Both Poppy and Daniel sighed their relief and refilled their teacups.
“So what did he win it for?”
“Seems he fought off a nest of Huns trying to save his men.”
“Were you there?”
“No,” said Daniel, still rubbing his hands. “I’d been sent home a few months before. But I would have been.” He stopped rubbing and looked out of the window at the passers-by, many of them dressed for the races in top hats and tails.
Poppy sat in silence, waiting for him to continue or to change the subject. She’d met enough patients at the military convalescent home to know that they would speak when they wanted to speak.
“They were good lads. The lot of them. Thirteen of them died that day. Alfie was the only one who survived. They thought he was dead at first and loaded him onto a wagon with the rest of them. But then someone heard him and –” He paused, and started rubbing again. “More tea, Miss Denby?”
“Thank you, Daniel, but I think I’ve had enough,” she said quietly, wanting to take his hands in hers. “We should probably get back. I’ve got to write up these notes and finish the theatre story.”
Daniel laughed, the ghosts of the past once again at bay. “Only two days on the job, eh?”
Poppy laughed too. “I know! Can you believe it?”
Daniel stood and held out his hand for Poppy. She took it. They stood for a moment, their hands linked over the table. Embarrassed, Poppy grappled for something to divert their attention.
“Er – you said you knew Alfie. Did you ever meet the daughter? What did he say her name was? Lizzie?”
Daniel shook his head. “No. Apparently she’s ill. Some kind of long-term mental condition.”
“Oh?”
Daniel helped Poppy into her coat. “She’s been in hospital since before the war. I heard Alfie mention it once. Not sure what it’s about. You should ask your aunt.”
“My aunt?” asked Poppy, surprised.
“She was a suffragette. Tied herself to the railings of 10 Downing Street and then firebombed Lord’s cricket ground. Was sent to Holloway, I think. Dorchester was mortified. His wife had been a feminist too. She’d left him.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Indeed. I think she died on the Titanic or something.”
“Oh, how tragic.”
“Yes, it is. But they say Dorchester never batted an eyelid.”
“Delightful man.”
Daniel grinned. “Let’s get back to the office, Miss Denby. There’s work to be done and deadlines to keep.”
“Stop press!” cried Poppy and they both laughed.
CHAPTER 10
Poppy spent the rest of the day writing up her notes from the Dorchester interview and then finishing off the Midsummer Night’s Dream story. She showed both to Rollo, who seemed to have caught his second wind after lunch – and a spell in Ye Olde Cock – and was looking much brighter. He declared the theatre piece to be a good first effort and after a few minor edits sent it to be typeset.
“This will be your first byline, Miz Denby. Well done.”
Poppy flushed in delight.
However, he declared that the Dorchester piece needed a bit more work and he would take over.
“You did well though, Poppy. Dan told me you’ve got a natural flair for it. And of course Dorchester rang…”
Poppy felt her pulse quicken. “What did he say?”
“The usual. We’ll be hearing from his solicitor and so on.”
“Oh dear,” Poppy said, taking a deep breath.
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle it. We’ve got solicitors too. You did exactly what I asked of you.” He looked around him at the piles of files and then turned and winked at her. “The best editorial assistant I’ve ever had. Now get home and interview your aunt. Can you telephone in her comment before six o’clock? You do have a telephone, don’t you?”
“We do. And I’ll try, sir.”
Aunt Dot’s first comment was too rude to be printed but was finally amended to:
Leading WSPU member Dorothy Denby sheds doubt on Lord Dorchester’s motivation at supporting the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, suggesting he may have ulterior motives. “A leopard does not change its spots,” Miss Denby said.
Rollo seemed happy enough with it. As Poppy put down the phone she heard raised voices coming from the parlour. It was Aunt Dot and Grace.
“Why are you trying to antagonize him, Dorothy?”
“Because he’s never been held to account. I thought you would have wanted me to do it. For Emily. For Gloria. For Ellen.”
“I do. But I don’t think mud-slinging in the press is going to achieve it. It just makes you look like a – a hysterical woman. Just what he wants.”
“Hysterical?” asked Dot, her voice rising. “You think I’m hysterical?”
“I don’t. But he will. We need to show we can be just as professional as men.”
“Ha! You sound just like them. Women are too emotional. Women are too unpredictable. Well, let me tell you something, Grace –”
“I – I’m sorry if I’ve caused any bother.” Poppy stood in the doorway and looked from one friend to the other. Dot was sitting in a patch of evening sun beside the bay window. Grace was standing near her in the shadows. She turned to Poppy, her thin shoulders rising and falling in resignation.
“No, I’m sorry. You haven’t caused any bother, Poppy. I’m very proud of you.” She reached out her hand to her wheelchair-bound friend. Dot took it and squeezed.
“We both are,” continued Grace. “You’re doing what we could only have dreamed of doing when we were your age.”
Dot looked at Poppy intently, her blue eyes awash with concern. “Are you sure you’re all right after what happened yesterday? It must have been quite a shock to witness such a thing on your first day.” She patted the window seat beside her. “Take a seat, darling.”
Poppy sat down heavily. “Yes, it certainly was a shock.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even know Mr Isaacs, but seeing him that way was… awful.”
Dot took Poppy’s hand and squeezed it warmly. Poppy smiled gratefully. “But I’m fine, really, Aunt Dot.” She released her grip from Dot’s hand and flexed her fingers. “It’s made me more determined to see his story through.” She looked at Grace then Dot, wondering if she dared stoke the fire further. But she didn’t have a choice, not if she wanted to do the story – and Bert – justice. She took a deep breath and asked as nonchalantly as possible: “So… what can you tell me about Melvyn Dorchester?”
Dot looked up at Grace. “Can I tell her? Is it all right?”
Grace nodded and took a seat.
Poppy, positioned between the two women, suppressed the urge to take out her notebook.
“I think we need to see the photograph and the medal, please, Grace,” said Dot.
Grace got up, went to the sideboard and returned with the artefacts. Dot put on a pair of pince-nez.
“This was taken in 1909. There’s the WSPU banner and our motto –”
“‘Deeds not words’. It’s on Emily’s grave,” observed Poppy.
“That’s right. But she was alive and well here. And there’s Emmeline and her daughter Christabel. I think Sylvia took the photograph.”
“She did,” confirmed Grace.
“And there’s Frank and, of course, Grace.”
“And you,” Poppy added.
“Yes, and me, pet.” Aunt Dot smiled wistfully as she looked at the younger, slimmer, more mobile version of herself wearing the white suffragist uniform.
“I don’t remember who that other man is. Do you, Grace? The one at the back?”
“A friend of Sophie’s, I think. He wasn’t one of us; he just slipped in for the photograph. He was a journalist. Jewish.”
Poppy’s curiosity was piqued. She took the photograph and stared at the man partly obscured by the banner. Could it possibly be a younger, slimmer version of Bert Isaacs? All she could remember of him was
his dead eyes and his overhanging belly. She made a mental note to ask if she could take the photograph with her to show Daniel and Rollo. But for now she gave it back to Aunt Dot, who held it like a child on her lap.
“Now, the rest of them we do know. We were called the Chelsea Six. We should have been the Chelsea Seven, but people forgot to count poor Frank.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Grace, and Poppy made another mental note to finally get around to finding out what happened to “poor Frank”. As far as she knew he was still alive. She wasn’t sure whether he and Grace were divorced or just separated.
“Well, moving on,” said Aunt Dot with forced brightness. “The Chelsea Six. It was Maud Dorchester who brought us together. There she is there. She was Irish with the most beautiful auburn hair. A great fan of the theatre. She and I met back in 1905 – at a reception after Midsummer Night’s Dream, in fact! Did I ever tell you –”
“Dorothy, you digress.”
“Indeed I do. But I must link up with Robert again. Perhaps we can go to Delilah’s opening night…”
“I have tickets,” Poppy added.
“You do? Splendid!”
“Dorothy!”
“Sorry. Yes, Maud O’Sullivan, or Lady Maud Dorchester as she became, was a good friend of Emmeline Pankhurst. And she also knew Frank.”
“He was Dorchester’s accountant,” contributed Grace. “Well, we both were, but he was the one ‘on the books’, so to speak.”
“If Dorchester had found out that a woman was managing his finances he would have gone through the roof,” Dot exclaimed with a chuckle.
“Well, he did. But that was later. Carry on with the story, Dorothy. I’m sure Poppy has got better things to do than listen to two old ladies like us.”
“Oh, I’ve nothing better to do,” said Poppy in all seriousness. “Do carry on, Aunt Dot.”
“Well, Maud was already sympathetic to the feminist cause – she’d read Mary Wollstonecraft and had even wanted to become a doctor. But her father, an Irish peer, had put his foot down and married her off to Melvyn Dorchester. She did the usual: got married, had children, supported her husband in his political career; but when the children were in their teens and the boy was off at Eton, she had more time on her hands and started going out. She met Emmeline and became a card-carrying member of the WSPU. There’s a lot more to it of who met whom when, but to cut to the chase, Maud recruited Grace and Frank and her daughter Elizabeth too.”
Dot pointed to a beautiful, full-figured young woman in her early twenties, whom Poppy recognized as an older version of the teenage girl in the painting. She put her finger on the photographic image and pointed to Elizabeth.
“What happened to her, Aunt Dot? I heard she became ill.”
“She did. I’ll get to that in a minute. So, where were we? Ah yes, Maud recruited first Grace and Frank and then Elizabeth. Soon afterwards I joined. And then I recruited Gloria Marconi.” Dot pointed to an Italian-looking woman with long black hair under a felt hat. “She was an actress who married the nephew of the famous Guglielmo Marconi, the head of the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company. He’s just about to launch a public radio service too! Apparently he needs voices. Delilah told me all about it! I think I might audition… What do you think, Poppy?”
“Dorothy!” Grace reprimanded. “Oh, you’re incorrigible. Let me finish the tale.”
Dot squinted through her pince-nez at her friend and sniffed. “Oh, all right. If you must.”
Grace pushed back a strand of hair that had strayed onto her forehead and slicked it down as smoothly as the rest. “So now we have Maud, Elizabeth, Frank and me, Dot and Gloria. The final member of the cell – because that’s what we were; a political cell of the Women’s Social and Political Union based here in Chelsea and operating from this house – was Sophie Blackburn.” She pointed to a plump, sensible looking young woman in her early twenties with hair pulled back into a bun. “Sophie was a friend of Elizabeth’s. She, like Maud, had wanted to be a doctor but ended up working as a nurse. She was with us for just a couple of years before she left for Belgium. She joined Marie Curie and her daughter, and helped them with their mobile X-ray wagons travelling around the battlefields. We haven’t heard from her since 1914 but believe she’s still with Madame Curie in Paris.”
Poppy’s ears pricked up again at the mention of Marie Curie and X-ray machines. She made another mental note.
“So there you have it. The Chelsea Six, excluding Frank, were Maud, Elizabeth, Grace, Dorothy, Gloria and Sophie. If you read press clippings of the time you’ll discover we were quite famous. We initiated a number of campaigns, including the chaining of some of the sisters to the railings outside 10 Downing Street. Elizabeth was at the forefront of that. Her father went ballistic.”
“And took it out on her mother,” said Dot darkly.
“Yes, he could be – how should I put it? – a traditional husband; not scared of disciplining his wayward wife.”
“He was a brute,” added Dot. “We had to take Maud in after the worst of the beatings. Sophie nursed her back to health. We would have taken Elizabeth too, but Dorchester locked her up.”
“Oh?” Poppy’s ears pricked again.
“He wouldn’t let her out of the house. She managed to escape a few times though. She got out on the day of the Epsom Derby. When poor Emily was killed. She was involved in the demonstrations soon afterwards – she bombed a pavilion at Lord’s – and got sent to Holloway. The poor girl was force-fed. Drove her mad. She lost her mind and we’ve never seen her since.”
“Where is she now?”
“A mental hospital in Battersea.”
Poppy made another mental note. “And Maud?”
“She died the year before: 1912. We all agreed that it wasn’t safe for her to stay in London. She decided to go to America to help the sisters in New York. She tried to get Elizabeth to go with her, but wasn’t able to. She died on the Titanic.”
Dot’s eyes welled up and Grace passed her a handkerchief. “And then –”
“And then Gloria was killed too,” Grace finished for her. “She was in Holloway with Elizabeth. They were released at the same time under the Cat and Mouse Act. But like Elizabeth, she seemed to have lost her mind.”
“She threw herself under a train,” Dot whispered.
“Dear God. That’s poor Delilah’s mother,” said Poppy and felt tears welling up. She composed herself and asked, “But what has all this to do with Dorchester?”
“Apart from his beating his wife and locking up his daughter?” asked Grace.
“Yes, apart from that. There’s more, isn’t there?”
Grace nodded. “There is. Your aunt’s so-called accident. It was 1910 – 18th November to be exact. And Asquith, the prime minister at the time, had dragged his heels on some very important legislation that he had promised to bring before the House – the Conciliation Bill. It would have given the vote to certain propertied women. Not the universal suffrage we wanted, but it was a start. But Asquith pussyfooted around so much they never got to it before parliament shut down for the season – and it would have been too late for the next General Election. Emmeline was furious. Asquith had given her a personal assurance that the bill would be presented; so she went into Westminster to confront him.”
“In the meantime,” continued Dot, “about three hundred of us sisters –”
“And some brothers –”
“Yes, some men too, congregated outside. The police set up a cordon to keep us out. We pushed. They pushed back. Then all hell broke loose.”
“It was brutal,” continued Grace. “They called it Bloody Friday. There were pictures in the press of women being beaten. They were manhandled – intimately too. Some people were seriously injured. One of the sisters –”
“Ellen Pitfield, God rest her soul,” Dorothy added solemnly.
“– died later of her injuries. She was injured at the same time as your aunt. At least a dozen witnesses saw
a policeman deliberately ride his horse into a crowd. Ellen was crushed by people trying to get away. And your aunt – your aunt –”
Dot took her friend’s hand. “I was crushed under the hooves, pet.” She held up a medal and showed Poppy. Her hands were shaking. “I was awarded this for conspicuous bravery by the WSPU.”
Grace was openly weeping now. “You were more than brave, Dorothy. And that bastard has never been tried.”
“The policeman?” Poppy asked, incredulous.
“PC Richard Easling. Yes, him – and Dorchester. Maud told us that he had boasted to her that he had bribed some police officers to target her and her friends on Black Friday. But we never had any proof. There was nothing written down. He was too clever for that.”
Poppy thought about the man she had met that morning and did not have to stretch her imagination too far to see him orchestrating an act of brutality against anyone who opposed him. She was just about to tell Dot and Grace what Rollo had told her – that he intended to get to the bottom of the allegations about Dorchester instigating strong-arm tactics against the suffragettes – when the doorbell rang.
Grace went to answer and a moment later Delilah Marconi skipped into the room looking as fashionable and exotic as ever. She was carrying a dress bag.
“Oh, there you are, Poppy! Just the girl I wanted to see.”
CHAPTER 11
“Oh, Poppy! You look absolutely divine.”
Poppy stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom and stared at her reflection in disbelief. She was wearing a sleeveless shift dress in sheer red satin with a Vandyke hem that brushed the top of her knees and revealed lines of tantalizing flesh between the fingers of fabric. The shift was overlaid with navy blue lace and cobalt blue beads appliquéd in abstract swirls. On her feet she wore red satin shoes with Cuban heels, and a matching evening bag with beads and tassels was slung over one shoulder. The bag was only just big enough to contain a small make-up compact, a tube of bright red lipstick and a comb, as well as a small purse. Poppy doubted she’d need to use the comb, as her mass of curls had been trimmed into a bob – with a pair of scissors that Delilah produced like a genie out of a bottle – and tamed by a red satin hairband with a paste ruby and feather brooch.
The Jazz Files Page 8