A Time for Courage

by Margaret Graham

  ‘Because, Hannah, the rules about voting mean that very few of the poor have the vote, so how can they get these trouble-makers into Parliament? It’s a question of voting qualifications, you see. Rate payers and so on.’

  He was signalling to the butler who brought water and poured some for Hannah. George smiled. ‘Drink some of this, my dear. You’ve had quite enough wine.’

  She was thirsty and the room was hot. Heads were bent towards one another and Esther was leaning over the table, listening to Harry with her eyes as wide as she could make them. Harry, Hannah saw to her surprise, was talking to her now as though Esther was the only person in the room. There was chatter all around the table.

  ‘I’ll support them,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m not poor. I’ll vote.’

  George leant back and slapped his leg, laughing until he coughed. ‘But you’re a woman. You can’t vote.’ Wiping his face with his handkerchief.

  Hannah sat back feeling hot, so hot. ‘I forgot,’ she murmured. ‘Just for a moment I forgot. How could I have forgotten something like that?’

  George shook his head and patted her hand which lay on the table. ‘My dear Hannah, it is of no importance. We can’t have women worrying their heads about serious matters, can we? You just let your husband do it, when the big day comes, because he will decide what is best. After all, women aren’t really suited to thinking, are they? They’re pretty little things that do a man’s eye a power of good and look splendid in his sitting-room.’

  Harry was calling him now and she watched them talking and Esther laughing up into Harry’s face. We just need a bit of a dusting from time to time, do we, just like the other belongings in the home? She was still too hot as she watched the butler bring meringue with strawberry and brandy preserve, followed by cream in a large silver jug.

  ‘We have a wonderful cook and a wonderful gardener. His strawberries are a taste of heaven,’ Camilla said waving towards the dessert, and everyone nodded but Hannah.

  She was remembering the feel and the heat of the fruit in her hand at Joe’s. So, Mrs Arness is a thing too, is she? But she wasn’t, was she? She had become a partner and if she had been a thing that would not have been possible. But was it enough just to improve your own life? Mrs Arness was changing the lives of the children she taught, wasn’t she, so then they would do the same for their children. And it would all grow. Was education enough? She realised that she didn’t think it was. Votes were important and could change the government of the country and therefore the conditions and attitudes in that country. Votes would give you a vestige of power, a certain importance, a sense of being a person. Votes for women had to come soon and she now wanted to see that they did.

  ‘Nearly twenty thousand camp dead, I’ve heard.’ It was George speaking again. ‘Seems a strange way to run a war, scorching the earth and then locking the families up.’

  Hannah spoke now and her voice felt almost like her own. She felt strong. ‘Father says Britain has to civilise the Empire but how can England have any pride if this is how she goes about her business? How can anyone have given those orders and how could anyone have carried them out?’

  There was silence round the table. She hadn’t realised she was shouting. She looked at Harry, then at Esther who was grinning. Harry was not.

  ‘One thing you have yet to learn, Hannah,’ said her father, his green hat slipping over his left eye making him look absurd. Should she tell him? But it was too late, he was talking, pointing his finger at her as he spoke. ‘Is that an order is an order and will be obeyed. What that order contains should hold no interest to the person who receives it. Obedience is all.’ His eyes were cold and they fixed on hers though his mouth was smiling.

  ‘Even if it’s murder?’ she replied and caught the movement of Harry’s head as he turned to look at his father. Thomas and Camilla were frowning, George was embarrassed and making great play of eating his dessert. Just how long did he expect that one piece of meringue to last, she wondered. She did not look at her mother.

  ‘There is no such thing as murder if one is obeying an order,’ her father replied. ‘In war, all death can be justified. Concentration camps included.’ Her father was lifting his glass to his mouth now, drinking and then wiping his moustache with his napkin. It was pink where his moustache had drooped into the wine. Slowly a murmur of talk grew up around the table again but still Hannah looked at her father and still he looked at her and now the smile had gone.

  ‘Eat your dessert, Hannah, but don’t have any dessert wine,’ Esther was calling past George. ‘We must go and change soon.’

  They waited outside the drawing-room door with cloaks over their shoulders. The chiffon was light and cool after the wool of her dress. Their arms were bare. Her mother had helped Camilla to pin the costumes, though Hannah knew she was worried about the effect of the performance on her husband.

  Don’t be silly, dear, Camilla had called out, pins still in her mouth as she moved Esther round to reach the hem. It’s light-hearted fun. It’s the Edwardian age now, you know. Prince Edward is setting all sorts of new fashions and ideas. Her mother had frowned and continued to adjust the chiffon layers.

  When the women left to announce the entertainment Esther had brought down her red leather Bible from the bookcase and run her tongue over her lips. Go on, you too, she had said, we’re actresses tonight; she rubbed the book against her lips and they became quite red as though they had been painted. Hannah took it, licking her lips again, grinding them into the cover. It tasted different to anything she had come across, bitter and sticky. How could her father speak of the deaths of those women and children as he had? He had no goodness in him, nothing for her to respect, just for her to fear and she was tired of fear. She had rubbed her lips on the Bible again.

  Now, as she waited outside the door, she could still taste the dyed leather and knew very well what she had done, for the Vicar had said that only harlots painted their lips. She could feel the cool marble floor beneath feet stripped of shoes and stockings because painted lips had not been enough for her challenge to her father. Feet should never be without coverings, the legs never visible, should they?

  Hannah’s breathing was rapid because soon he would see her reply to his rules, his cold dark authority, his cruelty. Nothing else mattered at the moment, not even university. This was more important somehow.

  Now Camilla was playing the entrance march and Esther was opening the drawing-room door. The ballet was one they had learnt long ago but they remembered each step and Hannah tried not to look at her mother as she almost crouched in her chair while her father sat rigid with affront. Harry was watching only Esther. Harry and George clapped loudly at the end. Her father and Thomas did not and her mother rose and went to Camilla.

  ‘How beautifully you played,’ she said, and so she had not had to clap either. Hannah’s lips felt large and sticky and still there was the bitter taste. Her feet were warm and she had danced as never before. Her bare legs and naked arms were what her father was looking at.

  The journey home in the carriage was silent. Harry sat back, his face held in a small smile. Esther had hugged Hannah as they left. See, she said, I told you I could get him to like me and don’t worry about the parents, it will all blow over. Father is a softie really. But Hannah’s father was not and Hannah knew that her challenge would be answered and that she must bear the consequences.

  Mrs Brennan had left the gas lights on low and as Hannah started to follow Harry up the stairs her father at last spoke.

  ‘How dare you disgrace me this evening.’ His voice was low but taut.

  Hannah did not turn though she knew he spoke to her. She saw Harry pause on the lower landing.

  ‘Turn and look at me when I speak to you, madam,’ her father said. And she did so. ‘There is evil in children that must be eradicated before they reach adulthood or death. As though it were not bad enough to venture an opinion during the meal you then paint your lips like a common harlot, bare your legs, lifti
ng them into the air so that all may see.’ He was shaking, not just his hands but his body. Her mother stood slightly behind him her face in the shadow of her bonnet.

  Hannah put her hand in her pocket and felt the musical box, and heard the storm, the lightning, the thunder. Felt the grass under her feet, the water as it trickled through her hand and knew that there were parts of her he couldn’t reach, couldn’t hurt because he had no knowledge of them and this she hugged to herself for protection.

  His face was dark and drawn up into gashes of hate. ‘You are filled with an evil which I shall do my best to eradicate, according to my sense of duty,’ he said. ‘You will learn humility and obedience. You will accept your place as a woman. Therefore Harry is to go to university, not you. He will study for his mining degree. You will develop the attributes which will make you desirable as a wife, for that is your calling just as it is Esther’s. Just as it was your mother’s. You will develop humility. Now go and wash that filth off your face and cleanse your mind of its perpetual unrest.’

  Hannah did not move. She could still feel the banister with her hand; she could still see him with her eyes as he turned and strode towards the door, brushing past her mother as he did so and snarling, ‘It’s your blood which has contaminated this family.’

  The door banged as he left. Hannah heard it slam but inside there was nothing but his words which she had known would come because how else did he think he could destroy her?

  The snow was falling again but his hat kept off the worst. It was not long past midnight and the revellers were still about seeing in the year of our Lord, 1902. John Watson walked on, waving away a cab with harsh movements. His walking-stick dug deep into the snow with every rapid stride seeing her red lips, her white legs. Dear God, what a nightmare it had all been. It was Edith’s blood that had bred this wanton daughter, that had caused his son to turn from him and the path he had chosen for him, and the anger was so great at them all that he could not feel the cold. But it was better now than it had been. Now that he had vented some of his rage on her damnable daughter, for, after all, he had never intended that she should go to university and telling her so in this manner would force from her all false vanity.

  A girl had no right to be as clever as she appeared to be from her school reports. Softness, malleability, subservience were the qualities she should be imbued with, not cleverness. It was indecent in a woman, unnecessary. To deprive her of her ambition would cleanse her and would also set her against the boy. He would be truly his now.

  No, he could not risk directing his anger against his son. God damn it, he loved the boy. There must be no humiliation for him, only for those that needed it. He brushed past the lamp-lighter who was warming himself round a brazier. Damn Thomas for speaking up for the boy, but there was no doubt he approved of the idea and that would mean there would be no recommendation for the Household Cavalry. So could it be that Thomas was right? Perhaps it would be the making of the family name.

  He grunted as he turned the corner and the wind snatched at his hat. It was darker now, fewer lights lit this end of the area. Yes, perhaps the mining would work out well in the end, but by God, Hannah had needed some humiliation to drive her on to the path of decency. But would it be enough?

  He clenched his teeth, breathing deeply, pleased that he had done his duty, but still anger raged because even though her dream was broken she was not; she had not cried. She had not broken beneath him; had not shown herself to be changed. Why would she never break? After all, her mother had finally done so.

  There were plenty of women as he approached the footpath which ran along the canal leading eventually to the arches under the bridge. He had known there would be, there always were. He wanted the one he had found last month. Some were bare to their waists even in this cold but he pushed on past.

  He saw her then, over there, loitering beneath the snow-laden trees just visible in the dim light of the gas lamp and she came to him as he stopped, pressing her body against his, and he nodded, giving her the money.

  He led her out of the pool of light into the shelter of the bridge, away from the prying eyes of home-going revellers passing along the road above them. She was silent as they walked through the snow and he pulled her to him when they stopped. Her breath was putrid and her body smelt; her hair was greasy and tangled. He gripped it and pulled her head back, pressing his mouth to hers, his hand to her breast, tearing at the shawl that was knotted at the front.

  So, Hannah thought to defy him, did she? Did she think she was an animal like this thing? He would show her, he would mould her into the daughter he required. The snow-laden tree hung low over them and the fog from the river swirled and caught in his throat. Further along fog horns were sounding, but the woman’s breast was exposed now, dirty and goose-fleshed. He sucked the nipple, then kissed her foul mouth again, pushing her to the ground in the darkness of the bridge; for this was how it pleasured him. The snow was cold on his knees as he tore bare her other breast. He did not remove his gloves. He never did. His breath came quickly as he worked her skirt up, but not over her breasts because these he must hurt.

  He liked this girl, he had used her several times. She was Hannah’s age. Her flesh was firm and he ran his hands over her thighs and felt hers on him. So she remembered what he liked. She tightened her grip.

  ‘Not yet,’ he hissed.

  She slowed and then he took her hands from him and held them above her head, lashed together in his one hand while he finally thrust into her, deep, hard, so that he heard her indrawn breath. Saw her face in the light tighten with pain.

  ‘Move, damn you, move,’ he ordered, and as he felt her legs clasp round him and her movements thrust in tune with his he kneaded her breast until he saw the look of pain that he sought and heard her screams. In that moment he bared his teeth and groaned as he thrust violently; filling her, hurting her, grinding her into the ground. Calling ‘Mother!’ as he did so.

  Hannah had helped her mother to bed. I hope you don’t cry, her mother had said in the bedroom, which was lit only by the landing light seeping in through the open door. I couldn’t bear it if you cried. He means it for the best. I’m sure he means it for the best, my little girl, but why did you give him the opportunity? Her hand had been cold as she stroked Hannah’s face and there was a trembling which ran through the whole of her body as Hannah helped her into her nightdress. Quiet now, Mother, she had soothed, you must rest. And her mother had nodded, feeling like a child again. Hannah lit the oil lamp which she knew her mother liked because of its dim light and warm brass fittings and the smell which reminded her of Cornwall. She placed it on the dressing-table to burn throughout the night, seeing in the mirror that it cast deep shadows round her eyes and merely made her lips look dark, not red. There was no lavender here this time. She returned to the bed moving easily, for there was no cradle to displace the other furniture. She laid her mother’s clothes on the ottoman at the foot of her bed for the maid to hang up in the morning, smoothing them out, seeing nothing familiar in their dark, flat, empty shapes. They were devoid of her mother, weren’t they, so meant nothing to her as they were.

  She kissed her mother, who was too tired to speak again but not too tired to stop thinking as her head lay on the pillow, which was soft and quiet. Yes, she must rest, for this time the baby must live because she had been good. She had been good and he had come back to her for one night, but that was all. Only the one night.

  She did not hear Hannah leave the room; she was too busy wishing that she had, long ago, kept some of her own money so that she could have sent her daughter to university. But would she ever really have had the courage to go against her husband? Edith Watson cried as she realised the answer.

  The gas fire was popping in Hannah’s room casting deep shadows into the corners, blanking out the pictures of rural life into blind squares. She did not light the lamp but sat in the chair. Harry had tried to speak to her, taking her arm, gripping it tightly, but she had brushed him asi
de, not looking at his face. He could say nothing that she wanted to hear. She had brought it on herself, this she knew, but that he should go in her place made her flinch from him.

  And no, she had replied to his tense question, she wouldn’t break her promise and tell of the accident, but her voice had sounded cracked and dry, as dry as their voices when they came up from the mine that day.

  She wouldn’t cry, not where they could see but there was no one here now, was there? Just the memory of the anger which had consumed her, driven her to challenge that man and for that she could not be sorry, but none the less, the pain was deep and strong as the tears fell. Her shoulders heaved and her chest too. And when all the tears were done the misery was still there. But so was something else. This would not be the end. She would not allow this to be the end. She stood and walked to the window.

  She would ask Miss Fletcher to help her to become a teacher without going to university. She would ask for help in learning about her body so that she could not be like her mother, for she, Miss Hannah Watson, had decided on her future. And she would ask Miss Fletcher to tell her how she could become a person, not just a piece of property, and all the while her father would not know what she was doing.

  Tonight all confusion was finally gone and hate had entered her life.

  6

  The brass knob of the heavy school door gleamed. Hannah could see the dent which lay just to the right of its centre. Miss Fletcher’s maid had still not managed to rub the dirt from its depth. Hannah held out her gloved forefinger, the navy sharp against the yellow as she ran it over the cold surface, feeling the dip, seeing it, but hearing only her father’s voice as he had spoken one week ago, harsh and grating and full of hate. She curled her hand around the brass knob, tighter and tighter, surprised that it did not fold beneath her fury. Miss Fletcher’s study was at the end of a long, dark, wood-panelled corridor which sucked at any light. Hannah knew that she would be there. She always was half an hour before school was due to start and had probably been there far earlier on the first day of Spring Term. Her feet echoed on the black and white tiles of the entrance porch. She had not stopped for barley sugar from the Emporium this morning, there was no time for that any more. Childhood had gone, completely gone, and now something had to be put in its place.