The churned fields were giving way to grey stone houses which lay on either side of the track. These threw back the noise which had until now rolled on and over the fields and helped to drive thoughts from her mind, but they could not remove the tiredness from the broken nights. She saw again the pale, frail hands but made herself look instead at the picture of London Bridge which hung in its gilt frame above the heads of Harry and Esther; at the brocade which covered the seats, at the rack which held their bags, and she felt calmer.
Mother was better than she had been, that was all she must think about, and with the coming of spring the improvement would be even greater.
Hannah sat with her hands loosely clasped in her lap now, forcing her shoulders down, her muscles to relax. The noise was less again, the houses were left behind and trees which crept up to the embankment took their place. It wouldn’t be far to Arthur’s junction now. He had said three hours out from London and it must be nearly that now. She pushed back the sleeve of her dark blue suit and looked at the wrist-watch which had been Arthur’s Christmas gift; in fifteen minutes they should be arriving and she was curious to see his country seat.
He had spoken of it often during the past four years but her father had refused permission for such a visit until now, his face darkening at the mere suggestion, his tone cutting through the air as he forbade such indulgences. But this weekend was special; it was to be Harry’s farewell and he had approached their father saying that Lord Wilmot wanted to introduce Hannah to his county set as the girl they favoured for their son. Hannah had swallowed when she saw the sweat that had appeared on her father’s forehead, at the smile which began to play around his mouth, disgust churning her stomach. She knew that this was not the truth. Lord Wilmot had no intention of introducing anyone as his second son’s potential wife, for Arthur was still far too young, and for that Hannah was grateful, she had too much to do to think of marriage. She was more than aware that the real reason Harry required her presence was, yet again, that Esther would be able to attend. As the train rattled on she looked at her brother. Would he like the hot parched land where Uncle Simon lay? Would it bring him the wealth he wanted? She sighed. Was it really so many years since they had laughed together in the garden, since that young boy had swung her on the rope, run with her on the grass, laughed into her neck as they fell face down and watched the ants climbing the stems? This was the boy who had become a man and climbed from the mine and had pressed her hand when she had held his to her lips. This was the man who had taken her education from her. But here she stopped. Had he taken it, or had it been given to him?
She looked at the neat moustache, the starched collar, the mouth which talked words of love to the girl in a grey suit and hat, with coiled hair. She looked at his eyes; eyes which had been nudged by the knowledge of departure for the last few days and weeks and months. She looked at his hands which had swung the rope and they were the same ones that she had pushed from her when he had tried to talk to her on the stairs as their father had stalked from the house. She wished now that she had not done so, for there was still an empty space where first he, and then Joe had been.
And now he was to go and it was all too late, wasn’t it? The emptiness must stay hidden away as though it were not there. She looked again at her watch. Only ten minutes now. There were distant hills standing proud against the gathering grey clouds and birds were being blown off course. The train whistle shrieked as they passed under a bridge which Harry said held the road leading to the village this side of Alburton Manor, the Wilmots’ home. Hannah craned round to watch as it curved into the distance. There was a trap shying away from an Austin car. Was it Arthur’s automobile, she wondered, and smiled. If it was, he would be late.
‘Hannah.’ She turned as she felt the tap on her knee as Esther leant forward to attract her attention. ‘How will your Sunday ladies manage without you?’ Esther’s face was tilted and her mouth struggled not to smile.
Hannah felt herself grow tense at the question.
‘Yes, Father seems most awfully pleased with you, Hannah,’ Harry said, looking at her curiously. ‘Your good works seem to have made the old boy feel that at last he can relax. He seems to feel that you have grown into Mother’s role quite nicely. Dutiful daughter at home and Bible study with the deserving poor.’ His eyes were probing, his voice full of doubt. This was the sister who had fought and struggled against her father, against God knows what demons for so long, the child who had held her own against him before he went to school, and here she was taking Bible classes for the fifth year running. Had Father broken her after all? He looked at her again in a way that he had not done for many years and shook his head, surprised at the regret that the thought brought him.
She lowered her eyes before his gaze and he realised that she seldom met his eyes any more but said and did the right thing, demure and self-contained. Yes, during the five years the four of them had been laughing, talking and socialising it was suddenly clear to him that he did not know this adult Hannah at all. There was something private about her now, something hidden beneath the correct exterior. There was a hint of it with his mother too. A cloaking of the eyes, a preoccupation. Was it because of Arthur, he wondered. If so, they had no cause to worry, since that young man was very pleased with Hannah and so, it seemed, were the family; their reservations at Hannah’s lack of pedigree overcome by her mature influence. This, they seemed to feel, or so Arthur had told him with a laugh, was calming their son’s interest in the music-hall actresses who so enchanted him. Harry remembered the wet steps outside Arthur’s London house on the night of the Coronation dance. What was it Arthur had said about needing a sensible woman? He looked out of the window. It was something about needing someone who would let him enjoy himself.
Harry shrugged. Did Hannah love Arthur? It was so hard to tell, for there seemed to be a distance between Hannah and everyone and everything. It was almost as though she were only half aware of everyday life, as though she were waiting, but for what? But now he felt the pressure of Esther’s hand and his heart caught in his throat; she was so small, so delicate, so beautiful and soon he would be gone. But not for long. No, not for long because that he could not bear. Soon he would be back with money enough to approach her father for her hand in marriage. No, he must not be long because he could not be certain she would wait.
He laid his hand on hers and wanted to grip it, raise it to his lips, draw her to him and sink his mouth on to hers, feel her body against his, stroke her breasts as she had allowed him to do last week, but instead he moved his arm against hers and smiled at the answering pressure.
Hannah did not smile at Esther’s question, at Harry’s curiosity, but looked at her hands. They were no longer clasped loosely but squeezed tightly. Yes, the women would manage just this once but Esther must not stir curiosity again. It was too important to be treated as a mere game but that seemed to be what life was to Esther and always had been.
When Hannah had approached Miss Fletcher the week after she had left Joe’s, the Headmistress had thought it was a splendid idea to hold classes for adults. Hannah had not mentioned that it was not hers alone. They had used the front room in Miss Fletcher’s private quarters so that parents of the schoolchildren could never have cause to complain that the school premises were being used for purposes they would undoubtedly disapprove of.
As they had handed out suffrage handbills during that week they spoke to the women on the doorsteps, urging, cajoling, and some had come. They had arrived on Sunday morning, some with children because their husbands would not baby-mind. Against the murmured protests of infants that were as dirty and lethargic as the matchmaker’s had been, Hannah had begun to teach. Buns and apples had appeared from Miss Fletcher’s kitchen and the children had eaten them sitting on the floor, forcing more and more into their mouths, scrabbling for the crumbs, fighting and screaming, refusing to sit on chairs, which were something they had not seen before. The next week more had come to listen and to learn and
to eat, for meat sandwiches were included now. In the first few weeks they had concentrated on hygiene lessons before moving in due course to first aid. As the weeks progressed they had explained birth control and then more came and asked for reading and writing. Hannah and Miss Fletcher had worked around the tables, showing the women how to hold pens, how to form letters; showing the children how to sit still long enough to build bricks, to paint shapes. As they leant over them their smell was strong and so, as part of the course, they ran hot water and encouraged baths.
One day a husband had come, forcing his way in, pushing aside Miss Fletcher, grabbing his wife, dragging her from the room until Hannah had barred the door, feeling the wood solid behind her back, seeing the faces of those who remained; fearful, excited. She had asked him quietly amidst the furore why he would not allow his wife to stay and he had shouted at her, his breath rancid in her face, that why should she be able to read when he could not?
And so now they taught reading in a mixed class but saved hygiene and birth control and discussions about equality for the women alone, fearing that the men would forbid the knowledge. The children laughed now and played with toys made by Hannah’s mother, who sewed in her room and nodded to Hannah to sit and tell her of the progress the Sunday school was making and they would laugh softly together, aware that this was a secret that they shared. Her mother’s eyes would grow brighter as Hannah talked and her hands would grip the sides of her chair and she said that she was glad that some women would not have their life sapped from them.
Hannah had not been able to bear that and had knelt and laid her head on her mother’s knee and her mother had stroked her hair and had, for a moment, felt the impatience which still tore at her subside for a moment, but only a moment for Mrs Pankhurst’s suffragettes were fighting loudly now while the suffragists were still writing letters, and Hannah knew that this and her Sunday mornings were not enough.
‘I play the piano, you know, Harry dear, at Hannah’s fundraising teas.’
Esther’s voice startled Hannah who was full with memories but she listened to Harry as he smiled and patted Esther’s hand.
‘And quite beautifully too, my dear,’ he said.
Hannah nodded. Oh yes, quite beautifully, but that was all she would do because Esther had caught fleas the first time she had come to help with the children. Hannah and Miss Fletcher had left the room and laughed until their stomachs ached and had then had to splash their faces with cold water before they re-entered and sympathised and sent her home to bathe.
‘We buy bricks for the children, don’t we, Hannah, and pay for the refreshments?’ Esther said. Hannah scratched her arm and then her hand. Esther’s face grew red and Hannah laughed, and after a long moment, so did Esther.
Hannah relaxed. Esther would be more careful now because she would not want Harry or the Wilmots to know that she had once had fleas. There must be no suspicions about the Sunday classes or her father would insist on their termination, which would be a senseless waste, and the repercussions of his fury on her mother would be too dangerous. She felt anger again. Why did that girl take so long to grow up? Esther knew that it was imperative to keep the Sunday school subterfuge intact but it was as though she became bored and threw pebbles in the pond, just to see how far the ripples would go.
Hannah shook the thought from her head. The classes must not stop. They were important for the women and perhaps Joe would be proud of her, and then she paused. But of course he wouldn’t, not now, not after that afternoon, and besides, Eliza had told her that he was busy with commissions for furniture now that his course was finished and how strange, Eliza had said, that he never mentions you, Hannah. Hannah felt the train slowing now, the brakes squealing as they drew into the station past the buff-painted roof of the station master’s house and the lattice windows of the waiting-room. So Joe would not want to hear of her Sunday class, would he?
The porter held open the door while they stepped down on to the platform. Hannah drew her coat around her, guiding Esther towards the waiting-room. They stood by the fire, the brass scuttle glinting in the light, and Hannah watched from the window as the guard walked up and down with a green flag under his arm. The flower beds on the platform were edged with whitewashed stones and blue crocuses with tissue sheathed stems struggled in the wind. Across the tracks were carts with lowered backs into which boys were lifting goods brought by the train.
The wind caught at the cap of one and he ran stamping with his feet but he did not catch it until it was brought up sharp against the drystone wall which bordered the track. Hannah laughed, the sound bursting from her, and she turned towards Esther, who was rubbing her hands, her kid gloves shining as she did so.
‘It’s so splendid to be away. Far away from it all,’ Hannah said and Esther looked up and smiled.
‘Yes, it is, darling. You look tired. You need the rest.’
Hannah nodded and turned again to the window, watching as Harry walked along the white palings at the end of the platform, looking for Arthur. Yes, it was good to be away, to see great stretches of country, great swathes of sky. To be able to breathe in sharp clean air and have time to think.
She ran her finger along the small panes, down one and then another as her breath condensed and blurred. But thoughts had a habit of coming back to the same face, or the same fight. But she would not think of the face, only the fight, for perhaps that could still be won despite the failure of the 1905 Franchise Bill which had been talked out by anti-suffrage members.
The suffragists had expected success but Campbell-Bannerman, the sympathetic Prime Minister, had said that his Cabinet was opposed. She ran her hand across the pane of glass, wiping out the patterns she had made. And what had been the reaction from Mrs Fawcett’s National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies? Patience, ladies, patience, because the Liberals were in power after the Conservatives had split over whether trade should be free or protected. And Liberals were reformers; gentle persuasion would bring results now. But couldn’t they see that Asquith was in the Cabinet and that he had a great deal of support against women’s suffrage?
Hannah stared out at the crocuses which were being blown and battered. Patience, for God’s sake! There had been enough of that particular virtue to last a lifetime.
Arthur drove them in his car. His goggles were mud-splashed but the three of them sat protected in the covered back seat and Hannah laughed as his scarf streamed in the wind and his song soared above the roar of the engine. Their luggage was strapped into the boot and the maids unpacked for them as Lady Wilmot told Arthur to take his guests into the grounds to shake the travelling cramp from their legs.
Hannah walked with her hand in his arm and the gravel of the paths did not crunch beneath their feet because frost still froze it hard, and icicles hung down from the eaves as they passed by the stables where hot breath from stamping hunters could be heard as well as seen.
‘You did bring your riding clothes, didn’t you, dear?’ Arthur asked and she nodded, looking up into his face which was pinched by the cold. She must look at him, only at him, and ignore the contrast with the poverty, the hardship which she saw each week. She was tired, too tired, and must leave it behind just for these few hours. Was that too much to ask?
His eyes were alive and eager and his lips drew back from his teeth as he moved his arm from her hand and put it around her shoulders and hugged her to him, and she liked the feel of his warmth seeping through his clothes and into her. She must forget.
They walked on past the end of the stables. Harry and Esther were ahead and waiting for them at the end of the path, standing under a clump of overhanging trees which admitted no light. The gravel changed to an old red-brick yard here and Harry was pointing to a slightly raised mound off to the left. Hannah looked at Arthur, a query in her eyes, glad to feel a question rising concerning the mound, glad that other thoughts did not intrude.
He bent to kiss her again lightly, but Hannah did not want such intimacies to be viewed
and she stiffened and moved away. Arthur smiled quickly at her and nodded, following as she walked towards the other couple.
Hannah called, ‘What is it, Harry? It’s so dreadfully cold here, so dark. Arthur doesn’t bury the victims of his crimes of passion here, does he?’ And now she was really interested in what she could see, really forgetting those dark streets, and it felt good.
Arthur laughed and ran to catch up with her. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Particularly when they thwart my kisses, spurn my heartfelt advances.’ He stood with his hand on his heart and his mouth turned down.
‘Well, you’d better open it up and get ready to fit another one in,’ retorted Hannah, pushing him away, hearing the laughter and enjoying it.
She watched as Arthur moved to Harry. ‘Remember when you came up last, old lad, that the grooms were too busy to sort out the horses so we missed our hunt?’
Harry nodded and Hannah wondered at the guarded look which came over his face.
‘Well, no fears of that this time. We shall be following the fox tomorrow all right, all of us.’ Arthur laughed and so did Harry but the laugh did not reach his eyes. ‘It’ll be your first time, Harry, so we’d better get the fox or you’ll not be blooded.’
Again Hannah wondered at the set mouth of her brother, at the way he looked at the ground, then the trees. Was it fear she saw? Arthur moved nearer to the mound, looking back at Hannah and Esther.
‘The reason poor Harry missed out on the hunt was because of the heavy fall of snow.’ He raised his hand as Esther began to speak. ‘No, dear girl, thou with the light and airy fingers which strum out tunes at ham teas. No, not because the poor little horses don’t like it but because the grooms were too busy here. This wonderful creation is an ice-house.’
A Time for Courage Page 19