The Scandalous Suffragette

by Eliza Redgold

  He had begun to question a great deal since Violet came into his life. It crossed his mind that he would have been delighted to have her company for luncheon, or to stay overnight at the club. It would be convenient now that the Beaufort town house had been leased. It was just around the corner, where he’d first laid eyes on her that memorable night. The town house hadn’t needed to be sold any more, now the debts were paid, and the rent would bring in a welcome income. Not that the Beaufort family needed it any more, with Violet’s money, but he saw no reason to be imprudent. He’d never waste her money. He’d had enough of an example of that. The leasing arrangement had gone ahead. There were a few papers to sign, but nothing that couldn’t be handled from Beauley Manor. It wasn’t why he’d come to London.

  Adam frowned. Violet had said she planned to attend a suffragette meeting, but her behaviour on the way to London had been puzzling. She’d been anxious on their journey, very anxious indeed. She’d gripped her handbag with whitened knuckles all the way. It was unlike her.

  He’d swiftly completed his own business in London. His hand went to his waistcoat pocket. Yes, it was still there. Whether it would ever see the light of day...

  ‘Damnation,’ he muttered, as he knocked over the claret glass.

  The waiter rushed over. ‘We’ll replace the tablecloth immediately, sir.’

  Adam stood up to let him do his work. ‘Apologies.’

  He took in the dining room, with its white walls, hung with oils of the hunt in heavy gold frames, the ceiling picked out in gilt, the aged red-leather chairs, the gleaming silver and the glistening crystal goblets. Yet nothing was overdone. It looked more like a country home than a town house. Its shabby elegance had a curious soothing effect on the digestion, it was generally agreed. Members could lunch in groups, or alone, as he was, knowing they could converse or not be disturbed as they wished. He didn’t mind lunching alone, but he would have liked the choice to invite Violet. But she wouldn’t get further than the threshold before she would be stopped from entering. Politely, of course.

  She would provide more interesting conversation than some of the club members. Adam hid a grin. Next to him were two white-haired gentlemen discussing the virtues of the club’s potted shrimp. The shrimp was, indeed, excellent, but their conversation had been going on for quite some time.

  Spotting an occupant of the adjacent table made him stiffen. He had not seen the man come in.

  Edgar Burrows, M.P. Adam hadn’t encountered the Member for his local area since he’d told him in no uncertain terms to leave the grounds of Beauley Manor, after the M.P. had manhandled Violet.

  Remembered rage sent his fists curling. Burrows wasn’t a member of his club. He must be a guest of one of the other two men on his table. One was a member Adam knew slightly and disliked. They were all huddled furtively over the white-clothed table that held more than one bottle of claret.

  Burrows glanced up and caught Adam’s gaze. He gave a sneer that was supposed to be a greeting, Adam guessed, but the malicious gleam in his eye took Adam aback.

  Burrows licked his lips and returned to his conversation.

  His senses on alert, Adam glided closer. He couldn’t quite make out what the men were saying. Then he heard a word that made him lean in.

  Suffragette.

  * * *

  Violet crossed the road. While she’d eaten her luncheon at Liberty department store, a bouillon followed by brown-bread sandwiches and chicken timbales that she’d hardly been able to worry down, she’d studied her map. She considered that she had a good sense of direction, but London always managed to catch her out.

  Along Regent Street, going past Hamleys toy shop, she murmured to herself. In other circumstances, it would have made a delightful outing. She liked to look at window displays. In Hamleys’ window there was a teddy bears’ picnic, but she hurried past.

  Soon Piccadilly Circus came into view, packed with carriages and quite a few of the new motor cars. A policeman was blowing his whistle and directing traffic. Quickly she crossed the street away from him.

  Through to St James’s Square. On to Pall Mall and there they were. The gentlemen’s clubs. They lined the streets in the area, tucked in between private houses and places of business. None of the clubs had names or any other means of identification on the front of their buildings. That would be ostentatious and might lead to unwanted visitors.

  Like herself.

  In spite of her nerves, she chuckled. The lack of signage was the reason she’d mistaken Adam’s town house for the club. Many of the buildings in the area were in a similar architectural style, so grand with their columns and arched windows. Some had the same stone balconies that had led her to end up on the Beaufort balcony that fateful night.

  She hoisted her handbag. She wouldn’t make that same mistake again.

  With increasing urgency, she hurried on. She knew she had to find it.

  Finally she stopped at the correct address. There it was, that balcony she’d never climbed, her original target for suffragette action, that bastion of male privilege, with the doors that, like the doors to the British Parliament, were closed to all women.

  Violet bit her lip. Adam might be still be inside the club. He’d told her he was planning to lunch there. She checked her watch. He’d probably be gone by now.

  An overwhelming longing came over her, to knock on the door, to find him. How she longed to confide in him, to tell him the heavy secrets she was forced to carry alone. Yet they were separated by those closed doors.

  Doors made by injustice. Doors made by prejudice.

  Doors that must be opened.

  Violet lifted her chin. So much had changed since she had decided to climb the gentlemen’s club balcony and hang her suffragette banner. So much had changed since she’d tumbled into Adam’s arms. Her feelings for him. Feelings she wanted to share.

  One thing hadn’t changed.

  Her dedication to the Cause.

  She would never surrender.

  * * *

  Adam took his chance. He’d long finished his luncheon, had been toying with fruit and cheese. The potted-shrimp starter had indeed been excellent, so had the roast beef for his main course, but his attention hadn’t been on the food. Within the realms of civility, he’d spent the mealtime straining to hear fragments of muttered conversation at the table where Edgar Burrows and his companions had been steadily drinking for the past hour. Fortunately, as the group of men continued to imbibe their claret, their braying voices became louder and louder.

  ‘Dangerous nonsense.’

  ‘Silly harpies.’

  ‘Lock them all up.’

  When Edgar Burrows left the dining room, Adam threw aside his linen napkin and sped after him. In the arched hallway of the club, he looked right and left. There was no sign of the MP in the lobby. Then Adam spotted him, a portly figure, swaying as he ascended the interior marble staircase. Edgar Burrows was almost at the landing of the next floor.

  Adam took the stairs two at a time and seized the MP by the shoulder. ‘What in damnation were you saying about the suffragettes?’

  Edgar Burrow’s eyes darted. ‘Beaufort. What do you mean?’

  Adam swore. ‘I overheard you in the dining room. You should learn to lower your voice if you don’t want every member of the club to hear you.’

  Keeping hold of the MP’s shoulder, he steered him into one of the upstairs sitting rooms, done in dark green leather. It had an aspect on to the street and a wide balcony, trimmed with waist-high stone columns, each curved like a woman’s corset.

  It was the balcony Violet had intended to climb, all those months ago.

  Adam faced Burrows. ‘Let’s have it. What’s going on?’

  ‘Silly harpies,’ the M.P. slurred drunkenly. ‘None of them deserves the vote or anything like it.’

  Adam shook his head. ‘I kno
w your view on women’s suffrage, Burrows. It holds no interest for me. Tell me what you were talking about downstairs.’

  Burrows sneered. ‘The suffragettes are about to get the lesson they deserve.’

  ‘What kind of lesson?’

  ‘The police had a tip-off. There’s some kind of extreme militant group that’s formed here in London. You must have heard the suffragettes have started smashing windows and so on. Disruption. Disobedience. Throwing bottles and stones. But this new group is even worse.’

  Adam lifted his eyebrow. ‘In what way?’

  ‘This group is prepared to use more violent means. Arson. Bombs. Attacks on members of the government. Any means at all.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Adam said flatly. ‘The suffragettes aren’t anarchists.’

  ‘Some of them are. Today they’re heading for Downing Street.’

  Adam took a step back. ‘Number Ten?’

  The Prime Minister’s residence.

  ‘That’s it. But they’ve got too big for their pretty little boots this time.’ Burrows consulted a fat fob watch. ‘This afternoon will see an end to this stupid nonsense. The police force are ready and waiting to make an example of them.’

  Violet.

  Adam held down his fists. ‘You’ll be sorry, Burrows, if I hear you’ve had anything to do with such a plan.’

  ‘I know your sentiments, Beaufort.’ Burrows sniggered. ‘You’re influenced now, aren’t you, by your wealthy new wife? I keep my wife in her place. Women should go back to the kitchen or the bedroom, where they belong.’

  Adam swore. ‘Women want the vote. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Once they have it there will be no end to their demands. They’ll want to be governing us next.’

  ‘As the Member of Parliament for my area, you represent me,’ said Adam, trying to restrain his temper. ‘You ought to consider the mood of your voters.’

  ‘All very well for you!’ the M.P. spat. ‘You don’t need anyone’s vote. Sitting high and mighty at Beauley Manor.’

  Adam gritted his teeth. ‘If I could make a difference on the women’s matter, I would. That’s up to Members of Parliament, in the House of Commons.’

  ‘Then leave us to our job,’ the man said unpleasantly.

  ‘It’s your job to listen to your voters,’ Adam responded curtly. ‘We’re in the same political party. You know as well as I do, there are men who want suffrage for women.’

  ‘They’ll never get it on my guard. And after today, the suffragettes might get the message.’ Burrows licked his lips. ‘Oh, yes. Some little ladies will be very sorry indeed.’

  ‘How so?’ Adam demanded.

  Burrows shrugged. ‘None of your concern.’

  Adam seized the M.P. by his necktie. ‘How are they planning to stop the suffragettes?’

  The man’s eyes bulged. ‘They’ve got in the mounted police. Undercover detectives, too. They’ll be armed and waiting for these militant suffragettes. So will prison cells.’

  Adam dropped the M.P. like a rat.

  ‘I say, where are you going? Beaufort?’

  Adam raced from the room, down the stairs and out of the club.

  * * *

  In St James’s Park, Violet sat by the lake and caught her breath.

  The park was like a lung, with its fresh greenness, in contrast to the noise of carriages, cars and pedestrians in the surrounding street. Ducks glided on the lake. Flowers danced in the breeze. Children played with hoops and kites. Other women, including a nanny with a baby carriage, were dotted around the park benches. She wondered if they, too, were biding their time.

  Violet swallowed hard. She’d never experienced such agitation before, even when she made her protests, or when she gave her speech at the garden party.

  Adam had been beside her, then.

  She checked her watch yet again. Her legs trembled as she stood and lifted her handbag. It weighed even more heavily now.

  Keeping her head down, she continued upon her way until she reached the other side of the park. Horse Guards were on parade in their red-and-white uniforms and polished black boots, their helmets glistening in the sun.

  She walked past.

  Big Ben chimed the quarter-hour as she entered Parliament Square.

  She stopped in awe. The beauty of the Houses of Parliament took her aback. They were like churches, with their spires, towers and turrets. Sacred. Hallowed. Unexpectedly, her eyes welled with tears. Was it so wrong to want women’s voices to be heard in those ancient buildings? To yearn to have a vote, a share in the government of the country she loved?

  Violet ran her glove over her eyes and hurried on.

  * * *

  ‘Damnation.’

  Adam muttered under his breath as he dodged a couple of bankers in their bowler hats. In spite of the warmth of the day, they held umbrellas, tightly furled.

  Pelting along the crowded street, his coat flying out behind him, Adam headed for the Houses of Parliament. It was a route from the club he knew fairly well, but never had he raced there so fast.

  As he ran he searched for her, glancing rapidly down streets and alleys, to the right, to the left. What had she been wearing that morning? Some kind of attractive striped hat, he recalled. He hadn’t taken much notice. As usual, it had been the frank blue eyes beneath the brim of the hat that held his attention and they’d been full of fear, he realised now.

  His wife was daring, brave, but she was no anarchist, he was sure of it. Her protests were of a kind to bring attention to the Cause in a sensational manner, but surely she didn’t intend to cause damage or destruction. Civil disobedience was a method that the suffragettes were increasingly embracing in their desperation to have their argument heard. He knew Violet supported it. He understood it himself. But what Burrows described sounded extreme. It was the kind of militant behaviour that meant someone could get seriously hurt, or worse.

  Violet.

  Adam dashed across the street, narrowly avoiding an oncoming omnibus.

  He had to find her, before she made a mistake that cost her what she cherished so much.

  Her freedom.

  * * *

  Violet turned the corner. The tall, stately stone buildings on either side of the wide road loomed up, casting a shadow as she slowed to a stroll.

  Second street on the right, she said to herself softly. No hurrying now. She needed to appear calm, as if she were simply out for a walk. How difficult it was, to amble along the pavement, when her body was full of nervous energy.

  From beneath her low-brimmed hat she glanced about. So many men. Dressed for the city, in dark frock coats, suits, top hats and bowler hats. She hadn’t anticipated how women would stand out amid the city men of business.

  They were so obvious.

  Too obvious.

  Here and there she spotted another woman. One of them sported a purple, green and white ribbon on the lapel of her overcoat. Like Violet, she carried a large handbag. As she passed she met Violet’s glance, then hurriedly looked away.

  Further on, another woman, little more than a young girl, again wearing the suffragette colours, this time as a ribbon in her hair, lugged a carpet bag. Another group of women were walking further ahead.

  All of them were heading in the same direction.

  To Downing Street.

  Violet frowned. The girl with the carpet bag was walking not too far ahead of her on the pavement. Violet could have sworn that a gentleman in a felt fedora hat and overcoat was following the girl, from some distance behind.

  She glanced over her shoulder. There was another man behind her, similarly dressed in an overcoat, with a newspaper under his arm. He appeared as nondescript as Violet wanted to be. Yet he was paying her close attention. She was sure of it.

  She bit her lip. Opposite, on the other side of the str
eet, leaning against a lamppost, was a man who appeared to be doing nothing.

  Except watching the entrance, two streets ahead on the left.

  Her heart thudded. She walked on, holding her crocodile handbag tight against her bodice. She crossed a street. The nanny she’d spotted in St James’s Park appeared from around the corner, pushing the pram. Another of the nondescript men followed behind her.

  Something was wrong, Violet was certain. All her senses screamed the alert.

  Still, she walked on.

  Her limbs began to shake, so much so that she struggled to take the next step.

  Next left, she told herself. All she needed to do was take the next left.

  Head down again, she checked her watch with trembling fingers. She could hardly snap open the gold lid. Only a few minutes to go before Big Ben would strike.

  So would the suffragettes.

  She lifted her head.

  Ahead, two women came out of the entrance of a building, their arms linked. One of them wore a hat crowned in purple, white and green.

  Violet stared at the woman’s hat. Instantly, the colours infused her with courage.

  Loyalty and dignity. Purity. Hope. Silently, she repeated the words to herself.

  Those words, those ideals, were worth fighting for.

  Violet’s mouth dried.

  Coming the other way were a group of blue-helmeted policemen, carrying batons.

  * * *

  Adam raced past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

  The streets were far more packed than usual. As Burrows had told him, the police were out in force. He could spot the men in plain clothes, as well as those in full uniform.