A Woman's Place

by Maggie Ford

  Five-thirty came, the procession began to move and still no sign of him. Nor did she expect any now. With an effort she resigned herself that he wouldn’t be coming, but it didn’t help the heavy weight in her chest.

  Going through Trafalgar Square she saw a wondrous sight – people had clambered up on to the four stone lions guarding Nelson’s column; they stood on the verges of the fountains, on tops of drays and taxicabs and motor cars.

  Hordes filled the stands built especially for the Coronation. Energetic young men clung to the top of signposts or perched precariously along the top of billboards. With the endless procession snaking slowly out of sight along Northumberland Street, the tail end still waited to move off along the Embankment whilst its head with ‘General’ Drummond leading, Charlotte Marsh as colour-bearer just behind her, and Joan Annan-Bryce, niece of the British Ambassador in Washington, as Joan of Arc in armour and riding a white horse, was well down Piccadilly.

  Giving up on Albert, Eveline concentrated her mind on the long walk ahead. Only once did she glance sideways, to her left, not knowing what precisely had prompted her to look in that direction. Afterwards she thought it had to be some sort of sixth sense or that he had willed her. Years later she would call it uncanny. But there he was. She saw him instantly, as plain as if he stood entirely alone. Clinging to a lamp-post, his foot on its tall plinth to steady himself, one arm about the iron post, he was leaning out like some cherub from a frieze and he was waving his boater fit to break an arm.

  She could see his mouth opening and closing as he yelled, though over all the cheering he would never have been heard. Eveline’s heart leaped from the iron band that had enclosed it and, without thinking, she threw up a hand and waved back with all her might.

  ‘Have a care as to where you are!’ the older women walking beside her admonished sharply, but Eveline was so happy that she gave another, this time tentative, wave, amazed that he had actually picked her out. But then he must have known where to look, because on the odd occasion she had talked about the honoured prisoners’ pageant. Had she been with Connie he’d never have found her. So prominent was this section of the parade that he couldn’t have missed it. Even from here he looked so proud of her.

  The girl on her other side switched her eyes briefly in the direction where Eveline had waved, then back to her and grinned. ‘Lovely,’ was all she said, but it spoke volumes of what Eveline’s heart was feeling.

  From then on the entire evening went as though in a haze. She didn’t see him again. Nigh on fifty thousand women filing into the Albert Hall didn’t allow finding anyone and if she hadn’t known roughly where Connie would be, she wouldn’t ever have found her either.

  Connie looked despondent as they came away at the end of it all, thoroughly worn out by all the excitement and the speeches, the colour and the pageantry.

  ‘I didn’t catch the tiniest glimpse of George,’ she moaned. ‘I know he was there. He promised he would be.’ There was a tiny ring of doubt in her voice but Eveline hardly noticed.

  ‘I saw my Albert!’ she blurted out excitedly.

  This time she saw a startled, disbelieving look. ‘You were probably mistaken. You said he had to study. It couldn’t have been him.’

  ‘It was. He was hanging on to a lamp-post as we turned into Piccadilly. I saw him over the heads of everyone lining the route. He looked straight at me. He waved and I waved back.’

  ‘It was probably someone waving to someone else.’

  ‘I know what I saw.’

  ‘It must have been someone who looked like him.’

  ‘I know him enough to know it was him!’ Eveline shot back petulantly.

  Connie went silent and no more was said as Eveline continued to pout. She wasn’t at all sorry about her outburst. Connie had made up her mind not to believe her just because she hadn’t seen George. She recalled the doubt in Connie’s tone when she’d said he’d promised to be there. What if he had changed his mind? Had that been in Connie’s thoughts? Perhaps she was taking it out on her, saying it wasn’t Albert she’d seen.

  Trouble with Connie, she always wanted to be right, always the top brick on the chimney just because she’d once been the pampered daughter of a well-off father. Well, those days had passed. Connie had suffered a big comedown since then and she was blowed if she wanted to have Connie lording it over her. It was Albert she’d seen. It didn’t matter that she’d not seen him again. But it had been him, she was sure of it. Now Connie had put doubts into her mind. In a way she almost hoped George had changed his mind but she kept that thought to herself, speaking only when necessary as they caught the tube home and then the bus from Liverpool Street.

  George Towers quietly allowed his wife to blow off steam until the right moment when he could defend himself without her getting upset all over again.

  Connie was justified, he supposed. She had been so sure of his being there to see her and was blaming him for failing her, not pausing to wonder at the cause. Once her hurt feelings had spent themselves he’d be able to explain his inability to get away from the bank to watch her pass in that demonstration today.

  She was having these bouts of temper more frequently lately, brief though they were. He felt they stemmed from her need for another child that at the same time vied with a fear of childbirth after all she’d gone through in having Rebecca and being told her life could be in jeopardy if she had another. She didn’t seem to realise that he was content with just their one child rather than have her put at risk. But sometimes it could be harrowing.

  Biding his time he finally he saw her shoulders sag and she sank down on a chair, spent by her outburst. Now he could explain.

  ‘I wanted to be there to see you off, Connie,’ he said gently. ‘I tried my best, but there was this crisis at the bank – a serious discrepancy – it had to be solved.’

  Hurriedly he told her of a mistake at one of the tills, which had meant every one of the staff was compelled to stay until it was cleared up and the money balanced.

  ‘I didn’t dare to leave, darling. I could have lost my job if I’d walked out. I would have been there if I could. You have to believe that, my love.’

  ‘I know that now,’ she pouted. ‘But I didn’t then.’

  ‘There was no way to let you know.’

  ‘I looked and looked for you.’

  Her tone was one of anguish, her eyes beginning to glisten, ‘All I knew was that you said you would leave work early. When Eveline told me her own husband was there, how do you think I felt? I was so upset that I actually told her she must have been mistaken.’

  ‘I wanted to be there for the start, my sweet. In fact I rushed off the moment I was able to get away, but everyone had gone. I was too late.’

  She looked at him. ‘Why didn’t you say that just now?’

  ‘How could I with you so overwrought? You gave me no chance to say anything and the last thing I wanted to do was upset you even more. Maybe I should have told them at the bank to sort it out themselves and leave.’

  For a moment she stared, tears of sudden contrition trembling on her eyelids. As she lowered her eyes, they spilled over to trickle down her cheeks. ‘And lose your job. Oh, George, I’m so sorry. I blamed you and it wasn’t your fault. But how was I to know?’

  ‘Well, it’s all right now, my sweet,’ he said softly, holding out a hand to compel her to come to him to be forgiven, which she did readily enough.

  ‘And I apologise too.’

  ‘No,’ she cried as he drew her to him. ‘Please, darling, it’s been all my fault.’

  But even a cuddle hadn’t quite consoled her. Blaming herself she set about almost sullenly preparing a simple supper of cheese on toast, washed down with a mug of Fry’s cocoa drink.

  By the time they went to bed she was recovered enough to let him make love to her though she remained so rigid, insisting he use protection – those thick rubbers that destroyed all sensation and deadened any pleasure of spontaneity – that all the joy of l
ovemaking went out of it for him.

  He couldn’t help it; his turn to feel sullen arrived as he turned over to sleep, in fact he found himself blaming her for this lack of fulfilment within him. Since the birth of Rebecca it was happening more and more and sometimes it seemed to him that their marriage wasn’t always as happy as she often proclaimed it to be.

  Eager to confirm it was Albert she’d seen waving, Eveline was determined to ask him the second she came in. But that disconcerting feeling that Connie must have been right and she’d been mistaken was immediately confirmed on finding him absorbed in one of his engineering manuals.

  ‘Been busy I see,’ she said, taking off her hat and jacket.

  He looked up from the dining table where he was sitting, and smiled. ‘Got through quite a bit of work,’ he replied unhurriedly. ‘Considering.’

  ‘Considering what?’

  ‘That I’ve brought in supper fer us ready for you to come ’ome to.’

  The smell of hot saveloys brought a twinge of hunger but she felt too confused to yield to it. Had she actually waved to someone who’d merely looked like him? The man had even waved back, and she had told Connie it had been Albert she’d seen. Or was Albert really just teasing her?

  ‘So you didn’t have any intention of being there?’ she countered.

  He’d gone back to reading his manual, his reply casual. ‘With all this revision I’ve ’ad to do? What do you think?’

  He lifted his eyes to her and smiled playfully. He had to be teasing. She refused to return the smile, turning instead to look out of the window.

  An unseen glow of a summer sunset was touching the top of the tenements opposite. If only she could live up there, she would see right across London, see every sunset there was to be seen, every glorious colour, have that setting sun shining in her eyes, her home all bright from it. But no, they lived in this miserable, dingy, basement letting, already dark despite the glorious sunset, so that Albert needed the gaslight on to see what he was reading.

  But wasn’t this dingy basement letting the sole purpose of all this studying so that one day he’d earn decent enough money to afford a transfer to a lighter and more pleasant letting? Why was she being so petty when he was only thinking of her? What did it matter if he couldn’t be there to see her go by?

  ‘What’s in the oven?’ she queried. Without turning back she knew by the tone of his voice that he was into his manual again.

  ‘Saveloy and pease pudd’n,’ he said. ‘Got it from the butchers – been keeping it warm for when yer got ’ome.’

  She knew she should be grateful. Men usually saw providing supper as women’s work but he never seemed to think of it that way. He would even make himself a simple meal, a fry-up or a couple of rounds of cheese on toast if she were out at a suffragette meeting. But that he could find time to interrupt his studies to go out to the butcher’s, yet not come and see her, spoiled her gratitude, especially knowing that she’d been so nasty to Connie who had been right all the time.

  In silence she ate her supper, the usually succulent fare like chaff in her mouth, but she chewed stubbornly.

  ‘You look about done in,’ he said as he lifted his mug of cocoa to his lips. He was smiling across the table at her. What did he have to smile about? Surely he could see she was still upset. She didn’t reply.

  ‘It was a long procession,’ he said, putting his mug down to dig into his pease pudding, keeping his eyes lowered.

  ‘How would you know?’ she challenged.

  ‘They said it was five miles long. Ain’t easy ter find anyone yer know in a procession that big.’

  She almost said, Well, that wouldn’t have concerned you, would it? but instead she went on eating stolidly and in silence.

  ‘You looked nice though.’

  Eveline looked up, startled. ‘How do you know what I looked like?’

  ‘Because I saw you.’

  ‘You can’t have. You wasn’t home from work to see me when I left.’

  ‘But you did look nice. In fact you looked ravishing. Second from the left in a row of five, about – let me see – I’d say about sixteen or seventeen rows back from that big float full of women in white. You was ’olding your lance just like a real trooper ready to do battle with anyone in that crowd.’

  Suddenly the penny dropped. ‘You were there!’

  Albert’s grin seemed to stretch from ear to ear. He put down his knife and fork. ‘Of course I was there. I waved at you and you waved back at me.’

  In an instant, Eveline was out of her chair, knife and fork clattering to the floor, throwing herself at him and almost toppling him from his chair, the mug of cocoa wobbling precariously as his arm caught it in his effort to stop them both toppling over. ‘You’ve been having me on all this time,’ she cried out and he laughed as he held her to him.

  ‘I didn’t go on to the Albert Hall,’ he whispered between kisses. ‘I’d of never of found you in that crowd. So I came ’ome and got some supper for you instead. Thought you might be ’ungry time you got back.’

  ‘Oh, I love you so much, Albert,’ she whispered as he kissed her again. ‘So very, very much.’

  That night they made love and slept soundly in each other’s arms, not disturbed by or disturbing little Helena in her cot beside the bed.

  In the morning, Eveline thought how unkind she’d been to Connie. She would pop over and see her, be nice to her, be sympathetic if George hadn’t gone after all.

  Connie had begun to complain somewhat about him lately – niggardly things, maybe to do with her wanting everything just so, more than he did, though it seemed to Eveline that he tried to do his best.

  Then she would go and pay Gran a quick visit. Gran had been so good, taking both children off their hands yesterday, saying they’d both been real little ducks in her care and it would be a pleasure to have them any time. She needed to endorse her gratitude yet again to Gran for all her help yesterday. Then she’d have to hurry home and get Sunday dinner, being that Mum and Dad had invited her and Albert round for tea in the evening.

  Mum was making a bit more fuss of little Helena lately but it was a pity that Gran and not she was the one to offer to have her when needed.

  She thought now of herself and Albert and last night. They made love so much more often now, natural-like, without those horribly restrictive, protective sheaths. Her one desire was to give Albert a child of his own. In fact she was willing to have as many as he wished, except that there was no sign of anything as yet.

  It was so strange that intimacy on only two occasions with that despicable Laurence Jones-Fairbrook had got her pregnant so easily, yet nearly twelve months married to Albert had produced nothing.

  True, it had been only lately that they’d started making love, yet they did so frequently these days, so why hadn’t anything happened yet? It was cruelly ironic, almost as if she were being punished for what she’d done in the past.

  Maybe it was her wanting so much to provide him with a family of his own, wanting it too much and being too tense, trying too hard. Perhaps it was that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dora Fenton sat glaring across her kitchen table at her mother blowing her nose into an already wet handkerchief with her first cold of the winter.

  ‘For the life of me I don’t know why yer let ’er take advantage of yer like that.’

  ‘I like doing it,’ Victoria said, glowering back at her. ‘If I didn’t, I’d soon say so. You should know me by now.’

  ‘I know you orright. Always ’as ter be the one what’s right! Well, you ain’t right, doing all this for ’er all the time. Not only ’er, but that friend of ’ers as well. They’ve got a cheek expecting you ter look after two kids at your age.’

  ‘My age don’t come into it,’ Victoria snorted. ‘I’m still strong and ’ealthy.’

  ‘Yer look it, I must say!’ came the retort as Victoria sneezed yet again into her handkerchief.

  ‘I’m over the worst,’ she brazened sh
arply. ‘And young Eveline’s been a brick, coming over to ’elp me out while I was really queer.’

  It was said pointedly, Eveline did not take advantage of her. It was she herself who had offered to have the little ones in the first place, feeling that Eveline and her friend were both doing an excellent and needy job for the suffragette movement.

  Far from taking advantage Eveline did her best to compensate, often popping over to see her while she’d been really down with her cold; she ran her grandmother’s errands and got her medicine, and had regularly tidied around the flat. Even Connie tried to make up for putting on her, as Dora called it, often bringing a little thank-you gift for looking after Rebecca – a few chocolates or a bottle of Guinness, her favourite tipple, even a couple of dainty handkerchiefs on one occasion.

  Dora, her own daughter, hadn’t come nigh or by while she’d been down with this blessed cold, much less thought to bring over some groceries from the shop.

  ‘I wish I had the time to get over,’ she’d told Eveline, her excuse being the fault of the busy shop. Victoria couldn’t recall when last Dora had had the time to set foot in her flat.

  ‘And they’re gettin’ older,’ Dora was reminding her. ‘How are yer going ter be able ter run around after ’em when they find their feet? Yer may think yer active now but you ain’t gettin’ any younger.’

  ‘I know that,’ Victoria reminded her. ‘But while I can—’

  ‘It might’ve been orright in the summer,’ Dora interrupted. ‘But this time of year old people tend ter go down with colds and flu and all sort of things much more often than young people. They should know that.’

  ‘I know that too, Dora. But I’m not that crabbed up yet. I’m still able.’

  ‘You look it!’ Dora said sarcastically. ‘Your nose all red and sore from blowing. Yer look a real picture of ’ealth, I must say!’

  ‘I’m fine now. I’m over the worst.’ With no help from you, came the thought. ‘It’ll soon go now.’

  ‘And you could give it to the little’ uns.’

  Victoria frowned. That was true, but Eveline and Connie had had the common sense not to attend their suffragette meetings while she’d been down with this cold. Instead Eveline had been popping in to see that she had everything she needed.