A Woman's Place

by Maggie Ford

  ‘They released her after only four days,’ Eveline went on. ‘I suppose a person can put up with not eating for four days. It’s a surer way of getting out of prison before your time’s up.’

  Connie was rueful. ‘If they did let you starve yourself to death it’s an even surer way of getting out before it’s up.’ Which made Eveline think.

  Connie was aware she was being too melodramatic. There’d be such an outcry were a woman to be left to starve to death. But at the moment she was more worried about the repercussions should her family discover what she was doing.

  Eveline had far less to lose, since her life was not bound to the rules of polite society. And Eveline had only one secret to conceal from her family. She had two, one that she was an active, militant suffragette, the second that she was keeping clandestine company with someone they would never accept, someone with hardly any money and no apparent prospects.

  George was waiting anxiously at the ticket barrier as she threaded her way through crowds of summer holidaymakers and weekend trippers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted. ‘I am a bit late.’

  ‘You’re not late,’ he said, taking her arm as they showed their tickets at the barrier. ‘I’m early.’

  The cigarette smoke of a second-class carriage made her eyes sting a little; she preferred a first-class ladies-only compartment, even if not every time, because her father kept strict control of her allowance as though she were a child. As a result a second-class ticket often had to suffice. But this was how she had met George Towers, so she could thank her father for that. Sitting beside him, feeling the warmth from his shoulder as it pressed against hers in these cramped seats on a warm afternoon, she blessed that particular day she had dutifully conserved her allowance.

  They talked the whole way home; there was no need to worry about others overhearing, the compartment was already buzzing with conversation, unlike the sedate silence of the first-class ladies-only. He spoke of his life, his father’s death several years ago, his ailing mother, her need to be cared for. Connie listened, whatever he said suddenly vastly important.

  ‘It means of course that I can’t go out just whenever I wish,’ he said. ‘I pay a neighbour to come in if I need to. I try not to make it too often and get back as soon as I can. Expensive otherwise,’ he laughed.

  It didn’t sound much fun but did indicate that he probably didn’t have a girl in his life. It was rather proved to her as they got off the train.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’d very much like to take you for a meal next Saturday before catching the train. It means my getting home later but I’m sure my mother’s neighbour will give eye to her for an extra hour or two.’

  Connie’s heart leaped with delight. Despite his regard for filial duty it was good to know he was still his own man. But next Saturday would be a problem, she and Eveline having agreed to take part in a small, peaceful demonstration after the meeting, outside a hall where an MP had arranged to speak. She could hardly back out. They would probably parade around in front for about an hour or two unless moved on, which the police seldom put themselves out to do so long as it remained orderly.

  She drew in a deep, determined breath. ‘I have to be somewhere tremendously important. Could we make it later, say six thirty?’

  There was her father to consider – friction remained between them. They were still not talking to each other, as if he had washed his hands of her. He spoke to Verity, wrote warmly and often to Denzil and Herbert away at their public school, but it was as though she did not exist.

  Should he disapprove of anything she did he would make a point of addressing her mother, requesting his displeasure be passed on, speaking as though she were a third person. If he were there when she came into a room, he would go out without so much as glancing her way. It made life at home exceedingly uncomfortable and she was glad he was mostly at his Harley Street practice, his local surgery or at his club.

  George’s face lit up. ‘Six thirty is fine,’ he said.

  Connie had never been so happy. Was it possible to fall in love so quickly? On the train home she hung upon George’s every word as he spoke more fully of his life.

  His father having been a senior clerk in a small bank, George had generously been taken on in a position of junior clerk. When his father had died after a sudden stroke, George had continued to work there with the promise of promotion on reaching twenty-one. He was twenty-three now, no longer a junior, his wages having increased, but on this he kept himself and his mother, paid the rent on a small, landlord-owned terraced house and paid a neighbour to keep an eye on his mother while he worked. The woman more or less cared for her full time now, as his mother had grown steadily more frail in health and weak in the head. The savings his father had left she persisted on hoarding, and though it was now accruing a tidy interest, refused to have it touched, insisting it be kept for a rainy day.

  All this he told Connie with no hint of bitterness and her admiration for him mounted during their train journey home at the same rate as this wonderful sense of falling in love. She prayed George might be feeling the same towards her though there was no way to find out and all she could do was hope.

  Connie had told her previously that she’d met a young man by the name of George Towers. But Eveline’s thoughts had still been lingering around the man who to her mind had fled as fast as he could having found her not to be the easy little catch he’d no doubt been expecting. Presumably he felt she was not worthy of any more attention. It was the only explanation she could give for Laurence’s months of absence. She felt angry whenever she thought about it.

  ‘George is such a wonderful person,’ Connie was saying today as they helped themselves to tea and jam sponge with their meeting coming to a close. ‘I only wish we did not have to meet in secret the whole time.’

  ‘In secret?’ she echoed. Connie had never mentioned this before.

  She had already spoken of the fiasco following her rejection of her prospective fiancé called Simon, from an eminent family and whom her father had set his heart on her marrying, and the uproar when she’d turned down this Simon’s proposal. But this newest bit of information was a surprise.

  ‘My father would not approve of George,’ she said. ‘A bank clerk is not what my father would want for me. So we meet at Paddington Station on Saturdays and on some Sunday afternoons we go for long walks. I tell my father I am meeting a friend for afternoon tea. If he were to find out about George he would forbid me to see him ever again.’

  ‘He’s bound to find out sooner or later,’ Eveline said.

  ‘I know. And I am dreading it.’

  Eveline made a sympathetic sound but her mind was racing from the reappearance of Larry at the meeting today. She wasn’t going to tell Connie, who would probably think her an idiot, but her heart had soared at the sight of him, looking bronzed and handsome from his long and probably expensive vacation.

  He had his cousin with him again, no doubt chaperoning her, but as Eveline went to get her tea and cake, while Connie was occupied in conversation with some other women, he’d come over. His cousin was on his arm; he introduced her as Miss Edith Fitzhugh.

  Having acknowledged the attractive, somewhat athletic young woman, Eveline had asked politely if he had only just returned to England.

  Larry chuckled. ‘I’ve been home for … must be a month now.’

  The news came as a jolt. She was nothing to him, a girl from the East End, not even good enough to be considered. She felt let down, but she had never been anything but proud, proud of where she lived. Her home shone clean as a new pin, nothing about it was shabby, with Dad’s shop bringing in a decent living. If it wasn’t a patch on what he was used to with his people in their large country house, their upper-class friends, their society parties, their horses, their hunts and meets, it wasn’t her fault.

  She was relieved that Connie was still talking to the other women and hadn’t seen her discomfort. Then out of the blue he referred t
o his offer before leaving on vacation to take her to the seaside. ‘If you still want to go.’

  Her immediate inclination had been to lift her chin and say with a deal of dignity that, no, she was no longer interested. Instead, she heard herself saying, ‘Do you still want to?’ Aware how foolish it must sound.

  ‘Of course,’ he chuckled, his cousin giving a supportive smile. ‘How about next Sunday, just you and me?’

  Unable to find words, she nodded, hating herself for being so easily swayed, but her heart was already nearly popping out of her chest, it was beating so madly.

  ‘Right,’ he’d said. The bright blue eyes seemed to be devouring her and despite herself she felt a shiver of excitement run through her.

  ‘I’ll pick you up in the old motor, say outside Liverpool Street Station around nine o’clock?’ he was saying. ‘Take a spin down to Brighton, show you what the sea looks like.’ It sounded patronising but she no longer cared. ‘Bring a veil. You could lose your hat, pinned on or not. Gets breezy in an open top.’ He seemed to have forgotten his cousin standing by his side.

  ‘There’s a rug for your knees already in the motor and I’ll provide the grub. Otherwise just bring your ravishing self. See you next Sunday then.’

  He and his cousin were gone by the time Connie turned back to her, too eager to tell her about George Towers to notice the glow Eveline was already feeling in her cheeks.

  Names were again being put forward by her father. Through her mother, of course; he was still not wholly speaking to her unless it was the occasional sharp reprimand.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Constance,’ her mother would say at regular intervals, ‘one might be led to think you had every intention to become an old maid. What is the matter with you, child? Don’t you want ever to get married?’

  Yes, she had every intention but not to one of their choice.

  In fact if they knew what her choice was they would die on the spot.

  She’d been seeing George for two months now. He was as much inconvenienced as she was, having to arrange and pay extra for his neighbour to come in on a Sunday to be with his mother those two or three hours he was away.

  He said that his mother was growing irritated about his being out on the one full day he could spend with her. He said that he hadn’t told his mother about her; she assumed that he would remain a single man caring for and giving his sole attention to her for as long as she lived.

  ‘She’ll have to know eventually,’ Connie said and then remembered that her parents too would one day have to be told.

  Until then, these clandestine meetings were beginning to tell on her.

  Her father, convinced she was going down with something, felt it of sufficient importance to confront her directly. ‘I intend to arrange for a colleague of mine to take a look at you,’ he announced. As her father he would never dream to examine her himself.

  ‘There is nothing wrong with me,’ she protested. ‘I’ve no need to see any doctor.’

  But he was insistent in his usual obdurate manner. ‘You’ve become as thin as a rake. You are not eating and are too pale.’

  Capitulating, she allowed herself to be examined but nothing abnormal was found.

  ‘In my opinion,’ Dr Chance advised, ‘the girl is pining, nothing more. She needs to settle down to marriage. Becoming the loving wife to a kind and considerate husband is all the cure she needs. There comes a time in every young woman’s life when she will begin to pine yet has no idea why. Marriage, Mornington, that’s the answer.’

  This prompted another urgent quest for another well-placed young man whom this time she might consider more favourably. Connie said little, feeling sick at her inability to reveal the true reason for her reluctance.

  Telling George had him concerned. ‘I’m going to have to speak to your parents. I love you, Connie, with every fibre of my body. I don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘You won’t lose me,’ she affirmed almost savagely. ‘Ever. I do love you so much.’

  With his arm round her waist as they walked along the bank of a stream in the clear July afternoon, she felt she could have faced anything with him at her side. And when he bent and kissed her long and ardently, she wanted nothing more than to be his wife, for her and him to confront her parents together, this very moment, to stand up to them and fearlessly declare their love for each other.

  She drew a determined breath. Being with him was all that mattered.

  ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered. He drew her closer to him and she could feel the tension in that embrace, hear his breath sharp and rapid, felt the strength rise in him as she melted against him, ready for him.

  Without warning he broke away. ‘No, darling! We mustn’t.’ His tone was harsh yet he sounded confused and sorrowful. ‘Time is getting on. You have to be getting back home.’

  She knew instantly that he had been afraid to trust his emotions and she too needed to settle those self-same emotions that had arisen so suddenly, so alarmingly.

  ‘Yes, I must,’ she said simply.

  The walk home wasn’t a long one. Neither spoke until he reached the end of the lane where they always parted.

  ‘Look,’ he said abruptly, ‘I know this is difficult for you, your parents and all that. Your way of life is so different to mine.’ He was choosing his words carefully. ‘I could never match your standard of money. If we were to marry, things would be so different to what you’ve been used to. I can’t lie to you. What I’m trying to say is that if you feel that difference will cause problems, I’d rather you tell me.’

  Connie came to life to interrupt him fiercely. ‘I love you, George. I don’t care if we don’t have a lot of money. I won’t ever give you up, no matter what.’

  ‘You mean that.’ He was looking steadily into her eyes.

  ‘I mean every word.’

  ‘But you don’t want me to meet your parents.’

  ‘Don’t you see, my darling?’ She wanted to shake him. ‘It would ruin everything. I couldn’t bear that. My father, for right or wrong, has such plans for me. He wouldn’t rest until he saw you off, and I would have to defy him outright to keep you. He’s capable of ruining everything for us.’

  For a moment George stood without speaking while she tried to stem the anger and the fear of what could happen.

  ‘We both seem to be in the same boat,’ he said slowly at last. ‘I can’t ask you to meet my mother. She isn’t well enough to meet anyone.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, but in a way felt relieved that she wasn’t to be asked to go through that harassing ritual just yet.

  She was glad to see him perk up a little. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘we’re not marrying each other’s family.’

  ‘Marry?’ she echoed weakly. ‘You really are asking me to marry you?’ He had come out with it with such certainty that it almost took her off her feet. But he was looking steadily at her.

  ‘That’s what I said. Connie, I’m asking you to marry me, if you will. I can’t offer you what you’ve been used to, but I’ve a decent job with every chance of promotion. As much as I love my mother, and though it sounds unkind to say it, I don’t think she will live much longer. She is quite ill and hasn’t really had any will to live since we lost my father. There are several life-threatening things wrong with her now.’

  He hadn’t noticed how stunned she was by the lack of protocol in his proposal, assuming she had consented. ‘You don’t have to say anything right now,’ he said, ‘but I do want to marry you, Connie, very much.’

  ‘And I want to marry you,’ she burst out impulsively.

  As he drew her to him with a gasp of joy, she knew she would face her father and declare this man to be the one she intended to marry. She would be honest and open – no lies, no subterfuge – no deception. All that was needed was to judge the right time to announce it. And while she was about it she would reveal her suffragette activities too.

  She felt suddenly stronger than she had ever been in her life, and as s
he and George kissed, their kiss lingering, she knew she would never give him up, no matter what.

  Chapter Eight

  It was a wonderful August day. She felt so grand sitting beside him in his fine motor which he said was a Rover, she who’d never been in a motor car in her life much less knew the name of any.

  Her first sight of the sea took her breath away; the expanse of it, the salt tang of it, the way the wavelets kissed the pebble beach with small hissing sounds, the bathing huts, the bathers. They had lunch in a little cafe on the promenade and later a cream tea, driving home as the summer sun began to sink, his hand on her knee, she letting it stay there; she felt very much at ease and in charge of things, like a real lady. Sometimes he drove in silence, other times he talked of all they’d done that day.

  ‘I’ve just had my apartment redecorated,’ he said as they drove across London Bridge. He’d told her about his apartment in Chelsea. ‘Cost a mint. I think it looks terrific but it would be nice if you could take a peek at it for a minute or two, to tell me what you think. It’s not far out of your way and I can take you home immediately afterwards.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ The idea made her sink back into her seat. A good girl shouldn’t be visiting a young man’s apartment without a chaperone.

  What would her dad say? She’d half expected him to go off the deep end when she told him Larry was taking her to Brighton in his motor car. Instead he’d been quite agreeable for his daughter to go off with her wealthy young man, though Mum, querying why he’d stayed out of the country so long, had been a bit wary, cautioning her against getting too carried away. But going to his apartment?

  ‘I think I should go straight home,’ she said. ‘It is getting late.’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute or two, just to say what you think of it, then I’ll take you home. Please, come and see it.’ He seemed so enthusiastic.

  She melted. ‘Well, just for a minute then, but only a minute.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, swinging the motor car in the direction of the West End as they came off London Bridge.