Break of Dawn

by Rita Bradshaw

  Nevertheless, Sophy had to admit her heart dropped a little when the estate agent the owner had hired opened the door of the building to reveal a blackened interior which smelled strongly of smoke, overlaid with a fusty odour from the water used to put out the fire. Kane said nothing as he walked round the premises, the estate agent quick to point out that the rear of the property – where the office and dressing rooms and so on were situated – was relatively unscathed, and Sophy’s spirits fell further still, each time she glanced at his expressionless face. He hated it, she could tell. And it was awful, but she still felt deep in the heart of her that this was the right place.

  Once outside again, the bitingly cold north-east wind cleared the smell of smoke from their nostrils in moments. Kane thanked the estate agent politely and said they would be in touch before sending the man on his way. Sophy looked at him miserably. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It looks terrible which is in our favour, but the damage is mainly superficial. I like it.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, but I thought— You seemed so dour, uninterested.’

  ‘Sophy, this is business. I have to negotiate the best price I can, so the last thing I want to do is enthuse, but I think this could work very well. It’s your money as well as mine going into this though, and you do understand the cost of refurbishment? In blood, sweat and tears too, I might add. This kind of project always throws up hidden problems and gets worse before it gets better in my experience.’

  Sophy nodded. ‘Nevertheless, I think it’s the one.’

  ‘Then, my love, I think we’ve found your women’s theatre.’

  ‘Oh, Kane.’ She looked at him with shining eyes. ‘I love you.’

  Sophy and Kane stayed with Patience and William a further ten days. By the time they returned to London, the purchase of both the farmhouse and the theatre was settled, and Kane had arranged for local builders to begin work on the cottages immediately with the permission of the doctor and his wife. Sophy wanted the two-up, two-down dwellings to be refurbished throughout, and the addition of an extension at the back of each providing another bedroom upstairs and a bathroom downstairs with an indoor privy. Sadie was getting older all the time, and already arthritis was taking its toll; if, in the future, she found the narrow steep stairs of the cottage too much, then a bed could be moved down to the sitting room and her old friend would still have relative independence in her own home.

  They arrived back to the news that Ralph had proposed to Harriet and she had accepted. As Sophy had half-expected, the couple wanted to be married before they left London. And so it was, at the end of March – a month which had seen the first woman Member of Parliament in Norway take her seat in government amid great celebrations, and which gave hope to Sophy and other women in England that their government would have to listen to their voice before too long – the move to Sunderland took place, with Harriet and Ralph moving straight into their new home.

  The first night in the farmhouse, when the others had retired to their cottages for the night and Sophy and Kane sat before the fire in the sitting room, Kane took his wife into his arms. They were surrounded by boxes and crates which still had to be unpacked, and everything was topsy-turvy – unlike the cottages which Patience had seen were furnished beautifully from top to bottom. However, this didn’t matter.

  Kane echoed what Sophy was thinking when he murmured, ‘Our first home we’ve bought together and it’s going to be a happy one, my love. I promise you that.’

  Sophy snuggled into him. ‘I know.’

  Above her head he sighed before he said, ‘I’ll support you in everything you want to do with your theatre. I just wish I could be more involved physically.’

  Sophy moved to look up at him. Kane had finally accepted that he would never be able to do what he did before the accident. Thanks to Edgar Grant he had the use of his legs, but he would always walk with a stick and his mobility was restricted. She knew he found this frustrating but he rarely complained, even on the bad days – which were becoming fewer – when his joints were so stiff every movement was painful. But he was getting better. Albeit slowly, but he was improving. She said this now, finishing by kissing him hard.

  ‘You’re right.’ His brief moment of despondency was gone. ‘I’m a fortunate man. Every morning when I wake up beside you I know that.’ He kissed her back in the way which always made her wonder how she had survived for most of her life without him, and when they slid down on to the big thick rug in front of the fire and made love in the flickering glow of the flames, it seemed a fitting end to the first day of the rest of their life in their new home.

  Sophy allowed herself a few days to get straight in the farmhouse before she and Kane visited the theatre in Holmeside again. Along with the house, they had bought the doctor’s horse and carriage, knowing they were going to have a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing to do in the future. It was going to be one of Ralph’s jobs to tend to the horse, which had a fine stable in part of the square cobbled yard at the back of the farmhouse where the cottages were situated. He would also be driving Sophy and Kane about. The upkeep of the gardens was his domain too, and he, Harriet and Sadie had already decided they wanted a greenhouse in one part of the grounds, with a mushroom house and a large vegetable garden alongside. Sadie was to continue as cook, and Harriet would see to everything else. Sophy was a little worried this might prove too much for Harriet, who had her own home to attend to as well as caring for Josephine, but Harriet wouldn’t hear of anyone else being brought in to help her.

  Kane had been instructing Sophy on the intricacies of the business side of running a theatre since she had first discussed the possibility of owning one with him. At first he had been frankly apprehensive about a venture where women, and solely women, ran the company – something, he admitted, that was to his shame. It wasn’t that he didn’t think women could accomplish such an undertaking, he’d stressed to Sophy in the early days. More that the male owners of the theatres and the actor-managers they employed wouldn’t let them. To his credit, when Sophy had argued back that the status quo would forever remain as it was unless more and more women took the proverbial bull by the horns, he had agreed without further reservation. They were buying the theatre together, but Kane was fully prepared to be more of a sleeping partner who could be called upon in an advisory capacity if required. If Sophy hadn’t loved him to distraction already, this would have tipped the balance.

  From the inception of her idea to run her own theatre, Sophy had known it wouldn’t be easy. Quite how hard the reality would be gradually dawned on her over the next weeks. In the main part of the theatre the stage was still intact but the wood had to be stripped back and varnished. The walls, the fancy plasterwork, the decorative woodwork, everything – needed to be cleaned and renewed, and the high ceiling and chandeliers proved a nightmare. Several rows of seats were completely destroyed, and the others had to be stripped of their upholstery, cleaned and restored. Curtains and carpeting the same. And although the back of the building where the dressing rooms were situated wasn’t damaged, the smoke smell had permeated every nook and cranny, necessitating as vigorous cleaning as the auditorium itself.

  Determined to start as she meant to carry on, Sophy had advertised for women workers. However, after a while she had to compromise on the carpentry work as she couldn’t find a woman carpenter in the whole of the north-east. She was amazed at the initial response to the cards she paid to have in shop windows around the town. Most of the women who applied were curious and had no real idea of what was required, and a good number of them were drawn from the wretched filth and poverty of the East End. The old river-mouth settlement of Sunderland had once been a thriving and bustling area where much of the wealth of the town was generated, but when the rich merchant families moved away from their big townhouses in the commercial part of the area to live in the more fashionable and genteel Bishopwearmouth in the first half of the nineteent
h century, the East End became a dire place of tenement slums. But for every drunkard and slattern of a mother and wife in the ghettos, there were ten women battling against the odds to bring their children up properly – often in only one or two rooms – and keep them from the worst of the vices rampant in the East End. These women worked their fingers to the bone from noon to night, some with husbands who worked in the docks when shifts were available, others with husbands who had never done an honest day’s work in their lives. And there were others, as Harriet would have been, struggling to raise their children alone.

  Sophy saw each woman who applied personally. Several took one look at what was required and walked out, one or two were shifty and, Sophy felt, couldn’t be trusted, but over a period of a week or so she had brought together a little team who were prepared to work hard for the generous wages she was offering. Sophy had already decided that those who proved themselves, she would keep on once the inaugural work was done, in some capacity or other. She was going to need cleaners, stagehands, people to serve refreshments and so on, and it didn’t take her long to realise that for some of these women, the money she was paying was a lifeline. Especially for one or two who had no husband at home.

  She also provided a facility which, had she known it, won her employees’ loyalty to a woman. She had set aside a small room at the back of the theatre and furnished it with a comfy sofa and a few toys, and here, if they so wished, any of her employees could bring their children while they worked. A rota system was set up so a different woman each day cared for the little ones, and any breast-feeding mothers could pop into the room when the babies were hungry.

  During the next weeks Sophy learned a very important lesson which she never forgot. Win your employees’ hearts and they will work for you in a way they never would for mere money. Kane was constantly amazed at the progress being made when he called in, but more so by the happy atmosphere. Some of the women, who had never had anything to be joyful about for years, sang as they worked, and the sense of a little community was strong.

  As the women were working full days, Sophy had decided that during this initial phase, each lunchtime Ralph and Harriet would bring food to the theatre. She had noticed in the first day or two that some of the women had had nothing to eat all day and suspected – rightly – that any food available at home went to the man of the house and the children first. So Sadie prepared ham and egg pies, meat rolls and pickled eggs, along with loaves of bread and scones, rice or fruit cake and the odd batch of apple pies. The first morning Sophy was amply rewarded for her generosity by the looks on the women’s faces as Ralph and Harriet laid out the lunch, but she found she had to go into one of the empty dressing rooms and shed a few tears at the sight of women who were clearly half-starved trying not to fall on the food but eat politely.

  And so the work progressed, time ticked on and April turned into May and May into June. With the help of the Actresses’ Franchise League Sophy had found her stage-manager, an able producer, a director, and a general assistant to all three. The business side of the theatre, she was taking on herself. The League also put her in touch with two stagehands and a scenic artist.

  In the middle of June, just before the Coronation of George V which took place amid sumptuous church and state pageantry, another procession took place which Sophy would have loved to attend, had she had the time. Sixty thousand or so supporters of the enfranchisement of women marched through the streets of London in a five-mile-long line, many dressed as famous women such as Boadicea, Joan of Arc and Queen Victoria. One of the most impressive groups was the seven hundred suffragettes who had been imprisoned for the cause, each proudly displaying a silver arrow as a mark of their suffering and carrying a banner which read From prison to citizenship.

  The marchers were drawn from all walks of life and all classes: factory girls and aristocrats, actresses and university graduates, but when Sophy – full of enthusiasm – read the account from the newspaper to her workers the following lunchtime, their reaction was mixed.

  ‘All that vote stuff won’t make no difference to the likes of us,’ Flo, one of the strongest and best workers, muttered. ‘My Harold will still knock the living daylights out of me if he feels like it.’

  ‘An’ I wouldn’t know how to vote anyway,’ Peggy, another woman, chimed up. ‘It’s all right for the likes of you, Mrs Gregory. You’re educated and clever, you know about these things. But a vote’d be wasted on me.’

  Before Sophy could say anything, Amy, a pretty woman who was married to a brute of a husband and who already had five children at the age of twenty-two, spoke up. Normally quiet and retiring, her voice trembled a little but gathered pace as she said, ‘No, you’re wrong, Peg, you mustn’t say that. A vote wouldn’t be wasted on you. We’re as good as men any day, but until the law’s changed we’ll never have any say. It’s not right how women are treated.’

  ‘Aye, I know it’s not right, lass, but I’m saying me havin’ the vote’ll make no difference one way or the other.’

  ‘But it will, don’t you see? And you don’t have to be educated or clever to know the difference between right and wrong, and us not being allowed to vote like a man is wrong. And there’s women like Mrs Gregory, clever women, who can speak proper and argue with them up in London. I’d vote for someone like her, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well aye, aye, but women’ll never be in Parliament, lass.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Peggy.’ Sophy entered the discussion. ‘A woman was elected to Parliament in Norway not so long ago. Did you know that?’

  Peggy looked at her in amazement, but it was Flo who said, ‘Aye, well that’s Norway, Mrs Gregory. It’s not like here, is it.’

  ‘It’s just like here, Flo. Women wanted fairness, that’s all. Not to take over so men didn’t have a say, but merely to be able to have their say. And so women, ordinary women like you and Peggy and me, because I’m no different to you except I’ve been lucky, that’s all, they rose up and stood for what they believed in. Like the suffragettes here who are prepared to go to prison, to be force-fed even, for what they know is right.’

  ‘My Harold says the lot of ’em are frustrated spinsters who need a good—’ Flo stopped abruptly, remembering who she was speaking to.

  Sophy had to smile. ‘And you, Flo? What do you think?’ she asked quietly. ‘You have a mind of your own, you know. Your Harold can’t stop you thinking. You work all day as well as running your home and bringing up your children, you make a penny stretch to two and keep the wolf from the door. To my mind that’s heroic, let alone clever.’

  Now it was Flo who stared at her in amazement until Peggy chipped in, ‘That means brave, lass.’

  ‘I know what it means!’ Flo glared at her friend. ‘I’m not daft, you know.’

  ‘No, you’re not, Flo.’ Sophy’s face was straight now. She glanced at the others as she added, ‘None of you are. So think for yourselves, that’s all I’m saying.’

  She told Kane about the conversation when she got home that evening and he grinned at her, shaking his head. ‘I don’t think some of those husbands know what’s going to hit them if their wives continue working for you,’ he said dryly.

  Sophy smiled back. ‘Peggy has already told Flo to hit her husband over the head with the frying pan next time he comes home drunk and knocks her about. It worked for her, apparently. She only had to do it the once and he keeps his hands to himself now. Peggy says Flo’s husband is a little rat of a man and she’s twice his size, but she’s always let him get away with murder. Funny that, isn’t it?’

  They stared at each other, the spectre of Toby suddenly in both their minds. ‘Or perhaps not so funny,’ Sophy murmured. No. Not funny at all. It was amazing what people put up with when it became commonplace in their lives.

  Chapter 27

  At the beginning of July the theatre was almost ready, the stage-manager and everyone had arrived, actors and actresses had been hired and rehearsals had begun. The first pl
ay they were putting on was one by Mr Arncliffe-Sennett, entitled An Englishwoman’s Home. The central theme of the play was the artificial division between women’s work and that of men, highlighting the fact that although inflation and unemployment had forced many women to take in work in their homes or take work outside where they could find it, there was resistance on the part of husbands and older sons to help with housework or childcare.

  The play was a mixture of styles which was one of the reasons Sophy had chosen it for the all-important opening of the theatre. The opening scene carried a serious look at the effects of poverty on the relationship of the two main characters, a married couple, but this contrasted with the monologues in which each appeals to the audience for sympathy, and with the slapstick elements which came in with other characters demonstrating the inability of men to deal with ‘women’s work’. She wanted a play which would speak to the mainly working-class audience she was aiming for, and a couple of lines in particular – when the wife in a conversation with her husband says, ‘You don’t believe then, that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?’ and his reply of, ‘I don’t know nothing about goose’s sauce ’cos we never have none,’ had made her little army of women workers howl with laughter, which she took as a good sign.