Maybe all the praying has actually been good for her character? ‘I’m going to make her a frock out of Mother’s old lace nightgown. Do you want to see it?’
‘All right,’ I said, and followed her out of the room.
‘I meant it, Moll,’ said Phyllis in a fierce whisper as I passed her. ‘Don’t come tonight.’
‘I already told you a million times that I wouldn’t,’ I hissed back. And then I ran down the stairs after Julia.
Phyllis didn’t have a chance to harangue me again because by the time I emerged from the dining room, where Christina and Julia were cutting out pieces of a pattern that Mother had helped them to copy from a grown-up dress pattern, she had left for Mabel’s house, where she was going to have tea before heading in to the meeting.
I went back to my room for some peaceful thinking about how we could change into our disguises. I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling in the hope of divine inspiration (well, praying clearly works for Julia), and just as I was starting to fall asleep I was struck by a brilliant idea. I was so excited about my brainwave that, when I bounced down the stairs and almost crashed into Frank, who had just arrived home with Harry, I forgot to feel self-conscious or embarrassed.
‘What are you doing galumphing about like an elephant?’ Harry was his usual charming self. I gave him my best Phyllis-ish look.
‘I’m not galumphing anywhere,’ I said. ‘I’m just full of energy.’ And I strode past him and into the drawing room, where Mother was lying on the sofa with a handkerchief over her eyes.
‘Are you all right?’ I said. I hoped she wasn’t coming down with scarlet fever or whatever Grace’s family have. The last thing I want is for us all to be quarantined.
Mother removed the handkerchief, and I got a whiff of Eau de Cologne.
‘It’s just a headache,’ she said. She does get them sometimes. ‘Draw the curtains, there’s a good girl.’
I obeyed. I wasn’t sure if this was a good time to ask her if I could go over to Nora’s house, but I didn’t really have a choice. Luckily, if slightly offensively, she seemed happy to be rid of me.
‘Julia’s invited Christina over for tea,’ she said. ‘So that’ll save Maggie some trouble. She’s been run off her feet with an extra person in the house all week.’
I had to admit that I had never thought about the fact that Frank being here meant more work for Maggie. I thanked Mother and went down to the kitchen to tell Maggie that I wasn’t going to be home for tea.
‘I hope you’re not thinking of going into town.’ Maggie’s face was stern as she turned from the sink, where she was busy washing the dishes.
‘Phyllis won’t take us,’ I said, which wasn’t a lie.
Maggie turned back to the dishes.
‘That hasn’t stopped you before,’ she said.
I was glad she couldn’t see my face because I’m quite sure I was blushing.
‘I’m just going to meet Nora,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later.’
But when I reached the hall, the door to the dining room opened and Harry appeared.
‘Where are you going?’ he demanded, with typical lack of manners.
‘I’m going to see Nora, if you must know,’ I said, in my haughtiest tone.
‘Well, me and Frank and Father are just about to start a game of Consequences. You can play if you like. Father told me to ask you.’ This, by the way, is about as close as Harry ever gets to a polite invitation.
As you may recall, I love playing Consequences. It’s the funniest paper game. (You know, it’s the one where you write down different things and fold over the paper and the next player continues the story without reading the first part.) It did sound like a jolly evening. And maybe even a chance to make things go back to normal with Frank, but then I heard the clock in the drawing room strike the hour. I had more important things to do than play Consequences with a very nice boy (and my stupid brother and quite nice father).
‘Sorry,’ I said. And I really was. ‘But duty calls. I mean, Nora calls. I’m going to her house.’
‘Oh well,’ said Harry. ‘I don’t care if you play or not.’ And he went back into the dining room. He really does have the manners of a pig.
I had arranged to meet Nora at the corner near her house. I have to admit I was relieved when I saw her trotting around the corner with a large bag in her hand and two large but simple straw hats tucked under one arm, stacked on top of each other. I hadn’t had total faith in her ability to sneak into the kitchen and get the clothes out of the bundle in the manner of one of Peter Fitzgerald’s skillful jewel thieves.
‘Well done!’ I said.
‘I told you I could do it.’ Nora seemed affronted by my lack of faith. ‘But where are we going to change into them? We were idiots not to think of that last night.’
‘I’ve thought of something,’ I said. ‘But it’s rather … well, daring.’
I told her my idea.
‘The church?’ she said. ‘But Mollie, we can’t!’
‘There won’t be anyone there at this time of day!’ I said. ‘We could just hide in the pews if we hear someone come in.’
‘We can’t take our clothes off in a church!’ Nora was still appalled.
‘We won’t really be taking them off,’ I argued. ‘Well, I mean, we sort of will, but only our skirts and we could put the long skirts over them first so we won’t be standing there in our petticoats. And then it’s only a matter of changing coats, and that’s hardly indecent.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Nora, but she didn’t look absolutely comfortable with the idea.
And to tell you the truth, as we slipped through the side door of the church and cautiously looked around, I felt quite uncomfortable myself. There was no one around, and we made our way to a dark corner where Nora took the skirts and coats out of the bag. It did seem wrong to take off anything. But desperate times call for desperate measures. We put the long skirts over our usual ones (and very difficult that was too) and then stepped out of our own skirts. Once we had changed into Mrs. Cantwell’s coats (there was an unfortunate stain where, Nora said, Barnaby had once jumped up on her mother at the tennis club after rolling in something unspeakably horrid) and tucked our hair up under the hats (there was no time to do it properly so we just pinned our plaits on top of our heads, puffed the front of our hair out a bit, and hoped our hat pins would keep it all in place), we looked quite grown up. Or at least grown-up enough not to earn a second glance in a crowded street.
‘After all,’ said Nora, ‘it’s not like yesterday, when we had to fool a room full of grown-up suffragettes at close quarters. We just have to make sure Phyllis and Co. don’t notice us from a distance. In a crowd.’
We had to walk into town – the bag wasn’t very heavy with just our skirts in it, and we wanted to save our money for the tram fare home – and I was pleased to see that apart from some ragged children playing near the canal, no one seemed to notice anything strange about our appearance. We hadn’t bothered with the grown up shoes – I hadn’t taken Phyllis’s warnings very seriously, but just in case there actually was any trouble in town I wanted to make sure we were wearing shoes we could run in. And after all, no one was going to be looking at our feet in a crowd. My skirt was still a little bit too long, but I folded over the waistband which pulled it up a bit, and I could walk easily in it without any danger of treading on the hem. But, even with our comfortable shoes, it was quite late by the time we reached Gardiner Street and made our way down towards Beresford Place (we had decided to avoid Sackville Street in case we bumped into Mabel or Phyllis, who usually took that route).
In fact, by the time we reached the Custom House, we could see that a huge and restless crowd had already gathered at the corner of Beresford Place, where the suffrage meeting was due to take place. For the first time I felt a genuine twinge of nervousness. Nora was clearly feeling the same way.
‘They don’t look very friendly, do they?’ she said. And I had to agree.
The people gathered there were nearly all men and the atmosphere was riotous. I couldn’t be sure that some of them were Ancient Hooligans, but it seemed likely. There were a few women there, but they didn’t look particularly friendly either. One of them was staggering around and laughing in a way that, like the man outside David Byrne’s yesterday, made me think she might be intoxicated. (I have never knowingly met an intoxicated person but I have read about them in books.)
There were so many people that at first I could barely see the lorry from which the speakers would give their speeches, and I could see no sign of Phyllis and Mabel at all as we made our way closer to the lorry platform. But I was very glad we were wearing disguises that (hopefully) meant we wouldn’t stand out too much in the crowd. I didn’t like the idea of attracting any of these people’s attention. All of sudden there was a mixture of raucous cheers and boos and hooting, and a woman whom I recognised as Mrs. Cousins mounted the lorry to address the audience.
‘Thank you for coming, everyone,’ she said, as the hooting continued. ‘My fellow campaigners are here this evening because we love liberty as much as, I am sure, you do.’
‘What about the hatchet?’ roared a red-faced man not far away from me and Nora.
‘What about the hatchet?’ cried someone else in the crowd. And although Mrs. Cousins tried to continue her opening remarks, soon what felt like the entire crowd was roaring ‘What about the hatchet? What about the hatchet?’
‘I will explain our views on that matter,’ cried Mrs. Cousins, but to no avail. The crowd continued their chanting. Now they were yelling, ‘Down with the suffragettes!’ They all seemed to be enjoying themselves tremendously, which I suppose was a good thing for me and Nora, because they were too busy yelling to pay much attention to a pair of small ladies with their hats pulled over their eyes. Because of their roars we could barely make out a word of Mrs. Cousins’s speech, and when it was over she left the makeshift stage, and two other ladies took her place.
‘Down with the suffragettes!’ came a cry, and ‘We will never forget the hatchet!’ If there had been any good humour in the hooting at the start of the meeting, there certainly wasn’t any now. Some of the drunken women were now very near the stage, and they started shouting at the speakers, saying that they didn’t want the vote. One drunk woman screamed that she didn’t want to listen to these old – and then she said a word which is used to describe dogs, but which I know should never be used to describe a lady. For the first time I definitely wished we hadn’t come. But we were hemmed in by the crowd now, and I feared that if we started to push our way through, we would attract attention from the rowdies.
The woman on the stage (whose name, we just about managed to hear, was Mrs. Chambers) was trying to speak. But every time she opened her mouth, the boos and roars were so loud that not a word could be heard by the audience. The speaker cried out as some of the drunken women, who had apparently crept up behind the lorry, seized her from behind and tried to pull her off the stage. She broke free, but they just laughed and reached out to seize her again. Suddenly she stumbled, and I realised that some of the mob were trying to push over the lorry. I looked around and saw that the crowd had now grown so much it stretched right back to Abbey Street in one direction and the quays in another. No traffic could pass that way now. And, unless we pushed our way through with more force than either of us possess, neither could we. I hoped Phyllis and Mabel were all right, wherever they were.
Mrs. Chambers stopped speaking, and another woman took her place. By this time, Nora and I had been pushed forward by the crowd and were now so close to the lorry that, under normal circumstances, we would have been easily able to hear the speech. But as soon as she began to talk, someone in the crowd started singing ‘A Nation Once Again’ and soon what felt like the entire mass of people was singing along, drowning out the suffragette’s words. The men shook their fists, and the drunk women waved their hat pins in the air. Then the woman on the platform stumbled and I realised another attempt had been made to push over the lorry.
‘Stop that, you bowsies!’ bellowed a strangely familiar voice nearby, and I looked around to see Inspector Campbell and some of his men approaching the speakers. They quickly dealt with the rowdies and stood guard in front of the lorry, but the crowd was becoming even more threatening. I grabbed Nora’s hand and she squeezed mine tightly.
‘Do you think we could get away?’ she whispered, her voice shaking.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘We’ll just have to wait until it’s over. Oh!’ Someone in the crowd had thrown a stone at the speaker, narrowly missing her face. Another missile soon followed. Inspector Campbell turned to her.
‘I think you’d better stop the meeting now, madam,’ he said in his booming voice.
The woman on the stage nodded, her face pale. Inspector Campbell and his men helped her off the lorry and formed a ring around her and the other speakers. As the crowd surged towards them, Nora and I were almost lifted off our feet. I clung on to Nora’s hand as hard as I could as we stumbled with the mob towards the lorry. I thought I saw Mabel on the other side of the vehicle and then a section of the crowd surged towards the ring of policemen, briefly leaving a gap.
‘Come on!’ I cried, and dragged Nora through the gap and underneath the lorry. We huddled together, watching the stamping boots of the mob as they continued to hurl abuse at the brave women and their protective policeman guards. I remembered Phyllis saying that the Dublin policemen behaved in a much more gentlemanly manner to the Irish suffragettes than their brutal English equivalents. We couldn’t see Inspector Campbell and his men, but from the noises made by the crowd it sounded like the protective circle was moving away, followed by their harrassers. I heard a woman scream and I clung to Nora’s hand even more tightly.
‘What should we do?’ Nora’s eyes were wide in the darkness beneath the lorry. ‘Will we wait here until it’s over?’
‘I think so,’ I said, but just then the lorry shuddered above us as some of the men barged into it. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. This doesn’t sound safe.’
‘We should go,’ said Nora. ‘Now. This way.’ She led the way and we crawled out from under the lorry, emerging on the far side where the mob had thinned out a little. Mabel was nowhere to be seen, if she’d ever been there at all, and luckily the drunk women had gone. We crept to the end of the lorry, climbing up on one of the wheels of the vehicle to get a better view, without being seen by the mob.
In the distance, the policemen and their charges were heading towards Abbey Street. There was a shriek and some raucous laughter, and I realised that the mob had torn the hats from the heads of two of the ladies. Inspector Campbell and his men drew their batons and roared at the crowd to stand back, which they briefly did, but as the suffragettes and their protectors moved towards Abbey Street, the mob continued their assault.
‘Mollie!’ cried Nora, forgetting to whisper. ‘Look!’
One of the women had been dragged away from her friends. We watched in shock as she was roughly shoved to the ground.
‘We have to do something!’ I said. But what could we do against the mob? The woman screamed in pain and fear as a laughing man gave her a sickening kick in the stomach. Some of the policemen realised what was going on and tried to reach the fallen suffragette, but the crowd was jostling around them and they could only move towards her with what felt like agonizing slowness. I almost closed my eyes in horror – I knew we couldn’t help her, but it felt so awful to just watch. Then, thank heaven, some other men shoved away her attackers and helped the woman to her feet. The policemen finally broke through the crowd and formed a sort of shield around her, leading her towards Butt Bridge. They passed a few yards away from our vantage point, and as they drew near I could see that the woman’s face was cut and she held one of her arms with the other hand, as if in great pain.
‘They’re probably taking her to the police station,’ said Nora, her voice shaking. ‘Oh Mollie, I wish we hadn’t come.’
‘Most of the crowd seem to have moved down to Abbey Street.’ I tried and failed to keep my own voice steady as I thought of all those horrible men pursuing the suffragettes and their policeman guards. ‘Maybe if we get a tram on Westmoreland Street we’ll avoid them.’
‘I wish we weren’t wearing these stupid clothes.’ Nora sounded as if she might burst into tears at any moment. ‘If we were wearing our ordinary clothes they’d leave us alone. But they have no qualms about attacking ladies.’
‘If we hadn’t been wearing our disguises Phyllis might have …’ I stopped mid-sentence. ‘Where is she? You haven’t seen her, have you?’
‘No,’ said Nora. ‘Or Mabel.’
‘They weren’t with the women who went with the policemen,’ I said. ‘Maybe they got away through the quays? We might bump into them if we go that way.’
‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take,’ said Nora. In the distance we could hear what sounded like glass being broken, followed by raucous cheers. ‘I want to go home right now.’
We climbed down from the wheel of the lorry. Keeping as close to the grounds of the Custom House as possible rather than striking out across Beresford Place, where I feared we might attract more attention, we made our way towards the bridge.
‘Look straight ahead,’ whispered Nora. ‘We mustn’t catch anyone’s eye.’ The crowd had thinned out, as most of the mob had either followed the suffragettes and their escorts or given up and gone home. We had just reached the corner opposite Liberty Hall, that new union building I passed on my way to my very first suffrage meeting, when I heard a scream from the corner of Eden Quay.
I couldn’t help looking around, and to my great horror I saw that a group of men were gathered around someone – a young woman, judging by the scream. The policemen who had been standing guard over the meeting seemed to have vanished – most of them had left with the speakers, while the others had gone with the woman who had been kicked to the ground. There was no one left to intervene now.
‘Look!’ I clutched Nora’s hand.
‘What will we do?’ Nora looked as distressed as I felt. ‘We can’t just leave her to her fate!’
‘We’ll have to try to find a policeman.’ We began to cross Beresford Place, but there wasn’t a policeman to be seen. I looked wildly around me. ‘There must be someone!’
There was another scream from the corner of the quay, and the gang began to chant.
‘Throw her in the Liffey! Throw her in the Liffey!’
‘Oh, where are the policemen?’ wailed Nora as we hurried towards the rowdy crowd.
Suddenly, from the middle of the mob, a struggling, shouting young woman was lifted into the air by a group of laughing men. Her hat had fallen off but there was something familiar about her coat, and her hair …
‘Phyllis!’ I cried, and ran through the crowd as fast as I could in that stupid skirt. I pulled it up over my knees and kept going, Nora racing at my heels. The mob were carrying Phyllis toward the wall that bordered the river, and although she was struggling to get free with all her might, they held her fast.
‘I’m going to find a policeman,’ yelled Nora. ‘We’ve got to stop this.’
‘I can’t leave her,’ I yelled back.
‘I know.’ Nora nodded. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ She ran around the crowd and down the quays in the direction of Sackville Street. And I pushed my way through the jostling men. (This is where it is an advantage to be quite short, it is much easier to wriggle through a crowd than it would be for elegant tall people.) If I’d thought about it, I would have realised just how dangerous it was, that there was nothing to stop the men seizing me and tossing me into the air too. But I didn’t think. I just knew I had to try and save Phyllis from being thrown in the river. That was all.
Now I could see that someone else was trying to save her. Mabel, her face desperate, her hat long gone, had grabbed onto Phyllis’s thrashing foot, and was trying to pull her from the men’s grasp.
‘Let go of her, you beasts!’ Mabel’s voice was hoarse from shouting.
I seized hold of Phyllis’s skirt, which was when Mabel noticed my presence.
‘Pull!’ she cried. ‘We can’t let them …’
But whatever she had planned to say was left unfinished, as one of the men gave her a fierce shove from behind. She lost her grasp of Phyllis as she fell forward, crashing into me. The men raised Phyllis right over the parapet.
‘Phyllis!’ I screamed.
‘Throw her in, boys!’ yelled a raucous voice. ‘With a one …’
Phyllis was swung towards the crowd and back again, as the men roared their approval of this hideous game.
‘And a two!’ yelled the voice. Again they swung the wriggling Phyllis back and forth. Her hair was over her face, and she was making an awful whimpering sound that was worse than the screams.
‘And a three!’
And just as I thought Phyllis was going to be swung right over the parapet and into the water, there was a piercing whistle, so loud it seemed to stop the mob in their vile tracks. For a second, everyone seemed to freeze. Suddenly several policemen, batons drawn, barged their way through the crowd. Nora was right behind them, clutching the bag to her chest and red in the face from the exertion of running.
‘Release that young lady!’ roared a red-faced constable. Nothing happened. The constable seemed to get even redder as he waved his baton. ‘Right now!’
The men who had been abusing Phyllis dropped her roughly on the pavement next to the parapet. Nora, Mabel and I rushed to her aid as the policemen, batons drawn, shoved her attackers away. Phyllis looked as if she were on the verge of fainting. Her lace blouse front was torn, and there were several large rips in her jacket.
‘Oh Phyllis,’ I said, and as I spoke I realised I was crying.
‘Are you all right?’ said Mabel. ‘I thought they might have broken your wrist …’
‘They didn’t.’ Phyllis’s voice was barely a croak. She tried to get to her feet, but when she stood up her legs seemed to give way and she clutched the parapet for support. ‘No, no, I’m all right …’
‘Lean against the wall for a moment,’ said Mabel. ‘The policemen are still here. We’re safe for now.’
‘I’ll see if I can spot your lost hat,’ said Nora, looking down Eden Quay towards Sackville Street.
‘Long gone,’ said Phyllis faintly. She seemed to be in a sort of daze. ‘One of those hooligans’ wives will probably be wearing it tomorrow.’
I looked around in the other direction to make sure there were no more rowdies attempting mischief. And that was when I saw the group of well-dressed young girls in white, standing with their strangely familiar chaperone at the corner of Butt Bridge. They seemed to be frozen in fear, and had clearly witnessed Phyllis’s terrifyingly narrow escape. And standing right at the front of the group, staring straight at me, was none other than Grace.
For a long moment we held each other’s gaze. Then the chaperone seemed to unfreeze herself, and said something to her charges, leading them back across the bridge towards Tara Street. I realised why she looked so familiar. She was Grace’s beloved Miss Casey. She must have been taking the group of girls back from that tennis club outing to Rathmines.
I looked around for Nora. She’d been facing the opposite direction, and I don’t think Grace had even noticed her, especially as she was still wearing her mother’s hat and the long skirt. But I couldn’t pretend that Grace hadn’t recognised me. I felt panic bubble up inside me. Grace had clearly witnessed the violence. This wasn’t the same as her knowing we supported the cause or had even done a bit of chalking. She now knew that I had been at a suffrage meeting where a mob had attacked the speakers and where my sister had almost been killed. What would we do if she told Nora’s mother? I was distracted from my panicked thoughts by Mabel.
‘Mollie? Are you listening? I said we’ll have to try and get a cab.’ Her voice was strained. ‘I’m not going to risk meeting another mob. Asquith must be in the Theatre Royal by now, and that might give them another excuse to cause trouble.’
In case you’ve forgotten, the Theatre Royal is just on the other side of the Liffey, almost opposite to where we were standing. It seemed all too likely that trouble could break out nearby. Luckily, at this stage the crowd at Beresford Place had almost entirely dispersed, and traffic was making its way through again. But still, it took us a while to hail a cab. If the jarvey had any opinions on our generally peculiar appearance – Nora’s plaits had descended from beneath her hat, I had trodden on the hem on my skirt, and Phyllis and Mabel were not only hatless, but their clothes looked, as Mabel said ruefully when we were all inside the cab, as if they’d been dragged through a thorn bush backwards – he kept them to himself as we climbed aboard.
‘I’m going to have some hideous bruises tomorrow,’ Mabel said as we settled into our seats, trying and almost succeeding in keeping up her usual cheery tone. ‘What about you, Phyl?’
And Phyllis, without warning, suddenly burst into tears.
‘I’m sorry!’ she sobbed, as Mabel and I tried to comfort her. When I put my arm around her, I realised she was shaking. ‘I thought I was all right. But it’s as if …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. ‘They were going to throw me in the river! And they kept grabbing me and crushing me …’
I wasn’t used to seeing Phyllis like this. She was usually strong and bossy and even though it was very annoying sometimes, it always seemed like the correct way for a big sister to behave. It was horrible seeing her so upset. It was all wrong.
‘Sssh, you’re all right.’ Mabel’s voice was soothing as we waited for Phyllis’s sobs to subside. ‘You’re safe now.’
After a while, Phyllis dug around in the pocket of her coat for a handkerchief, which luckily hadn’t been lost in the assault. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly.
‘Oh goodness,’ she said. She looked down at her clothes and rolled up her sleeves. Bruises were already starting to form, and you could almost see the imprints of the strong hands that had grabbed and dragged her. ‘Oh Lord. What am I going to tell Mother and Father? That mob is going to be in the paper tomorrow. They’ll guess I was there.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Mabel. ‘And I had an idea. We can tell our parents we were knocked over by a cab on Rutland Square. Nice and far away from the riot.’
‘A cab?’ Phyllis stared at her.
‘Well, don’t you remember the cab protests? The jarveys are in turmoil. We can tell your parents that one of them was distracted by a motor car or something.’ She looked guiltily in the direction of the driver, whose profession she was maligning (albeit for a good cause). ‘It’s not as though we’re going to blame an individual jarvey.’
‘All right.’ Phyllis was clearly too weary to argue. And then it was as if she noticed me and Nora for the first time. ‘What are you two doing here?’ She didn’t even sound angry. I think she was too overwhelmed by the terrible events of the evening.
‘We went to the meeting,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Phyl. You were right, it was too dangerous.’
‘It certainly was,’ said Mabel, in unusually stern tones. ‘You girls could have been badly hurt. It’s a miracle you weren’t.’
‘I know,’ said Nora. ‘We hid under the lorry.’
‘Very ingenious of you,’ said Mabel dryly. ‘But you shouldn’t have been there at all.
‘It was Nora who got the policemen,’ I said. ‘So if we hadn’t been there …’
‘Did you really?’ said Mabel. Nora nodded.
‘Thank you, Nora,’ said Phyllis. ‘If they hadn’t come when they did …’ Her voice cracked, and I thought she might burst into tears again. But she didn’t.
‘At least you can swim,’ said Mabel. ‘Imagine if it had been Kathleen. She nearly drowned in a foot of water in Skerries last year.’
‘She’d have been more worried about her hat,’ said Phyllis, and gave a laugh that almost turned into a sob.
Mabel turned a discerning gaze on me and Nora.
‘Obviously I’m glad you were the means of saving Phyllis from a watery, smelly grave,’ she said. ‘Or at least a watery smelly bath. But where exactly do your mothers think you are?’
We explained about our usual method of deceiving our parents.
‘You’re not going to be able to get away with that forever,’ said Mabel.
And that’s when I remembered what I’d seen on the bridge. My stomach sank.
‘Oh no,’ I said.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nora’s brow furrowed. ‘You look a bit green. You’re not going to get sick, are you? Should we stop the cab?’
‘I saw something.’ I took a deep breath. ‘On Butt Bridge. Grace. She was on the corner. With her tennis club friends.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Nora, turning as pale as I felt. Phyllis and Mabel exchanged worried glances.
‘Do you think she saw what happened?’ said Mabel.
I nodded miserably. ‘I’m almost certain she did. Her group must have been crossing the bridge while those awful men were trying to chuck you in, Phyl. They couldn’t have missed it. And she definitely recognised me.’
‘Which means,’ said Mabel, her face grim, ‘that she probably recognised me and Phyllis too.’
‘She can’t tell anyone,’ said Phyllis. ‘You’ve got to make sure of that.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Nora miserably. ‘But she really can be very difficult.’
‘I don’t care!’ said Phyllis. ‘If she tells your mother what she saw this evening, I’m sure she would be straight round to our house to tell ours.’
I was quite sure this was true. And if she did, everything would come out – not just Phyllis being a suffragette. Not just the fact that she had put her life in danger (at least, this is how our parents would see it – of course it was only in danger because that mob of hooligans were causing trouble, but I knew our parents would blame her for being anywhere near them). Not just the fact that me and Nora had been there in disguise – I know Grace didn’t actually see Nora’s face, but I wouldn’t be able to persuade her that I’d been there on my own, especially when she knew Nora had planned to spend the evening with me.
All of that was bad enough for one evening. But of course, it wouldn’t just be about one evening. If Nora’s mother and my mother actually met and had a proper conversation about our activities, they would doubtless realise that over the last few months, Nora and I had told each of our parents that we were going to the other one’s house, when really we had been roaming the streets chalking and going to meetings and getting dressed up in (I felt sick at the thought of what she’d say when she found this out) Mrs. Cantwell’s very own clothes. They would realise that we had been lying to them for ages and ages. I couldn’t even imagine how they would respond to this. We’d never be let out of the house again. Or worse, they might decide to send us away to boarding school – different ones, obviously – where we would be supervised at all times.
And now it’s the next day and I still don’t know what they’re going to do. Because I haven’t seen or heard from Nora since the cab dropped us off. (We had managed to change back into our skirts while squashed onto the floor of the cab.) The jarvey was taking Mabel on to her house in Clontarf, and she leaned out the window as he drove her away.
‘Courage, mes amies!’ she cried. ‘Talk to your cousin, Nora!’
‘I’d better run,’ said Nora. She looked quite neat now she’d taken off her mother’s clothes. Well, she didn’t look as if she’d just been in a riot, anyway. I hoped I looked the same. ‘Maybe I’ll get home before her.’
‘Call around tomorrow,’ said Phyllis. ‘Tell us what happened.’
Nora nodded and sped away, and Phyllis and I turned and headed for home. She was walking slowly.
‘Are you sure you’re all right to walk?’ I said. ‘I could run ahead and ask Maggie to come and help support you …’
‘I’m fine,’ said Phyllis. ‘Just sore. Mabel’s right, I’ll be a mass of bruises tomorrow. Anyway, it’s not fair to Maggie to get her involved.’ We walked the rest of the way home in silence.
I had forgotten that Phyllis is a jolly good actress. I remembered that she was pretty decent when the senior girls put on that play when I was a junior baby, but she was quite extraordinary last night, especially when you consider what she’d been through that evening. Mother and Father completely believed her tale of being hit by a cab on Rutland Square, and then bumping into me around the corner from our house as she staggered home from the tram.
‘Those blasted jarveys!’ said Father, and I knew he was very upset because he’d never have said that word in front of us otherwise. I felt a bit guilty about the poor jarveys being maligned in this fashion, especially when they are worried about being taken over by motor cabs, but it couldn’t be helped.
‘I’ll call Doctor Butler tomorrow,’ said Mother from the sofa, where she was bathing Phyllis’s pale brow. Phyllis raised herself from the cushions on which she was lying.
‘There’s no need,’ she said. ‘There are no bones broken. After all, I was just a little bumped by the wheel. It’s not as though I were literally run over.’
‘Still, maybe you should let him have a look …’ I said. But Phyllis threw me an angry look, and I remembered the marks on her arm. If a doctor saw them, he would know she had been attacked by a person and not hit by a cab.
‘No, you’re right,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m sure you’re fine.’
‘The police should have arrested the jarvey,’ said Father.
‘Well, they were busy,’ said Phyllis. ‘I heard some suffragettes were attacked by a mob somewhere near the Theatre Royal. The police must have been gathered down there.’
‘Attacked by a mob!’ said Mother. ‘How dreadful.’
‘What on earth were they doing, attracting a mob?’ Father seemed less sympathetic. ‘They must have been breaking windows again.’
‘They weren’t,’ said Phyllis. ‘I mean, as far as I know. I was told they were just trying to give speeches, and some roughs started throwing stones and grabbing them.’
‘What is this city coming to?’ said Mother. ‘Girls being run over by cabs – well, almost run over, Phyllis – and women being attacked by mobs.’ And she blew her nose very loudly, just as Harry and Frank walked into the room. Of course, Harry wanted to know why Phyllis was lying on the sofa ‘looking like a dying duck’ and when he was told that she’d been hit by a cab he went quite pale and said, ‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Phyllis. ‘Just bruised.’
‘Well, I hope you’re going to throw those grubby rags you’re wearing in the rubbish bin,’ said Harry, sounding like his usual rude self again. But I could see that for a second he had been genuinely worried about Phyllis.
‘Are you all right?’ Frank asked me. ‘Did you get knocked down too?’
‘Me?’ Surely I didn’t look like a dying duck too? ‘No, I just met Phyllis on my way home. Why do you ask?’
‘Sorry, I just thought …’ Frank looked embarrassed. ‘The collar of your blouse …’ I glanced at my reflection in the glass over the mantelpiece and realised the collar was torn. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it must have happened when that man who was attacking Phyllis crashed into me.
‘Oh, she always looks like that,’ said Harry. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’
I could feel my cheeks flushing. Ever since Frank came to stay in our house, it seems to have been one embarrassing incident after another. And suddenly I felt exhausted by it all.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I said. And I left them all to discuss my scruffiness, and Phyllis’s ailments, and the state of Dublin, and whatever else they wanted to talk about. I didn’t think I’d sleep at all when I went to bed, especially as Julia was already snoring, but I fell asleep straight away, even though it wasn’t very late. Which is probably why I woke up at five o’clock this morning. But at least that has given me time to write this very long account of our adventures to you. I still haven’t heard from Nora so I have no idea if Grace has told Mrs. Cantwell what she saw this evening. I only hope that I will be able to write again and that I won’t be immediately sent off to one of the aunts in the country once Nora’s mother tells my mother all. If I was posting off this letter now, I would ask you to say a prayer for me. As it is, I will have to pray for myself and hope that God doesn’t mind that it is a prayer asking Him to help us keep a secret from our parents. But before I pray, I will go and ask Maggie for some toast because I really am awfully hungry …
Well! I don’t know where to begin. This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks of my entire life. Since Monday, I have become a master of disguise. I have been caught up in a police raid. I have been in a riot and almost saw my poor sister tossed into a river by a vicious mob. But nothing has shocked me as much as what happened this afternoon.
After I had written my last letter, I went down to get some toast. The door of Phyllis’s room was closed and although I desperately wanted to talk to her about what we should do if Grace told tales to Mrs. Cantwell, it didn’t seem right to disturb her. I could only imagine how horrid it must have been to be seized by those terrible men, and how scared she must have been of what they would do to her. And I could only imagine how bruised and sore she must be today. So if she was still asleep – or at least resting – I knew I should leave her in peace.
When I reached the hall I could hear voices from the dining room. Father must have already gone to work, but Harry, Frank and Mother seemed to be having a lively discussion. I paused for a moment outside the door, and my heart sank right down to my toes as I heard Harry say the words, ‘silly suffragettes.’ A horrible thought struck me. I had been holed up in my room for a long time, and I had been concentrating so hard on my letter that I doubt I’d have noticed if anyone had knocked on the door. What if Mrs. Cantwell had already been around to tell Mother about me and Phyllis, and Harry and Frank were now talking about our supposed misdeeds?
For a second I felt like running down to the kitchen and avoiding all of them for as long as possible. But I knew I had to face the truth, whatever it might be. So I took a deep breath and opened the door. Mrs. Cantwell wasn’t there, but Harry was still in full flow as I walked in. He had a newspaper in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
‘The police had to escort them to the tram,’ he said, through a mouthful of toast. He really has no table manners. ‘And then the crowd smashed the tram windows!’
‘That’s hardly the suffragettes’ fault,’ said Mother mildly. ‘Oh, there you are, Moll. What on earth have you been doing up in your room all morning?’
‘Writing to Frances,’ I said.
‘It’s their fault for making shows of themselves in public,’ said Harry, ignoring me.
‘That’s a bit much,’ said Frank firmly. ‘They had every right to have their meeting in peace.’
‘They shouldn’t have had a meeting at all,’ retorted Harry. ‘They should have known there’d be trouble, after that hatchet business.’ He looked at Frank suspiciously. ‘Anyway, why are you defending them? You’re not becoming one of those feeble men who go on about women being equal, are you? Apparently one of them sneaked in to Mr. Asquith’s meeting last night. Such fools.’
‘As a matter of fact, I agree with them,’ said Frank. ‘And I don’t think they’re fools. Or feeble. Quite the opposite, really. I think they’re jolly brave, standing up for women.’
‘You can’t really believe that rot!’ Harry’s face was a picture.
‘Now, now,’ said Mother. ‘No fighting at the breakfast table. Especially in the holidays.’ She turned to me. ‘There’s some toast left, if you want it.’
‘No there isn’t,’ said Harry, grabbing the last slice from the rack and slathering some butter on it before shoving half of it into his gaping maw. He really is revolting. And he was clearly spoiling for a fight. But I refused to rise to his bait.
‘I’ll ask Maggie to make me some,’ I said. ‘How’s Phyllis?’
‘She says she’s fine.’ But Mother didn’t look totally convinced. ‘Maggie brought her toast and tea in bed.’
‘I’ll go and get some breakfast for myself,’ I said, pointedly turning my back on Harry, who was finishing the toast with exaggerated expressions of pleasure. When I reached the kitchen Maggie was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in her hand and a weary expression on her face.
‘I’ve just come to get some bread and butter,’ I said. ‘If there’s any bread left.’
‘And have you ever known this kitchen to run out of bread?’ Maggie may have looked tired, but there was humour in her voice. ‘I’ll slice it for you.’
‘You sit there,’ I said, as firmly as I could. ‘I’ll do it.’
Maggie didn’t argue as I unwrapped the loaf from its paper covering and got out the breadknife.
‘Did Phyllis tell you what happened last night?’ I cut myself two sturdy doorsteps of bread.’
‘She did,’ said Maggie. ‘And she told me you were there too. After everyone telling you not to go.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I couldn’t help blushing, this time out of guilt. ‘But I didn’t lie to you. I just told you I was meeting Nora.’
‘That’s lying by omission, which is a sin as you know very well.’
I couldn’t meet Maggie’s stern gaze as I buttered the bread.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. And I was. I didn’t really feel guilty about going out on Friday, but I felt guilty about lying to Maggie. I told myself that she hadn’t wanted to know about my suffrage activities, so it was lie told in good faith. But I still felt a bit queasy.
And then there was a knock on the door, and I felt even queasier. If it was Nora – and I had a feeling it was – soon I would know my fate.
‘I’ll get it!’ I cried, and ran into the hall, a slice of bread and butter in one hand. I flung open the door and there indeed was Nora, looking as if she’d run all the way to my house which, as it turned out, she had.
‘Did she tell?’ My voice was a desperate whisper. Nora shook her head. I felt my shoulders sag with relief.
‘Thank heaven!’ I said. ‘Do you think she will?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Nora, regaining her breath. ‘Can we go upstairs?’
I nodded and Nora followed me up to my room.
‘So?’ I said, when the door was safely closed and I’d put the bolster against the bottom of it to make sure no sound drifted out. ‘What did she say? When you talked to her, I mean.’
‘That’s the thing,’ said Nora. ‘I haven’t talked to her!’
I stared at her in disbelief. ‘But how?’
‘She was already home when I got there,’ said Nora. ‘That tennis-club lady must have got them a fleet of cabs, for I can’t imagine how Grace managed it so quickly otherwise. And when I went up to bed she was pretending to be asleep.’
‘Did you try and get her up?’ I asked.
‘Of course I did!’ said Nora. ‘But she pretended she couldn’t hear me.’
My stomach churned at Nora’s words. This didn’t sound good. A Grace pretending to be asleep to avoid Nora sounded like a Grace who was preparing to reveal a terrible secret about her cousin and couldn’t bring herself to face her future victim.
‘What about this morning?’ I said.
And now it was Nora’s turn to blush.
‘She left before I got up,’ she said.
‘I thought she always made lots of noise in the mornings!’ I said.
‘She does, usually! But she can be sneaky when she wants to be. And,’ Nora added honestly, ‘I probably wouldn’t have woken up even if she had been stamping around the place as usual. I really was exhausted.’
I couldn’t blame Nora for not waking up and intercepting Grace. I had slept like a log as well.
‘Where is she now?’ I asked.
‘At the tennis club,’ said Nora. ‘But she’s due home for lunch. So I thought we could intercept her en route. We could wait at the corner – you know, near the bridge. And we should probably go there now, just in case she leaves early.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’
I was worried that Mother might object to me going off with Nora again – the very idea might make her realise just how late I’d come home last night – but when I stuck my head into the dining room Harry was telling her a long and boring-sounding story about yesterday’s cricket match so she barely noticed me telling her I was off to the Botanic Gardens (not entirely a lie, if we took Grace there to have a stern talk with her). I quickly made my escape and a few minutes later Nora and I were trotting down the road in the direction of the tennis club. We hadn’t gone far before we spotted a familiar figure coming towards us.
‘Hello girls!’ Mrs. Sheffield was cheerful. Possibly because she wasn’t accompanied by Barnaby, who as I know from experience is not an easy walking companion. ‘I’ve just come from the tennis club and I was wondering …’ But before she could get any further, I interrupted her.
‘I’m most awfully sorry, Mrs. Sheffield, but we really have to go,’ I said. ‘Mrs. Cantwell is expecting us and we’re already frightfully late.’
‘We really are,’ said Nora helpfully.
And without waiting for Mrs. Sheffield to reply, we hurried on down the road.
‘We weren’t too rude, were we?’ I said, as we turned the corner.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Nora. ‘We said we were late for my mother. That’s a decent excuse.’ A thought struck her. ‘Oh Lord, you don’t suppose Grace told her about yesterday, do you? She knows Mrs. Sheffield is a friend of your mother.’
‘Surely not!’ My stomach lurched. ‘No, she can’t have. I don’t think Mrs. Sheffield would have been so jolly if she was on her way to tell my mother I’d been in a riot.’
‘You’re probably right.’ Nora sounded calmer. ‘We’ll just have to persuade Grace to stay quiet.’
‘You never know, she might not take too much persuading,’ I said hopefully. ‘She hasn’t been too hateful to us recently.’
‘I think you’re giving her far too much credit,’ said Nora. ‘You know what she thinks of the movement. She’s going to think that we’re all a lot of street brawlers and that she’s doing the right thing by stopping us.’
I thought of what Harry said when he was stealing my toast.
‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ I said. ‘And the last time she threatened to tell on us, Stella stopped her by threatening to throw her notebook down the lav. But we have nothing to bargain with now.’ We had almost reached our destination. ‘Oh Nora, what will we do if she reveals all?’
‘We’ll have to face our punishment like Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington and the others,’ said Nora in a brave voice. But her voice wobbled a bit as she added, ‘I hope we don’t have to.’
The corner where we planned to pounce on Grace was occupied by a house with a low wall running around its garden.
‘At least we have somewhere to sit while we await our fate,’ said Nora.
‘Until the owners chase us away for vagrancy,’ I said. But we sat down anyway. Neither of us said anything for a while as we peered anxiously down the road in the direction of the tennis club.
‘I wouldn’t mind us being punished,’ I said suddenly, ‘if it felt like it was for the sake of the cause. You know, like the leaders going to prison. They made a dramatic statement and everyone knows about it. But if we get sent off to boarding school just for being at a meeting, we haven’t really done anything for the cause. We haven’t left anything behind. And no one in the world will know why we’re being punished besides our families. It won’t be in the papers. It won’t actually do anything. If you know what I mean.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ said Nora gloomily. ‘I mean, I don’t mind making a sacrifice for the cause. But it doesn’t do the cause much good if no one knows about it.’
‘Maybe we could alert the newspapers,’ I said. ‘I mean, if they’re going to send us off to boarding school anyway, what have we got to lose?’
But Nora didn’t answer. She was jumping to her feet.
‘There she is!’ She sheltered her eyes from the sun and peered down the road. ‘And she’s not alone!’
She certainly wasn’t. As Grace drew closer, I could see that one of her hands held her tennis racket, while the other held a lead. And on the end of the lead was a sturdy harness, and in that harness, prancing along gleefully, was the Menace.
‘What on earth is he doing with her?’ I wondered.
‘Maybe he’s joined the tennis club,’ said Nora impatiently. ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we talk her out of saying anything about us.’
But that task looked like it would be easier said than done when Grace caught sight of us. She froze for a moment. (The Menace was pulled short on his harness, and barked his disapproval.) She glanced at the road, and if she could have run across it she would, but luckily there were several delivery vans making their way down the street so she was stuck on the same side of the road as us. Nora and I hurried towards her.
‘Grace!’ Nora was trying to keep her voice calm, but you could tell how worried she was. ‘We need to talk to you.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said Grace, hurrying past us, the Menace trotting along as fast as his twinkling little legs could carry him.
‘Please, Grace,’ I begged, walking fast to catch up with them. ‘It’s about last night.’
‘I don’t want to talk about last night.’ Grace’s voice was tight. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘But Grace …’ began Nora.
Grace stopped walking and whirled round to face us.
‘Can’t you do anything you’re told to do?’ she cried. ‘Go away!’
And Barnaby, as if sensing his heroine’s mood and wishing to defend her from danger, made a growling noise that stopped me in my tracks. I had heard him bark before (many, many times, as you know) but I’d never heard him growl.
‘Don’t follow me!’ said Grace, and Barnaby gave another growl, his woolly white ears sticking up on each side of his head. I had never seen him look so enraged. I suppose it was quite impressive that the thing that had spurred him to such dramatic action was a desire to protect a human being. Even if that human being was Grace.
‘All right,’ I said meekly. ‘Sorry.’
Because really, what else could we do? We weren’t going to persuade her to keep our secret by chasing her when she was in a mood like this. Especially with the Menace turning into the Hound of the Baskervilles (which is one of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, but a savage hound is not as entertaining when it’s actually menacing you in real life). We stood on the path for a few minutes, watching Grace hurry away. Every so often Barnaby turned his head and glowered at us with his button eyes until they were out of sight.
‘Do you think she’s going to tell on us?’ I said.
‘I have a horrible feeling she is,’ said Nora. ‘It would explain why she doesn’t want to talk to us. She can’t face us knowing that she’s going to send us to the scaffold.’
This was a bit of an exaggeration, because even if our parents were very angry they weren’t going to have us executed, but I knew what she meant. We might as well be dead if we were sent off to separate boarding schools in the middle of nowhere. The sky, which had been clear and blue when we left my house, had begun to cloud over, and a sharp and strongly scented breeze blew in from the canal.
‘We could always run away,’ I suggested.
‘I thought of that when Grace first came to stay, remember?’ said Nora. ‘And you pointed out how impractical it was.’
I sighed. I knew she was right. And as if in sympathy with my mood, the clouds suddenly burst and large rain drops began to fall. In the distance there was a rumble of thunder.
‘Let’s go back to my house,’ I said. ‘Even if Grace has told all, your mother probably hasn’t gone round there yet.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Nora, whose skirt was already half-soaked with rain. ‘Let’s go.’
We ran as fast as we could but we were still utterly soaked AND I had a terrible stitch by the time we reached the corner of my road.
‘Bless us and save us,’ said Maggie when she opened the door to find two sodden figures on the doorstep. ‘Where have you two been?’
‘We just went for a walk,’ I said. We were so wet that our clothes were dripping all over the hall tiles.
‘Well, go up and change into dry clothes before you catch your deaths,’ said Maggie. ‘You must have something Nora can borrow, Mollie.’ She smiled at Nora. ‘Then you can have tea with your cousin in the drawing room. I’ve made biscuits.’
‘My cousin?’ Nora froze with one foot on the bottom stair.
Maggie nodded. ‘She’s in with Mrs. Carberry and Mrs. Sheffield – she’s got Mrs. Sheffield’s little dog with her again.’
‘What are they doing there?’ I tried to keep my voice steady. It somehow hadn’t crossed my mind that Grace might avoid Nora’s mother and go straight to mine.
‘You’ll have to ask her that,’ said Maggie. ‘Now, go and get changed while I boil the kettle.’
Nora and I exchanged anguished looks and hurried up to my room.
‘So this is it,’ I said, struggling to unbutton my sopping wet blouse.
‘It’s all over.’ Nora looked as if she were about to burst into tears as she pulled off her cotton skirt.
I couldn’t bear the thought of going into that drawing room and seeing Grace’s face (and Barnaby’s for that matter) as we heard our fate.
‘Let’s wait until she’s gone,’ I said, handing her an old blue dress that luckily happened to be clean. ‘I can bear it – I can almost bear it – if she’s not there.’
‘All right,’ Nora said. She fastened the buttons on the blue dress, which was a little too short for her. ‘I feel like Mary Queen of Scots on my way to have my head chopped off.’
‘We should be wearing black velvet,’ I said miserably. I had changed into a linen blouse with embroidery on the collar that looked far too cheerful for such a mournful day. I was wondering if I should change into something more sombre when my mother’s voice came ringing up the stairs.
‘Mollie! Can you come to the drawing room, please?’
I stared at Nora, my eyes wide. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
‘If they send you away right now and we’re not allowed see each other again,’ I said, ‘I want you to know that I’m sorry for getting you mixed up in all of this.’
Nora let go of my hand and elbowed me sharply in the ribs.
‘Don’t talk rot.’ Her voice was a little shaky. ‘I knew exactly what I was doing. And I’d do it all again.’ She looked at me. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Of course I would,’ I said. And I meant it. Because even if we didn’t win any publicity for the cause, even if no one ever knew about what we’d done, we would know. We would know that we’d taken a risk for something we believed in. And however they decided to punish us, we would know that it was worth it. Yes, I regretted going out the other night, but that was because the Ancient Hooligans and their supporters had been so awful. In a fair and just world, we would be able to go to whatever meetings we liked without fear. And that was the world we would keep fighting for.
I thought all of those things as we slowly made our way down to the drawing room. I could hear Barnaby barking on the other side of the door. I reached out to the doorknob and then paused.
‘Here we go,’ I said, and opened the door.
I don’t know exactly what I had expected to find on the other side. Mother, Mrs. Sheffield and Grace standing in an accusatory line, perhaps, with Barnaby sitting before them, raising his paw to point at us. What I actually saw was Mother and Mrs. Sheffield sitting side by side on the sofa drinking tea, while Grace sat on the most comfortable chair with Barnaby sitting in her lap (and not a footprint on her fawn-coloured skirt, I noticed. Did he manage to keep magically clean just for her?), eating a biscuit. Mother and Mrs. Sheffield were talking about yet another sale of work, but Mother looked up as I came in. Grace, meanwhile, was steadfastly avoiding our gaze.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Mother said casually. ‘Did you find something for Nora to wear?’
‘Yes.’ My mouth felt very dry. I swallowed before I asked, ‘Did you want to see us, Mother?’
‘Actually, it was I who wanted to see you.’ Mrs. Sheffield was all smiles.
Nora and I looked at each other in confusion.
‘Don’t look so worried!’ Mrs. Sheffield laughed. ‘You’re not in trouble. But I would like you to help out at the special fête we’re organising next week. For the pavilion, you know. The club is expanding so fast and the pavilion is far too small so we really do need to add some sort of extension …’
Mrs. Sheffield went on and on about the tennis-club grounds, while Mother calmly helped herself to a biscuit from the plate on the table, and Grace just sat there stroking Barnaby’s woolly head. This couldn’t be some sort of strange game, could it? I mean, Mother wasn’t going to wait until Mrs. Sheffield had gone and then suddenly turn to us and tell us she knew all about our dangerous suffragette activities, was she? I was so caught up in my thoughts that it gave me quite a shock when Nora gently kicked my ankle and I realised Mrs. Sheffield was asking me a question.
‘What do you think, young Mollie? Will you help Grace with the dog show?’
‘The dog show?’ I said stupidly. ‘Sorry, Mrs. Sheffield, I think I must have got, um, water in the ear when we were out in the rain.’
‘The dog show at the tennis-club fête!’ said Mrs. Sheffield. ‘I’m going to serve as judge. Barnaby will make a jolly little mascot for the show, won’t he? And Grace has promised to make him display his tricks.’
Barnaby turned his bright black eyes on Mrs. Sheffield and barked, as if offended by her use of the word ‘tricks’ to describe his showing-off activities.
‘Oh!’ I said. And then, because I really was too worked up to think of an excuse, I said, ‘I’d love to help.’
‘I’m so glad!’ Mrs. Sheffield beamed. ‘And you too, Nora?’
‘Of course.’ Nora’s looked as dazed as I felt.
‘Wonderful.’ Mrs. Sheffield stood up and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. ‘Now I really must be going. Thank you so much for tea, Rose.’
‘You’re always welcome,’ said Mother.
‘And thank you for taking Barnaby home from the club, Grace,’ said Mrs. Sheffield. ‘It did seem a shame to take him with me when he was having so much fun chasing the balls.’ She turned to Mother. ‘He’s quite the little ball boy. Always running to fetch! So helpful.’
‘How nice,’ said Mother, but I bet she was thinking the same thing as me, which was that Barnaby was not chasing balls to be helpful, and that he probably didn’t return them to the players once he’d got them clamped in his angry little jaws.
‘Come on then, Barnaby.’ Mrs. Sheffield held out a hand, and the Menace jumped down from Grace’s lap. ‘Are you going to stay with your cousin, Grace?’
‘Yes,’ said Nora before Grace could say a word. ‘We’ve got something awfully interesting to show you in Mollie’s room, Grace.’
‘Really?’ said Mother. ‘What?’
‘Just a book I found with some dog tricks in it,’ I said quickly. My mind had clearly recovered its ability to make up excuses on the spot. ‘Come on, Grace.’
And with a hasty goodbye to Mrs. Sheffield, we each took one of Grace’s hands and led her from the room. We both guessed, rightly, that she would never kick up a fuss in front of grown-ups. Mrs. Sheffield and Mother followed us into the hall, and we took Grace upstairs while they continued to chat.
As soon as we were safely in my room, Grace shook off our guiding hands.
‘How dare you drag me out like that!’ She was not happy.
I looked at Nora in alarm. This was not a good start to our negotiations.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But we really need to talk to you on your own.’
‘And you didn’t seem very keen on talking to us earlier,’ added Nora.
‘What do you want to talk about?’ said Grace, though of course she knew.
‘Last night,’ I said. ‘I know you saw what those men did to Phyllis. And I know you saw that I was with her.’
‘But please, Grace, don’t tell anyone about it,’ said Nora.
‘We are throwing ourselves on your mercy,’ I said dramatically. ‘Our parents will never forgive us for this.’
‘We are honestly and truly begging you,’ said Nora, and even Grace must have realised she was sincere. ‘And in case you think this is just about us, it’s not.’
‘It’s about Phyllis,’ I said. ‘She’s meant to be starting university in October. But if Mother and Father find out about this, they’ll probably send her off to the countryside to live with one of our horrid old aunts instead.’
‘And there’s Mabel too,’ said Nora. ‘She won’t let Phyllis be punished alone. She’ll tell her parents too, and then they won’t let her go to college either.’
‘So please don’t tell,’ I said. ‘We’ll help you with Barnaby’s dog show.’
‘We’ll do anything you like,’ said Nora wildly. ‘We’ll chase after the balls at your tennis matches.’
‘But please, please don’t tell.’ I said. I felt almost breathless as I looked earnestly at Grace’s impassive face.
‘Is that all you have to say?’ Grace’s tone was stern. Nora and I looked at each other.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Well, you could have saved yourself the effort,’ said Grace in her most supercilious tone. ‘And all the begging. I wasn’t going to tell anyone anyway.’
Frances, I was stunned.
‘You weren’t?’ I said. ‘Why did you run away from us earlier?’
‘I thought you were going to threaten me with menaces,’ said Grace. ‘I didn’t realise you were just going to grovel.’
‘We’d never threaten to do anything violent!’ said Nora indignantly. I shot her a warning look. This was not a good time to start a fight with Grace.
‘Well, I don’t know what you’re capable of,’ said Grace. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past you.’
‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why did you decide not to tell, I mean?’
For the first time, Grace looked a little uncomfortable.
‘It didn’t feel right, that’s all,’ she said.
‘Really?’ Nora couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. ‘After all, back in school you said …’
I tried to catch Nora’s eye and give her a ‘please don’t remind her of what she said back in school’ look, but she kept going. ‘I mean, what’s changed since then?’ she said.
Grace sighed.
‘If you must know,’ she said, ‘it was those horrid men.’
This time Nora did catch my eye. She looked as surprised as I felt.
‘We were crossing the bridge when the policemen had to rescue those women – I mean, ladies,’ said Grace. ‘I saw them knock that poor lady down. And then I saw what they did to your sister. I saw you two trying to help her.’ She looked at me. ‘I had awful dreams about it last night.’
‘I slept like a log,’ said Nora.
‘Shut up, Nora,’ I hissed.
‘It was just because I was so exhausted,’ said Nora.
‘Anyway,’ said Grace stiffly. ‘Whatever I may think of your silly movement … well, they didn’t deserve to be treated the way those hooligans treated them. They were just speaking and those men started throwing stones and saying awful things and it wasn’t … it’s not fair play. Miss Casey thought so too.’
So all that tennis-club talk had actually had an effect on her! I gave a silent prayer of thanks for Miss Casey.
‘So that’s why I didn’t say anything,’ said Grace. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Of course you can,’ I said. ‘And thanks, Grace. Thanks awfully. We won’t forget it. Will we Nora? Nora?’
‘We won’t,’ said Nora. She held out her hand to Grace. ‘Thank you.’
For a moment I thought Grace wasn’t going to take it. But eventually she gave it a hint of a shake and turned to go.
‘And I meant it about helping with the dog show,’ I said, as she opened the door. But she didn’t say anything. She just walked out and closed the door behind her.
‘Well!’ said Nora. And then she burst into tears.
‘Nora!’ I said. But I felt on the verge of tears myself.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nora, wiping her nose on her sleeve in a very uncouth fashion.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I know how you feel. Do you think she’ll keep her word?’
‘I actually do,’ said Nora. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ I threw myself back on my bed and smiled. ‘I do.’ I felt as though I had been wound up tightly and now I had been unrolled. I propped myself up on the bed with my elbows.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and see if there’s any cake left over. And then we can tell Phyllis the good news.’
And that is where I shall leave this letter, because really if I don’t stop now my hand will finally fall off. I think I need to have a little rest from writing to you for a while. I didn’t realise that capturing historic events for posterity would be such hard work. And anyway, there is not much more to tell of yesterday’s doings. All you need to know is that it seems that we are safe! And it’s all thanks to Grace’s newfound sense of fair play. I never thought she’d develop one, but I can only thank the tennis club for it. And for that, I will happily take part in their fundraising fête. Even if it does mean doing a dog show with the Menace.
Best love and votes for women,
Mollie