Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  Ruth closed the door behind her. She looks nervous, Sarah thought. Am I so frightening, even now?

  Ruth looked at the floor, noticed it was wet, saw the empty cup.

  ‘Clumsy,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you some more water.’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘Why not? It’s no bother.’

  ‘I’m not drinking.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Ruth shook her head firmly. ‘Don’t start that nonsense now! Believe me, Mrs Becket, you’ve got more important things to think about. Not drinking ain’t going to do no good at all.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’ It’s not fair, Sarah thought. When you’re so hungry, rage takes you over so suddenly and completely that you shake all over, and yet your body’s too weak to do anything about it. Even your voice hurts, so that it’s a pain to speak. Nonetheless, she got to her feet, and turned her back to stare at the wall.

  ‘Oh, come on now, Becket, I’ve got something important to say to you.’

  ‘Torturer! Get out.’

  ‘I went to the Women’s Social and Political Union. I talked to ‘em about you. They want to rescue you.’

  Sarah’s shaking stopped. She turned round. Stars swam briefly in front of her eyes and she thought: hallucinations already? I thought my mind was stronger than this.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Ruth repeated herself. Her voice was low, urgent, just above a whisper. ‘I saw a Mrs Watson and another one, calls herself your sister, Mrs Cavendish. I told ‘em what you said to Dr Armstrong and they believed it. They want me to get you out.’

  Sarah laughed. She felt quite light-headed. ‘You can’t, silly. This is a prison.’

  ‘There may be a way, though.’

  ‘What? Tell me.’

  Ruth hesitated. She was used to wild swings of mood amongst prisoners, but Sarah Becket seemed to have deteriorated drastically since she last saw her forty-eight hours ago. Was this the effect of the bromide, or the thirst strike? Whichever it was, it made the woman less reliable, dangerous even.

  ‘I can’t tell you now. But when the time comes, you’ve got to trust me — do exactly what I say. It can’t be for a day or two, anyway. Just keep yer mouth shut, for heaven’s sake — and trust me.’

  Sarah felt dizzy standing up and her mind was hazy too. Perhaps what this wardress was saying was important but she seemed immeasurably distant somehow, irrelevant. With an effort, Sarah tried to focus her attention. Surely the girl must be lying, sent to deceive her.

  ‘How did you get to the WSPU?’

  ‘I walked, didn’t I? Went up to the front door and walked straight in. Why?’

  ‘Who did you see first?’

  ‘A young woman. Fair-haired, shortish. I don’t know what ‘er name was. She was giving out newspapers, like.’

  ‘And then you met Alice Watson and my sister, Mrs Cavendish, you say?’

  ‘That’s right, yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe you! My sister lives in Glenfee, in Ulster. She never comes to London. And she’s not a suffragette, anyway.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help that. I met her. She was there.’

  ‘So what did she say?’

  ‘Say? Nothing at first. Then, when I told ‘er what you’d said about Dr Armstrong and your husband, she cried.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Sarah turned round feebly and leaned against the wall. ‘Surely to God you didn’t tell Deborah that? You couldn’t have!’

  ‘Why ever not? She was there, wasn’t she? She had to know. Listen, Mrs Becket, I ain’t got much time . . .’

  ‘Don’t you understand? Look, this is between me and my husband, no one else! What right have you to go round telling everyone things that are shameful and private?’

  ‘They’re not private, they’re important! Look, why d’yer think I went to the WSPU, risking my job? Not because I approve of your silly suffragette crimes. I don’t! But because what you say Dr Armstrong’s doing is much worse. It’s got to be stopped, ain’t it? And if your husband’s part of it then he should be stopped, too. Whoever he is.’

  Sarah shook her head, desperately, and ran her hands through her hair. She had a headache and spots before her eyes and she wanted to lie down and go to sleep. It was all too much. Hours of private torment and then sudden, bitter argument and decisions.

  ‘Not Jonathan,’ she said. ‘I can’t do that to him. I should never have told you.’

  ‘Why? Ain’t it true?’

  ‘I don’t know! He’s my husband, damn you!’

  I hate him, I’ll tear his eyes out. But on my own!

  ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’

  ‘If I leave you alone here, you’ll die.’

  ‘What?’ Sarah stared at the young wardress, bewildered. Again the stars in front of her eyes. She put one hand against the wall, to steady herself.

  ‘You ain’t eating, and now you’ve stopped drinking. He’ll carry on force feeding you but you puke half of it up anyway, so that don’t do much good. You’ll get weaker and weaker an’ in the end you’ll die.’

  Sarah wanted to sit down because of the trembling in her legs but she ignored it. ‘You just don’t understand, do you,’ she said. ‘The pain of starving yourself is something we all have to face up to before we come in. Of course we get weaker, and of course it hurts, but that’s what forces the authorities to let us out. They daren’t let us die in here. It would look too bad.’

  ‘Normally it might.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  There was a clatter of pails along the corridor and the sound of another wardress opening a cell door and ordering a prisoner out. Ruth Harkness glanced nervously over her shoulder to ensure that she was standing with her back to the little judas spyhole in the door, so that no one could see in.

  ‘Listen to me, Mrs Becket, please. I didn’t want to get mixed up in your troubles but I am, and if I get this wrong I won’t just lose my job, I’ll end up locked in ‘ere like what you are now. So do me a favour and trust me, and try to think straight, will yer? Mrs Watson wants to send a party of suffragettes round to expose what goes on in these ‘ouses of Armstrong’s but she daren’t, not while you’re in here.’

  ‘Why not? She doesn’t know where they are, does she?’

  ‘Yes, well, they know something, it seems. I didn’t understand it all. But if anything goes wrong they want a signed statement, sworn before a lawyer, and the only person who can do that is you, right? About what was in that letter you got sent, what you ‘eard from them women in the cell at the police station, what you saw outside ‘is consulting rooms in Kensington. And Armstrong knows that too. So he ain’t going to let you out no matter how much you starve yourself, is he, eh? If you die there won’t be no proof. He might even be glad if the world thought you’d starved yourself to death. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘But if I died in prison there’d be a scandal.’

  ‘‘Course. But he’d survive it, don’t kid yourself, Mrs Becket. You may think force feeding’s wrong, but there’s plenty of others what don’t. I seen dozens of letters in the papers saying as ‘ow suffragettes orter be left to die, or be made outlaws an’ lose all their property, or be sent to a desert island, like. Chances are if you die, Dr Armstrong’ll become a public hero. Anyhow it’s a risk he’s got to take, rather than let you out to tell the world about those poor kids in them brothels.’

  Sarah slumped down on her bed. She was too weak to stand up. Spots were swirling in front of her eyes and her legs were shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘What can I do then?’

  ‘I’ve got a plan. I ain’t going to tell you what it is but it can’t happen till Monday. Today’s Friday. So you’ve got to get through the weekend without getting any weaker or dying. You’ve got to start drinking again, and I suggest you give up your ‘unger strike as well.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I can’t do that now!’

  ‘Look, I ain’t going to carry you out of ‘ere. You’ll need yer strength. Anyhow, ‘ave you tho
ught he might poison you with that soup what he pours down that tube? He’s already feeding you bromide.’

  ‘Feeding me — what?’

  Ruth explained. ‘Ain’t you noticed yourself feeling weaker? I look in ‘ere and you can ‘ardly stand ‘alf the time.’

  ‘But bromide’s a poison.’

  ‘It’s a sedative, that’s what ‘e calls it. But it might be worse than that if ‘e gave you too much. He’s a doctor. He could poison you with anything he liked and you’d never know.’

  ‘Even the food you bring me.’ Sarah shivered. The cell seem suddenly icy cold.

  ‘Maybe. But we get ordinary cooked food sent up straight from the kitchens, don’t we. He prepares the forced feeding soup himself. There could be anything in it. Look, Mrs Becket - eat, won’t you? Think of me, if no one else. I’ve got to feed yer, later today. D’you think I like it?’

  It was the wrong thing to say. In the riptide of bewildering emotions that were surging through Sarah there was no place, at the moment, for gratitude to the young wardress. She looked at the cross she had scrawled on the wall this morning, and remembered suddenly the story of Christ, who had fasted forty days and forty nights. At the end of that time the devil had taken him up onto a high mountain, and shown him the world spread out below. What had he said? ‘All this can be yours, if you will but abandon your fast and listen to me.’ Wasn’t this the same temptation?

  ‘How do I know you’re not lying to me? Torturer! You’re on his side, aren’t you — a devil sent to tempt me!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Think, woman, can’t yer?’ The two women stared at each other, in desperate incomprehension. Then, abruptly, Ruth heard something outside. Had anyone heard them? She was not supposed to talk to prisoners about anything at all, let alone about escaping. Hurriedly, she shouted: ‘Pick up that pot now and take it to the sluice! This cell’s a disgrace. ‘Ow many times ‘ave I told yer? ‘Olloway’s a clean prison!’

  While Ruth opened the door, Sarah stumbled off her bed and picked up the toilet bucket. Then the two of them went out into the corridor. As they passed another prisoner and one of Ruth’s colleagues on the same errand, Ruth thought: Please God, don’t let her say anything now!

  And a little later: Perhaps she is mad, just like Dr Armstrong said. In which case I’m about to commit a crime and risk my job for nothing.

  Deborah paced up and down in Jonathan and Sarah’s library, thinking. Such an impressive house, so comfortable, so deceitful. She stopped for a moment in front of Jonathan’s writing desk. It was a large, luxurious desk, with a number of little pigeonholes for paper, envelopes, ink, nibs and so on. The surface was made of richly engraved red and brown leather, which she knew his butler, Reeves, polished carefully several times a week. It was a desk which Jonathan was immensely proud of.

  It was just the sort of thing he would like, she thought. All beautiful colours and glossy surfaces. Probably he looked at women in the same way. He liked the ones with fancy clothes and feathered hats and too much lipstick . . .

  And little children.

  Oh God, what am I saying? My sister’s husband! He couldn’t do that, could he?

  Why not? He even tried to seduce me!

  Deborah picked up an elaborately engraved paper knife and pressed it into her palm, hard, without realising what she was doing. How could he? Were Alice Watson and Ruth Harkness both mistaken? No — it all made too much sense. Sarah’s sudden, surprise action, apparently unauthorised by the movement. Even she had to have a reason for it. Deborah knew that the women in the WSPU were usually highly organised, well disciplined. Christabel Pankhurst, their general, masterminded the whole thing from Paris and disliked spontaneous actions like Sarah’s. They happened, all the same — but why would Sarah go out and do such a dreadful thing, so suddenly, unless some violent inner urge had compelled her?

  Unless she had found out that she had been betrayed by her husband.

  In such a dreadful way too. With whores. Perhaps with young children.

  She put down the paper knife and went to the window. Outside, in the square, there were new leaves on the trees. A nanny was taking two young children for a walk, a servant was pushing an old lady in a bath chair. A motor taxi drove into the square and stopped. A man got out — a prosperous gentleman of about forty in top hat, tailcoat, striped trousers. He paid the fare, swung a silver-topped cane jauntily in his hand, turned and ran up the steps to one of the houses.

  One of Jonathan’s neighbours. He is like that, Deborah thought. Prosperous, successful, urbane, civilised. How could he possibly . . .?

  Look at me. I did.

  Not for money, though. I didn’t pay anyone or take a child to my bed. What I did was quite different, it was all done for love.

  So?

  The world won’t see it like that. The man’s world. The world of prosperous, urbane gentlemen who were educated in the Inns of Court and sit in Parliament and live in Belgrave Square. What was it Jonathan told me the other night? The law allows a man to divorce his wife for one single instance of adultery, but she cannot divorce him unless his adultery is aggravated by something more serious such as — what was it? Cruelty, desertion, sodomy.

  Nothing about paying to go to a whore, or seducing under-age children. That’s normal, civilised, male behaviour, then? If I have a baby girl she’ll grow up in a world like this.

  Poor, poor Sarah. Deborah clutched the curtains so tight, she felt her fingernails coming through the thick damask cloth into her palm That’s why she slashed the picture, I’m sure. She probably stood all alone in this room just like this, knowing what I know about her own husband.

  With a letter in her hand from a prostitute. That’s what that Miss Harkness said, wasn’t it? Sarah had received some kind of blackmail letter from a prostitute, telling her that her husband wasn’t going to Dr Armstrong because he was ill, but because he was morally sick. She probably stood right here in this room and read it.

  If I had that letter it would be conclusive proof, Deborah thought suddenly. What did she do with it? What would I do?

  Deborah glanced around the room. Sarah’s writing desk was at the far side of the room, in a corner next to a side window and a small table cluttered with books and pamphlets. Deborah went over and started to rummage curiously through the clutter on the table. Old copies of The Suffragette, pamphlets about sweatshops and socialism and suffrage in New Zealand . . . No letters though — they would be in Sarah’s desk. It was a roll-top desk, closed, but the key was still in the lock. Deborah opened it. It was fairly tidy inside, with everything stuffed into its little pigeon-hole or drawer. Writing paper, envelopes, ink, nibs, stamps, paper clips, postcards, blotting paper . . . She felt a little like a thief, rifling through someone’s private possessions. But there was nothing here, no secrets.

  She sighed, moved her elbow clumsily, and knocked the blotter on the floor.

  When she bent to pick it up, she saw the corner of a letter sticking out from under the blotting paper. She took it out and read it.

  Dear Mrs Becket,

  I suppose you know that your friends in the WSPU have recently been poking their noses into things which concern them even less than the vote. They have been troubling several of us young ladies and asking for the names of our gentlemen friends, which is none of their business at all, especially when they stand outside the house where we live and work and try to put men off, so we have to move house. This does no one any good and makes us all poorer. In particular, they have been troubling Dr Armstrong too, who is a decent man and a good help to us.

  Well, all this has got to stop. Tell your friends to stay away from our houses and Dr Armstrong or you will be sorry. Your husband gets the same treatment as other men and whose fault is that? If you don’t want to read about him in all the newspapers tell your friends to STAY AWAY. That’s all.

  Deborah shuddered. It was what she had expected but it still made her feel ill. She held the letter a little away from her, betwe
en finger and thumb, as though it might contaminate her.

  ‘Ahem.’

  ‘What?’ She whirled round and saw Reeves, standing discreetly just inside the door. How long had he been there? She had been so busy with her thoughts, it could have been ages. He was such a quiet, unobtrusive man.

  ‘Yes, Reeves, what is it?’

  ‘A letter has arrived, madam. From Mr Jonathan.’

  She saw he had a silver tray in his hand. ‘I see. Thank you.’

  She took the note, waited until the man had padded noiselessly out of the door, then walked across to Jonathan’s desk to pick up the engraved paperknife to open it. It was on House of Commons notepaper, with a small portcullis at the top.

  My dear Debbie,

  A quick note in haste. A trial in which I am defending has come to the boil more quickly than I had anticipated, and I shall have to spend most of tomorrow in Lewes sorting matters out, so I am taking the train down to Sussex tonight. It is only a brief matter but it concerns a promise made to an old friend of mine. I had thought of inviting you but in all likelihood it will be a tedious round of dull business and the womenfolk are dreary, so I hope you will forgive me for deserting you. I will probably stay over on Sunday but hope to see you some time Monday.

  Yours,

  Jonathan.

  She read it twice, incredulously, and then crumpled it slowly in her hand. So he could just walk away for the weekend like that, could he, while his wife was being force fed in prison? Does he really have a court case so pressing it had to be discussed over the weekend, or has he got some whore down there that he doesn’t want his wife’s sister to meet?

  And not a word in the letter about Sarah.

  How could he?

  Quite deliberately, she picked up the paper knife and jabbed it into the polished leather surface of Jonathan’s writing-desk. Then, fiercely, she dragged it sideways, six inches, a foot, two. The leather parted with a steady ripping sound, like the opening of a wound. Reeves isn’t going to like this, she thought. He’ll probably want to mend it before his master comes home on Monday. To make that harder she took the knife out and jabbed it in at the opposite corner, tearing across the surface of the desk again until it was split by a cross.