Break of Dawn

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘End of the week.’ He stood up, touching her shining hair which she always wore flowing and loosely tied with a ribbon for breakfast. ‘Thanks for being understanding.’

  Once she was alone, Sophy let herself slump in her chair. Thanks for being understanding. She hadn’t felt very understanding last night when the hours had ticked by. She must have fallen asleep after three o’clock and he hadn’t been home then. She knew he liked to let his hair down after a show and relax with his pals, but he was usually home by midnight, one o’clock at the latest. She had been furious last night and her rage had brought to the surface all the doubts and fears she had about their marriage, and about Toby. She’d thought he might be with Rosalind, she had imagined them together and told herself she didn’t believe there was nothing but friendship between them. And then this morning . . . She buried her face in her hands for a moment. Oh, she felt awful. Thank goodness he didn’t know what she had been thinking. Poor Toby. He must be feeling wretched.

  She sat quietly drinking a cup of coffee, letting the fresh air touch her face as she gazed out of the window and up at the patch of blue sky to be seen above the building opposite. It hadn’t been the moment to tell him her news: last night, they had been informed that the play was doing so well they were going to run for another six months at least, and she had taken the opportunity to see the manager and negotiate a rise in salary. From next week she would be earning double her present rate. Six guineas a week. She hadn’t quite been able to believe it when she had left the office, but of course she hadn’t let the manager see that. But she had followed the advice Mr Gregory had given her when she had said goodbye to him on leaving the Lincoln.

  ‘Value yourself, Sophy.’ He had smiled at her and not for the first time she’d realised he was really a very attractive man and that his disfigurement added to his brooding appeal, rather than otherwise. ‘If you don’t, no one else will. Be courageous, especially when asking for financial satisfaction. Put a top price on your acting ability in any part you’re asked to play, you can always agree to drop a little if necessary but it will be too late to negotiate up if you agree to a lower salary. All managers, mine included, will try to do their best for the owners rather than the actors. Remember that.’

  She had remembered it last night, and instead of asking for five guineas – and she had thought that was on the top side – she had asked for six, never dreaming it would be agreed. But eventually it had. And they were going to need it now, with Toby out of work.

  Not that it would be for long, she amended hastily, as though the thought had been a criticism. And they would manage quite well. Here a little frown came between her eyes. It had been a worry over the last months since they had become man and wife how Toby’s salary seemed to drain away each week. They had agreed Toby would pay the rent, and that she would provide for their food and any household expenses out of her wage. Of course on top of this they both had to find travelling expenses, along with clothes and shoes and other living costs, but even so, it was rare that Toby had any money in his pocket at the end of each week. She knew he spent a considerable amount on drink with his friends when they frequented the gambling clubs now and again, and sometimes dined there, but when she had spoken to him about it, it had caused such ill-feeling between them she hadn’t mentioned it again, not wishing to appear the nagging wife. But depending on how things panned out over the next weeks, she might have to raise the subject again.

  Marriage wasn’t what she had expected it to be.

  The thought came before she could dismiss it and she realised it had been hovering at the back of her mind for some time. She had assumed they would do things together, spend most of their free time in each other’s company, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Half the time she didn’t know where Toby was or what he was doing when he left the flat, and if she questioned him he always made her feel at fault. He was always telling her not to be so ‘provincial’ as though it was the greatest crime, and only last week, when she had asked him to accompany her to Cat’s birthday party and he’d said he had a prior engagement and she’d got upset, he’d accused her of being a burden. She had been both upset and angry, and the anger had enabled her to go unescorted with her head held high and pretend to enjoy herself, ignoring the curious glances of those present who clearly wondered where Toby was.

  Sophy bit her lip, telling herself post-mortems never did any good. They had got over that episode and it did no good to drag it up now. Dolly said men took a while to settle into marriage and she was probably right.

  She finished her breakfast, forcing herself to eat and drink and then cleared the table. When she came to the muslin cloth which she always removed after breakfast, putting a vase of flowers in the middle of the table, she paused, staring at it for a long time. And then she folded it carefully as she did every day and put it away, setting the vase in place, which she could hardly see for the tears streaming down her face.

  PART FIVE

  The End of One Beginning

  1908

  Chapter 15

  When does the end of a marriage begin? Is it when one half of what should be a whole witnesses their spouse rising to heights of renown they can only dream about? Or perhaps it’s more insidious, a slow and largely inconspicuous drift into the fantasy world opium and its sister substances induce? Or yet again, it could be the disintegration of the part of man that makes him higher than the beasts when the darker side of the personality is given free rein, and a mind – naturally selfish and weak in Toby’s case – cannot accept what it perceives as failure. But the rot in Sophy’s marriage had set in even before the walk down the aisle. How can anything lasting be built on shifting sand?

  The last ten years had been ones of enormous highs and lows for Sophy. By the time the new century had been ushered in on a wave of euphoria, extolling Britain’s imperial powers and sovereignty, she had been acknowledged as one of the new glittering stars of the West End, the darling of the public and press alike. Queen Victoria’s death a year later had seen King Edward VII take the throne and a more relaxed monarch in Buckingham Palace. When Sarah Bernhardt returned in triumph to London in the summer of 1902 in her best-known role as Marguerite Gautier, the consumptive courtesan, in The Lady of the Camellias, the critics raved over her performance and it added to the growing respectability of the theatre which the King regularly visited and enjoyed. But Sarah Bernhardt was also an advocate of the Vote for Women and was not afraid to say so. Sophy had attended a lunch given in the great actress’s honour, and after Sarah had thanked everyone for attending and prettily entertained them with an amusing after-lunch talk, she had gone in for the kill.

  Much of what the actress had said that day had resonated with Sophy. It was true that women possessing the vote was the merest kind of basic justice, and that all the weighty political philosophies which men had invented had no sensible argument against a woman’s right to make her opinion and convictions known. The fashionable belief prevalent among the opponents of Women’s Suffrage, that all intelligence in women was but a reflection of male intellect, that a woman had neither the discernment nor brain power to think for herself, was wrong, along with the tyranny of the law which favoured men in every regard. How could it be considered right in any humane society that a husband could divorce his wife for adultery as easy as blinking, whereas a wife had to prove adultery as well as cruelty or desertion of two years? A woman knew she would lose her home, her reputation and inevitably her children if she went to the divorce courts, and in consequence there were those who endured a living hell at home.

  In truth, Sarah’s words had been but a reflection of what Cat had been saying for years, Sophy thought to herself one fine day in the middle of March. The morning was bright and fresh, there was a nip in the air and the smell of spring was around the corner. It was the kind of day that made one feel good to be alive.

  Dear Cat. Sophy smiled to herself as she thought of her friend. What would she have done without Cat’s u
nswerving support through the last few years, as well as Dolly and Jim’s, of course. Although their advice couldn’t be more different. Cat’s counsel was undeviating: ‘Divorce the wretch.’ If her friend had said it once, she had said it a hundred times. ‘He’s no good, Sophy. He never has been. He hasn’t had a job in years and he never will again, not after the spectacle he made of himself rolling about the stage dead drunk when Mr Gregory gave him that last chance. Toby knew no one else would touch him and yet he couldn’t stay sober each night until the performance was over.’

  Sophy often thought that if Cat knew the half of it she would come to the flat and physically throw Toby out herself. If it had only been the drunkenness she had to contend with, it wouldn’t be so bad. But she knew it was the opium which had really changed the man she had married. He was a different person. No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t that he was a different person, more that the drug had destroyed his mind and intellect to the point that he was hardly there any more. He had gone through bouts of being violent in the past, but the one time he had hit her she had flown back at him with the first thing that came to hand – a small bronze statuette she had won for a performance – and belaboured him so wildly he had never touched her in anger again. Not that he touched her at all, these days. The effects of the alcohol and drugs had rendered him impotent years ago.

  Dolly and Jim were of the old school in their advice. Once you’d made your bed you had to lie on it and divorce was wrong, full stop. However, Dolly had been quick to point out, that didn’t mean you had to put up with any kind of nonsense. In their community, a father or brother wasn’t above going round to sort out an errant husband for the wife, and if Sophy was willing, their Arnold and one of the other sons could do the job. They wouldn’t hurt him, not the first time anyway, just frighten the living daylights out of him and wait to see if that worked.

  Sophy had thanked Dolly but declined the offer. No one knew about the opium habit, and it would take more than Arnold and one of his brothers to stop Toby returning to the illegal dens like a dog to its vomit.

  Sophy paused, lifting her face to the gentle rays of a spring sun. She was on her way to hear Emmeline Pankhurst’s account of her recent imprisonment in Holloway Jail after she was convicted for obstructing the police within the Strangers’ Lobby in Parliament. She had never attended a meeting of the Women’s Social and Political Union before, although Cat had joined the new militant movement shortly after it had been formed five years ago. Their motto, ‘Deeds not Words’, had appealed to the recklessness in Cat, along with Mrs Pankhurst’s determination for a radical change in future tactics. Previous Suffragists had met regularly with sympathetic Members of Parliament to plead their cause, but the frustration caused by Parliament’s refusal to debate the subject or even consider the idea of female emancipation had led to the birth of the new society. Christabel Pankhurst, Emmeline’s daughter, had been one of the first suffragettes to go to prison three years ago, and since meeting her, Cat had been even more fired up, spending most of her free time working for the Society. She even took minor roles in the theatre in order to devote more time to the cause. But, as she had said on more than one occasion to Sophy, ‘I was never going to make it big like you, darling. I was never going to be a star.’

  Sophy didn’t know about that. What she did know was that her work demanded much of her time and what remained was devoted to holding what was left of Toby together. She was often exhausted, constantly worried and mostly heartsore. When he was in the real world Toby was either bitter and spiteful, or pathetically needy of her. Not as a wife, that had finished years ago, but as a nurse, a mother, someone he could cling to when the night terrors caused by the poison in his system turned him into a gibbering idiot, terrified of things only he could see.

  He had killed all love within her, for nothing could survive the things he’d said and done, still said and did, but each time she told herself she couldn’t go on, there would be another agonising night where he became a petrified child. And it was the child she couldn’t abandon, not the man.

  She began walking again, clearing her mind of her own problems and letting the first mild weather of the year caress her skin. She could have taken a cab to the meeting but she had wanted to walk in the sunshine along the streets, a chance to feel like any other woman, someone with a normal existence and a happy home life.

  She didn’t glance at the couple making their way down the steps of a small hotel to her right; the lovely weather had brought the world and his wife out and the pavements were bustling with Londoners. Since she had become a success, Sophy had found that fame could be a two-edged sword on occasion, so if she ever took a walk alone – which was rare – she tended to keep her head down and walk swiftly, thereby remaining largely unnoticed by her fans. So when her arm was grabbed, and a voice in her ear said, ‘Sophy? It is you, isn’t it?’ she was taken aback, the more so when she saw who had accosted her.

  ‘Patience?’ She stared at the woman who was Patience and yet not Patience.

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ Patience was holding on to her as though she was afraid Sophy would disappear if she let go of her arm. ‘Oh, Sophy, I can’t believe it’s you! I’ve longed to see you again. Thank you for your letters. Father passes them on to me and it’s been good to know you are all right.’

  Sophy didn’t know what to say. For one thing this Patience, with her bright face and sparkling eyes, was as different to the girl she’d known as chalk to cheese. For another, she had always felt a little guilty about the letters – not only their infrequency, since she had only written five or six in the years since she had left the northeast, but also the fact that she had never given a return address. Her mind caught at Patience’s last words. ‘You’re not living at the vicarage then?’

  ‘No, no. I left there about eighteen months after you had gone, to train as a nurse.’ Patience now blushed, turning to the tall, rather distinguished-looking gentleman at her side. ‘This is my husband, Dr Aldridge. William, this is my dear cousin, Sophy Shawe. You did say your husband’s name is Shawe when you wrote to say you had got married?’

  Sophy nodded, smiling as she took the doctor’s outstretched hand. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Dr Aldridge.’

  ‘William, please.’

  Sophy liked Patience’s husband immediately. His handshake was firm, his brown eyes were warm with a twinkle in their depths and his smile was open and friendly.

  Still reeling mentally from the shock of discovering that Patience was not only married but had left the vicarage years ago to enter the nursing profession, Sophy stared at her cousin. She could see where the transformation had occurred now. For the first time in her life Patience looked happy. ‘Do you live in London now, or are you visiting?’

  ‘Oh, only visiting. It’s our wedding anniversary. We’ve been married two years this week, and as Florence Nightingale is having the Freedom of the City conferred on her on Monday, we thought we’d spend a few days here and try to catch a glimpse of her. She’s such a wonderful woman and absolutely amazing for eighty-seven years old.’

  Sophy nodded. ‘Are you still working as a nurse?’

  ‘Of course.’ Patience glanced up at her husband with adoring eyes. ‘William has no problem with me continuing with my career even though it does sometimes mean we’re ships that pass in the night. William’s a paediatrician at the same hospital and with night duty and such . . .’ She shrugged. ‘But we get by, don’t we, William?’

  ‘Splendidly, most of the time.’ William smiled, and there was no doubt he doted on his wife.

  ‘I don’t suppose . . .’ Patience hesitated. ‘You wouldn’t like to have dinner with us one night? You and your husband? We leave London on Tuesday morning and it would be so nice to catch up a little. John and Matthew are both married now, you know, and John is the father of one-year-old twin boys.’

  Sophy didn’t know how to reply. Part of her was glad to see Patience, and the other part of her wanted to take to her
heels and run. With an effort she pulled herself together and injected warmth into her voice when she said, ‘I’m sorry, Patience, but dinner’s not possible as I’m on stage each evening, and furthermore, Toby is . . . is unwell.’ Seeing the disappointment in her cousin’s face, she added quickly, ‘But we could meet for lunch if you like, the three of us?’

  Patience’s face lit up. ‘Really? That would be lovely. Come and join us at the hotel then. Shall we say tomorrow at twelve o’clock? Does that suit?’

  Sophy nodded. ‘Tomorrow it is.’ She turned to Patience’s husband again and extended her hand, saying, ‘It’s been lovely to meet you, William,’ but before she could make her goodbyes to Patience, her cousin was hugging her tight, murmuring, ‘You won’t change your mind, will you? You will come?’

  ‘Of course I’ll come.’ Even as she said it she was reflecting that Patience knew her better than she knew herself.

  The suffragette meeting was more harrowing than Sophy expected, revealing, as it did, an inside view of the horrors of prison life. Emmeline Pankhurst’s vivid account of the drudgery and misery of her imprisonment was harrowing. The meagre rations, the coarse, scratchy clothing with its convict’s arrows, the dismal surroundings and the desperate unhappiness of her fellow inmates was compelling hearing, and it was hard to acquaint such dreadful happenings with the beautifully dressed and aristocratic-looking woman talking to the large crowd that had come to see her.

  ‘All the hours seem very long in that place,’ Mrs Pankhurst said calmly, her perfectly pitched voice carrying to the back of the hall where the meeting was being held. ‘The sun can never get in, and every day is changeless and uninteresting. Within a very short time one grows too tired to go through to the exercise yard and take the air, even though the yearning for the smell and feel of the outside world is paramount.’