The Scandalous Suffragette

by Eliza Redgold

  His marriage to Violet had become more than convenience. He no longer denied it to himself. He could only suppress it.

  ‘Adam?’

  He passed over the threshold from his room into hers. From where she was seated at the dressing table, she smiled at him. She wore deep blue velvet, a favourite shade of hers, in a gown that fitted her curved form perfectly. Around her neck was a black choker with a sapphire-and-diamond jewel. Dazzlingly blue, but not as dazzling enough to take away the blue from her eyes.

  She held up a diamond-and-sapphire earring. ‘I’m wondering whether to wear these. I don’t wish to overdress. What do you think?’

  He stood behind her. ‘I think you look beautiful.’

  Damnation. He swore inwardly. Honour meant he could not lie to her, but paying compliments was surely ill advised.

  His words hung in the air, like the scent of violets. He could smell violets now. It was the perfume she wore. It stood on the dressing table in a crystal bottle, a purple bow tied around its neck. The scent drove him to the same kind of distraction as the taste of a violet cream.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, after a moment.

  In the mirrored glass, their reflected eyes met and held.

  Over her shoulder he reached for her curled hand. Her fingers opened at his touch. He took the earring as if to hold it against her ear, fought back his desire to caress the base of her ear with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. To follow with his lips the path deeper, between the crevice of her low-cut evening gown.

  In the looking glass he watched her creamy skin turn to rose, as if she read his thoughts. She dropped her gaze first, fumbled for the matching jewel.

  ‘I can put the earrings in,’ she said.

  He dropped the earring he held on to the glass top and backed away.

  ‘Adam.’ In her reflection, her forehead had creased as she looked at him more closely. ‘What’s happened?’

  He sighed as he shifted away from the dressing table. ‘I’ve had the full report on the manor.’

  She spun around on the velvet stool. ‘Of course. And?’

  He stared down at the floorboards. It still seemed unbelievable. The floor of this very room had crashed beneath them. That had been bad enough. But now...

  ‘Adam! What is it?’

  In an instant she was beside him. She put her hand to his chest, as if testing his heartbeat. ‘Tell me.’

  Adam exhaled. ‘Beauley Manor is sinking.’

  Her hand fell as she stepped back, aghast. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  He clenched his jaw. ‘Beauley is built on marshland. You saw what it means, that day at the river.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s marshy all around. Dangerous. It goes deep.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The marshland could be like a swamp, or quicksand, for those who didn’t take care. At Beauley Manor, no care had been given for decades. The lack of precaution horrified him. Now, time and lack of upkeep had taken its toll. ‘I told you there used to be a moat.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘The manor may as well still have a moat,’ he said harshly. ‘There’s so much water under the building that it is slowly descending into the ground.’

  She gasped. ‘It can’t be so!’

  He gritted his teeth. He’d seen the worst of it. He’d known it was bad, but the rot and damp in certain parts of the cellar floors were horrifying. ‘It’s true.’

  He moved away from her and stared out into the deepening darkness as the sun set.

  After a painful breath he swung back to face her. Even though by law her money was now his, he had to be completely honest.

  ‘Rebuilding Beauley Manor could sink your fortune.’ His tone was blunt.

  She gasped. ‘All of it?’

  ‘All of it and more. Every penny of your settlement could go into Beauley and it still may not be enough.’ He hauled another breath. ‘I cannot use your marriage settlement.’

  ‘What? No! But that was our agreement,’ she protested.

  Adam paced the floor. ‘I never imagined it was this bad.’

  He’d seen the evidence that afternoon. It ripped him apart, as though he were part of the fabric of the building. In a way, he was. His family had built it, lived in it, protected it, cared for it. Until now. It wasn’t of his making, but on his watch, their family home would be no more. A home like Beauley wasn’t for one generation. It was for the next generation and the next. Only by preserving the past in readiness for the future could ancient homes be maintained. Certainly not by throwing it all away on a gaming table.

  ‘It’s too late,’ he told Violet bluntly. ‘Beauley Manor can’t survive.’

  Saying it aloud made it even worse. Beauley, sinking into oblivion. A rubble, a ruin. An Atlantis, beneath the mud.

  She stepped in front of him. ‘Adam. We have to try.’

  We.

  The small word stopped his pacing.

  Her face as she stared up at him mirrored his concern, as though trying to take some of the burden from him. Sharing it.

  Unexpectedly, his shoulders relaxed.

  ‘If we use all our money, is there a chance we can save Beauley Manor?’ she demanded.

  We. That small, powerful word again. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Then we must try,’ she repeated with more firmness.

  We. Again.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s foolhardy.’

  ‘We can’t let Beauley disappear before our eyes!’ she cried. ‘We must save the manor.’

  ‘No.’ He bit out the word. It would be dishonourable to misuse her money, as if gambling with it. He could never do that. ‘I won’t risk your fortune.’

  ‘But Beauley Manor has lasted for centuries. We must ensure it will last for centuries more.’

  Adam cleared his throat. She understood what it meant, to be committed to something bigger than himself, more important. To be committed to a Cause. The manor was his cause. She’d seen that, from the start. The manor was more than a private home. It meant so much to the community, to the village, to the family.

  ‘I wonder if there is a way,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve been turning it over in my mind. I’ve developed an idea of my own that may not be so costly. We might be able to excavate, to dig down to the bedrock, and build columns, new, strong foundations.’

  ‘That’s a brilliant idea!’ Violet exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t know how deep the bedrock is,’ he cautioned.

  ‘Can you find out?’

  He nodded. ‘There are new innovative engineers who might be able to implement my idea.’

  ‘You’re the master of Beauley, you know the manor better than anyone else. I’m sure they can make your idea work. After all,’ she added with a smile, ‘you told me that if you can build a wall, you can build anything.’

  Adam’s grin flashed. ‘So I did.’ Then he sobered. ‘My plan will require extensive rebuilding. The manor still needs major work, from the very foundations.’

  Violet lifted her chin. ‘Then we will rebuild it. From the very foundations.’

  Adam lifted his eyebrow. ‘You seem to be speaking for us both, Violet.’

  The connection between them flared into life.

  ‘Do you think it our duty?’ he asked, his voice husky.

  Violet’s heart tightened. ‘Beauley Manor has become more than a duty to me. I’ve grown to love it.’

  His eyes turned to midnight. ‘Is that so?’

  Violet swallowed hard. He’d been so honest with her. It had drawn them even closer together. She wanted to tell him what was on her mind, too, how much the thought of what she planned to do next for the suffragette Cause troubled her.

  Instead, trying to keep her voice light, she said, ‘There’s something I must tell you, too. I have to go to London for a suffragette meeting tomorr
ow.’

  He studied her with more perception than she would like. ‘You mentioned a rally, I recall.’

  She blushed. It wasn’t a rally, or a meeting, but she couldn’t reveal more. ‘It’s suffragette business.’

  He looked at her quizzically. To her relief he didn’t press it. ‘I need to go up to London, too. We can travel together.’

  ‘Oh—’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is there some difficulty in my accompanying you?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘It’s just that...’

  He lifted one corner of his mouth. ‘Suffragette business is women only.’

  ‘Something like that,’ she said.

  Now a definite smile darted at the corner of his mouth. ‘I shall be at my club. Men only. Unless there is a suffragette climbing the balcony, attempting to hang a banner.’

  His club. Where they’d met, or almost met. How long ago it seemed when she’d had the wrong address and ended up in his arms. ‘Do you think women will ever be allowed to join such clubs?’

  ‘Are you planning to try?’ he asked with a searching look.

  She tried to laugh. It came out as a kind of strangled choke. ‘Of course not.’

  The forked lines formed between his eyebrows.

  ‘Women will be allowed into such clubs one day,’ he said at last. ‘If women get the vote, everything will change. Though it might take some time. It all depends on the vote.’

  Violet nodded. Gaining the women’s vote was crucial. She wouldn’t, couldn’t falter now, even as her longing to be even closer to Adam grew.

  After he’d gone, she went to the blue-leather writing case she’d brought upstairs earlier. It had been made as part of her trousseau. She ran her fingers over the gold embossed initials. V.R.B. Violet Regina Beaufort.

  She had changed her name, but not her commitment to women’s suffrage. Her burning attraction to Adam was becoming more than a powerful distraction, it was a force she could barely deny. Yet she must.

  Unlocking the writing case, she unfolded the letter and read it once more.

  Comradess!

  Hear our Call!

  Valiant women who have pledged that violent protest is the only solution to gain our suffrage, it is time to act.

  Bring your strength, bring your courage, bring your might. Bring tools, bring rocks, bring bricks. Hide them from view. Show your colours, but do not make contact with any other woman wearing the purple, white and green.

  At the stroke of the hour, together we will take action. If they will not let us in the doors, we will break the windows.

  Beneath these statements were printed a time and a date.

  Beneath the time and date was printed an address that made Violet shudder.

  She supported militant action, but this mission...surely it was going too far. Yet she had pledged to it. She couldn’t back out now.

  Her heart sank. If only she could tell Adam. She longed to confide in him completely. To share her deepest feelings, her fears. To say everything, leaving nothing unsaid. The relationship developing between them was more than friendship, more than partnership. To deceive him now...

  Violet crumpled the letter in her fist. She couldn’t tell him about her new mission for the Cause. He’d told her he wanted no secrets between them, but she had made him no overt promises. She’d been careful not to, even though it had hurt. She didn’t want to lie to him. It tore at her heart.

  But some secrets had to be kept. Some actions had to be taken.

  No matter what the cost.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Will someone say, then why not ill for good?’

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson: ‘Love and Duty’ (1842)

  Violet lifted her handbag and winced.

  In the early hours of the morning, after lying awake until dawn, she’d hastened down to the river and collected a pile of smooth river stones. Some large, some small.

  Back in her bedroom at the manor, after an anxious glance at the connecting door between her and Adam, she’d packed the stones into her brown crocodile-skin handbag, the largest one she owned, and snapped the locks shut.

  On the carriage ride from Beauley to London, the bag had weighed heavily on her lap. She’d kept her fingers firmly on the handle, in case Adam offered to carry it for her as she boarded or alighted from the carriage.

  She’d tried to keep her nerves hidden, though she sensed, from his quick darted glances, that he sensed something was amiss. She’d avoided his eyes, gazed out the carriage window, half-unseeing, at the trees that lined the Kent lanes. Already the leaves were beginning to fall and a frostiness was in the air. She wore an autumn-weight coat, a tweed made of wool, in shades of brown, mauve and black, plainer than she normally wore, with a white blouse and black skirt underneath, chosen for its roominess around the hem. She would never wear a hobble skirt, regardless of the fashion.

  Especially today.

  At the last minute, there were two other items she’d added to her attire. The first, the sash she’d embroidered herself, with violets, that she’d made for her wedding day. She wore the sash often. It went with many of her other dresses and skirts. The other item: her tricolour garter. She’d wanted to wear it to remind her of her pledge to the Cause. She’d wanted to wear it, too, she’d realised, to remind her of her marriage to Adam.

  It had been hard to sit opposite him in the carriage and not blurt out her fears. A sickening sensation had been building in her stomach the closer they came to the capital. He’d made no comment, but she was sure he sensed her unease.

  For some of the journey he’d been sketching out his plan to excavate and build beneath the manor. His strong hands that could lift stones so easily and build walls had a gentler touch, too, that was evident as she watched him draw. More than once he looked up to see her gazing at his long fingers as his pencil glided across the paper. She’d turned her head hastily to look at the view.

  They’d passed one of the new touring cars on the road and she discovered their shared enthusiasm for the horseless vehicles. The sight of the sleek car, with its open top and tooting horn, had taken her mind off her anxiety, for a moment.

  ‘They’re the future of travel,’ Adam had remarked, putting away his sketch. ‘We could get from Beauley to London in half the time in a motor car.’

  ‘My papa has a Rolls Royce,’ Violet told him. ‘He loves new inventions. I’m sure he’d be delighted to take you out in it, should we visit my parents in Manchester.’

  That was another concern. From her mama’s most recent letter, Violet knew her papa had not been in complete health. He’d had another of his turns, her mama had written, though not a serious one. It would be timely soon to make a visit.

  ‘You wanted to visit the Cadbury chocolate factory,’ Adam commented, as the carriage wheels turned. ‘Perhaps we could go by motor car.’

  ‘You’d accompany me?’ she asked.

  He smiled. ‘If you wish.’

  Why, he’d remembered what she’d told him about her dream to make the lives of the Coombes factory workers better. ‘Yes, I did. I mean, I do.’

  * * *

  Once in London, amid the hustle and bustle of horses, carriages, cars and people, she’d asked to be dropped off in front of Liberty department store in Great Marlborough Street.

  Adam had frowned. ‘I thought you were attending a suffragette meeting.’

  ‘I have a few errands to attend to first.’ Avoiding his eye, she’d leapt down on to the street before he had time to question her further, the handbag swinging wildly.

  The timber-and-white Tudor-style building was a welcome sight. It was one of her favourite emporiums. It had recently begun to sell suffragette items, not only tricoloured ribbon that could be added to hats and belts, but also garments and underclothing in the suffragette shades, as well as handbags, shoes and sl
ippers, too. She was eager to examine them, but not today.

  Entering Liberty briskly by the front door, she hurried to where the new season’s hats were displayed. The pretty straw boaters and wide brims of summer had been replaced by the tams and toques for the coming winter months. There were felt hats with brims, too, that could almost completely hide one’s face.

  Purchasing one in a drab brown shade, with a single feather, she hastened to the ladies’ room and exchanged it for her fashionable black straw with a black-and-white satin bow. She’d decided during her sleepless night that some anonymity was called for. In the band of the drab hat she tucked the striped ribbon.

  Purple. Green. White.

  She’d bought a thin woollen shawl, too, to throw over her shoulders for when the time came.

  She glanced at her pocket watch.

  Soon.

  * * *

  Adam lifted his glass of claret and stared into its red depths. The club kept an excellent cellar, there was no doubt about it. The food, though plain, was excellent, too. It was the first time he’d returned to the place after the debts his father had accrued at the gaming tables. They’d been paid off now, thanks to Violet.

  In spite of the debts that had been incurred by his father, there was no hindrance to his membership of the club, of course. That wasn’t the English way. He would never be blackballed. If he’d cheated at cards—not that he would ever dream of doing so—that might have been a different matter, but financial embarrassment could be glossed over for a Beaufort. He had life membership, as his male ancestors had before him, and his male heirs would for generations to come. Yet strangely, he no longer felt as accepting of the club’s rules.

  It wasn’t the financial embarrassment his father had caused that made him look at the club and its inhabitants with new eyes. He was ashamed to admit he’d never really considered it, but today he noticed, more than ever before, the lack of women. Was it so unconscionable to allow women into the club rooms? They’d had a female monarch in England, after all. Queen Victoria had reigned longer than any king on the throne and no one had objected on the basis of her sex. But no women could enter his club. Adam had to admit, it was starting to make him feel damned uncomfortable.