by Ann Harries
Miss Griffen quivered. Though utterly prepared to do Emily’s bidding in the realm of the written word, she did not care to read aloud important documents, being unable to pronounce her r’s adequately, an impediment which tended to diminish the importance of what she was saying.
‘Oh, let me do it, Miss Hobhouse,’ intervened Sophie, who not only enjoyed reading aloud but had recently made some very rousing speeches in the village halls of Cumberland and Lancashire during a few days off from her nursing. ‘Poor Miss Griffen still has a sore throat.’
‘Very well then.’ Miss Hobhouse ticked something off on a list, then looked up at the young nurse and smiled playfully. ‘Stand up and pretend you’re addressing thousands of females from the stage of the Queen’s Hall.’
Sophie leapt to her feet, swinging her red pelisse round her shoulders. ‘Resolution one!’ she bellowed. ‘That this meeting of women brought together from all parts of the United Kingdom condemns the unhappy war now raging in South Africa as mainly due to the bad policy of the Government, a policy which has already cost in killed, wounded and missing over twenty thousand of our bravest soldiers, and the expenditure of millions of money drawn from the savings and toil of our people, while to the two small States with whom we are at war, it is bringing utter ruin and desolation.’
‘Oh vewy well done!’ exclaimed Miss Griffen, clapping her hands in excitement. ‘I hope Mrs Scott will do it as well as you.’
‘I do think the word sick should be added to the list of epithets describing the twenty thousand soldiers,’ said Sophie in her normal voice. ‘Going by what my friend Sarah tells me most of the soldiers are ill or dying with enteric.’
‘Yes, of course it must,’ said Miss Hobhouse. ‘What an interesting person your friend sounds, Sophie.’ A furious thumping in the ceiling made her look up. ‘Oh dear, there’s Mr Somerset-Glance again – see what your oratory has done. Is it so very late?’ She glanced at the grandfather clock which used to tick resonantly in the vicarage entrance hall. ‘Good heavens, it’s well after nine. We must eat at once. Let’s clear these papers from the table and have a little cold mutton. I don’t think there’s much more than that.’
‘Mrs Potter stopped me on the stairs this evening,’ said Sophie as she helped clear the table of its load of paperwork. ‘She asked, very severely, whether you had permission from the council to change your flat into an office for pro-Boer agitation. I told her once again that we were pro-Britain and anti-war, not pro-Boer. She growled and said it came to the same thing.’
‘I can never see Mrs Potter without thinking of the housekeeper in Bleak House, I forget her name – the one who looks as if her stays are made from the family fire grate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile.’ Emily spread a cloth over the table. ‘Now, shall I make tea or coffee or both?’
‘Just before we eat, dear,’ said Miss Griffen sweetly, ‘I’d like to raise a point about the resolutions.’
‘Not the kaffirs again,’ frowned Emily. When Griffy rolled her r’s, one could expect obstinacy.
‘I wondered if you’d read the account in the Pall Mall gazette yesterday about the starving Barolong people in Mafeking. It is really a heart-rending story and throws quite a different light on Baden-Powell.’ Miss Griffen, a firm supporter of the Aboriginal Movement, looked hopefully at Emily.
‘Ah, yes, the black-skinned inhabitants of Mafeking, made to fight the white man’s war,’ said Sophie. She had spoken about these very people in her most recent speech.
‘Sophie’s quite right, though other tribal people have moved there too. There are far more blacks than whites in Mafeking, you know.’ So pleasant and light was Miss Griffen’s voice she might have been giving a recipe for roly-poly pudding or telling a story about her darling nephew’s new toy elephant on wheels. ‘B-P got the Barolong to dig a four-mile trench all round Mafeking, and then armed three hundred of them to help defend the citadel, as it were – much to the annoyance of General Cronje of Paardeberg fame. He sent B-P a letter reminding him that it is supposed to be a white man’s war, you know,’ she added with a melancholy smile. Sophie’s stomach rumbled. ‘Now B-P is trying to stretch out the rations for the white citizens – the siege has been going on for six months as we are constantly reminded – so now there is to be no meat and veg for the Barolong, only oat husks. As a result they have resorted to digging up dead dogs and horses and eating them.’ Griffy’s eyes were as round as her little spectacles. ‘It’s all in the gazette. Have a look, dear.’
Emily took the journal reluctantly but was at once startled by a cartoon of ragged, dark skeletons standing in a queue before a pot of porridge. Baden-Powell, a wild-eyed, savage giant, loomed behind the pot, brandishing a small teaspoon. Please, sir, can I have some more? she read aloud, her voice shaking. Then: Words could not describe the scene of misery; five or six hundred frameworks of both sexes and all ages dressed in tattered rags, standing in lines, each holding an old blackened can or beef tin, awaiting turn to crawl painfully up to the soup kitchen where the food was distributed’. She put down the gazette. ‘This wicked war!’ she exclaimed in distress. ‘Why should innocent people have to starve for the sins of Whitehall?’
‘But we can do something about it!’ Miss Griffen’s voice was tremulous. ‘We can adopt a fifth resolution at the meeting that would express concern for the fate of the indigenous peoples of South Africa who are clearly being exploited and ill-treated by both the Boers and the British.’
A pause followed this outburst. Emily wiped away a tear that had grown cold on her cheek. ‘I absolutely understand your concern,’ she said gently. ‘I feel it myself, you know that. But we cannot lose the focus of the meeting, which I need not remind you is the annexation of the Orange Free State to the British Empire. Some would regard annexation as actually giving upliftment to the natives, who have welcomed the British as their liberators. They are expecting to be granted a qualified franchise as a reward for their support, but we suspect – we know – otherwise, with good reason. Leonard is quite sure of this. But to raise the question of black exploitation and maltreatment, especially at the hands of the hero of the day, would not do our cause any good. You must bring the matter up with your Aboriginal Committee. They have a stronger voice than we do in these matters. Now let’s see what I can find in the pantry.’
While Emily clattered in the kitchen Sophie whispered to Miss Griffen ‘Good try, Griffy. But don’t you think she’s overdoing things – I mean, only allowing women she has personally invited to come to the meeting? It’s taking forever and I don’t see how we’ll fill the hall at this rate. I know we’ve still got two months, but I’m worried.’
‘But Emily is determined there will be no troublemakers or hecklers. The will of the women must be expwessed with dignity.’ Griffy shot an anxious look towards the kitchen. ‘No fish heads and wotten tomatoes, or women shouting insults.’
‘Here we are.’ Emily emerged with a tray of bread, meat and pickles. ‘This will keep us going, don’t you think?’
Miss Griffen tried not to think of the starving Barolong as she made herself a rather delicious mutton sandwich. Perhaps she should introduce a campaign of fasting in sympathy with those poor people; if only she had the energy and initiative of dear Miss Hobhouse.
Two hours later the helpers were asleep in the spare room. Emily, still fired with energy, searched for a newspaper report she had put aside a week or two ago. She really must get Griffy to help with the filing tomorrow; papers were lying in piles all over the place. Perhaps she should visit the market and buy a good second-hand filing cabinet. Now that her flat had become a campaign headquarters she might as well turn the sitting room into an office, specially as Mrs Rouncewell – that was the name – already believed the transformation had taken place.
Emily began to pick her way through copies of the Manchester Guardian which contained reports on South Africa by her brother. No luck. In the bottom drawer of her bedroom dressing table was another load of cutti
ngs; probably the report she wanted had got mixed up with these. Kneeling on the carpet, she began going through the papers one by one. Then gasped. Her heart, which had been beating as steadily as the grandfather clock in the sitting room, suddenly broke into painful syncopated rhythms. Under the pile lay a yellowed cutting she thought she’d thrown away three years ago. ‘Throw it away now’ she ordered herself, as her heart lurched. But even as she withdrew the cutting from the drawer she was reading it again, although she knew the contents by heart.
Virginia News, 8 April 1897
Without a handshake or a parting word, Mayor Jackson stepped on to the Duluth and Iron Range train last Monday morning and as he watched our city recede from sight he soliloquised: ‘Virginians, I leave you! The parting gives me pain, but if I tarry at thy threshold, methinks it would not be wise, therefore I go. Adieu.’
His hasty departure has caused much comment, but we are informed this was due to a telegram which he received Saturday night requesting him to be in Chicago Tuesday morning. There, it was said, he was to meet Miss Hobhouse. A ceremony was to have followed which would make them man and wife. They were to leave immediately for Mexico where Mr Jackson has a position awaiting him.’
Mexico! Her darkened flat filled up with dazzling sunshine and the perfume of tropical flowers. She was in the Plaza del Domino where raven-haired women in mantillas peered over ivory fans as they clattered past in their carriages drawn by Arab steeds; exquisitely dressed young men, avid for attention, reared up on their horses among fountains and arcades … And now she was floating, in the company of three thousand Mexican guests, up a flight of stairs carved from marble, past balconies dripping with bougainvillea – and there, on the banqueting terrace stood the president of Mexico himself, with a thousand beautiful servants ready to distribute champagne (not for me, thanks. A little lemonade, perhaps?). She looked out on the snow-capped peaks surrounding the city; inhaled the intoxicating scent of jasmine; heard the sensual strum of guitars … What joy! And soon she would be married. He had not met her train when she arrived with bridesmaid and wedding dress – but the cake had been ordered and the bridesmaid fitted. Day by day, day by endless day, she awaited word from him in the post …
With a cry Miss Hobhouse slammed shut the drawer. She crumpled the cutting in her hand. The embers of the fire still glowed in the grate; the paper flared briefly, then collapsed into ash as she watched. ‘Gone forever!’ she exclaimed out loud.
And look, there was the Manchester Guardian with the article about women’s protest groups in the Cape Colony peering out from under a cushion. She grasped it, and felt an instant joyous union with those sisters in South Africa who fought for the same ideals as she. What wonderful women! Pray God she would meet them in the flesh some day. She would write a letter of support to Mrs Fourie immediately.
Bloemfontein Hospital, April
Every afternoon from two till four the female nurses are relieved of their duties so that the men can pollute the air with their manly language, unfit for women’s ears. Patch chooses to totter to the wicker chair during this time (aided by Orderly Jones), and light up with his new friend.
One afternoon, a couple of weeks after his first journey, he finds himself more or less alone among the chairs, his friend having moved on to a rehabilitation centre on the other side of town. The hospital tents gleam in the afternoon sunshine. He stretches out his legs and rolls a cigarette. In the morning, Orderly Jones had given him a shave and, as the cutthroat blade had skimmed over his soapy skin, he had felt his health tentatively return. This is how your soul must feel after confession, all fresh and smooth and shiny, the sins all washed away by penance and contrition. Jones had fiddled longer than necessary round Patch’s jaw when it came to the cleaning up and he’d outlined a handlebar with his index finger all round Patch’s upper lip in an attempt to persuade him of the necessity of a moustache, but Patch preferred the clean-shaven look.
‘This is the life,’ he thinks, blowing a haze of smoke around his head. Then, in the middle of the haze, she appears, fixing him with those serious brown eyes.
‘Do you mind if I sit next to you for a while, Private Donnelly. No, don’t stand up.’
He is overcome with embarrassment. He cannot find the right words.
‘You seemed very happy to receive your letter the other day.’ She shakes her head and smiles shyly. ‘May I ask you who Bill is?’
‘Bill.’ His face is shining. ‘Bill saved my life. Even though I’m a Papist.’ He manages a laugh. ‘I’d be a goner but for him.’
‘I could tell it was someone special. Was it on the battlefield?’ It was. He tells her the whole story in a rush, Orange marches and all.
‘It’s amazing how fate brings people together,’ she says. He nods, looking at her sideways, wondering what’s coming next.
‘There’s something I want to ask you,’ she adds, after a few moments’ silence.
He panics. It’s the phoney Irish brogue. She wants to know why he spoke to her with a Dublin accent when they first met in the Rondebosch hospital. How can he explain to her that his lowly origins are stamped on every word he says when he speaks normally? Her own voice is so upper class, just like the officers’, but without sounding snooty.
‘Go ahead,’ he says nonchalantly. He blows a smoke ring.
‘What was it like on Robben Island?’ Her face is full of sympathetic interest. ‘I believe you were working with the lepers there.’
He jumps, as if she has fired a bullet into his heart. She hears him gasp.
‘I’m so sorry if I’ve upset you.’ She backs away from him, her eyes registering distress. ‘I’ll go if you’d prefer.’
‘No!’ The word blares out. He looks at the tents on the hill, so perfectly drawn up in neat lines; up, down, across, zigzag, typical army discipline. Unexpectedly it calms him, and places a grid of order over his swirling thoughts.
He looks into her eyes and tells her everything. It is as if a plug has been pulled from a dam of emotion he scarcely knew existed. He starts from his earliest days: how he was dumped at the orphanage with only a rosary from his mother; the beatings; how he was never made an altar boy; right up to the Island. She regards him with profound seriousness throughout. She does not say a word, though at one point she fleetingly touches his hand, to soothe. After an hour he looks away and smiles. ‘That’s the lot.’
Phew, that was better than Confession any day, with an old priest behind a grid, not even listening properly. But her compassion has in some way absolved him of his past, as if a burden of mortal sins has melted away. He feels lightheaded.
At this point the four o’clock bugle sounds. She cannot draw her eyes from his. ‘I have to go back to the marquee. Thank you for telling me this. We must speak of it again.’ Their eyes meet. ‘My name is Sarah.’
She has presented him with a priceless gift. He swallows. ‘Most people call me Patch.’
‘Patch,’ she murmurs. The intensity of eye contact can be more sensual than physical touch. ‘Patch,’ she says again. She puffs the word out from her lips. Then she turns and glides away, in that way of walking she has.
On her way back to her bell-tent where she plans to spend half an hour thinking about this exchange, she is stopped by Mrs Mopeli who is passing by. Mrs Mopeli takes in washing from the tin hut ward, and is able to speak good English, having been partly educated in an English missionary school. On occasion she adorns the lower half of her body with red, white and blue stripes, which cling to her backside like a patriotic spider.
Mrs Mopeli likes to talk about England, which she regards as a fabled land, the very heart of civilisation, where everyone lives in peace and harmony under the gracious reign of a benign monarch. She can sing ‘God Save the Queen’ perfectly, a skill which she now demonstrates to Sarah, even though an exceptionally large basket of laundry is balanced upon her head and a small baby is tied to her back by a blanket.
‘Goodness me!’ cries Sarah in admiration, for the
rendition has been filled with a dramatic intensity which suggests that God is receiving orders from a woman whose overflowing head basket has assumed the qualities of a gigantic crown. ‘That is very impressive, Mrs Mopeli. I see that you have a great respect for the British race.’
‘Britain, she will give back the land to our people,’ replies the washerwoman who has learnt her admiration for the Empire at the missionary school. ‘Those Boers do not treat us like human beings. They think we must jump off the pavements when they walk past. They think we are first cousin to the baboon. They whip us with their sjamboks if we displease them!’ (Here, to Sarah’s alarm, Mrs Mopeli’s body writhes as if the leather thongs of the whip in question were already slashing across her back, yet the washing basket remains perfectly poised upon her head and the infant sleeps on.) ‘But the British!’ Mrs Mopeli’s eyes grow misty. ‘The British will give us our freedom. We burnt our passes when the British came.’ She sighs with pleasure. ‘Yes, when the British came to Bloemfontein we burnt our passes and we waved the Union Jack! And when this war is over our men can vote just like the white men.’ Mrs Mopeli slaps her thighs in case her patriotic attire had not been noted by this representative of the Mother Country.
‘I am so glad you think highly of us,’ returns Sarah, who nevertheless feels a spasm of anxiety. ‘The British certainly could not conduct this war without your help.’
And nodding pleasantly to the smiling washerwoman Sarah hurries on towards the bell tent, where she takes out her diary:
8 April 1900
I feel I have a whole aviary of songbirds in my heart; their trilling floods through my entire system and fills me with a happiness never known to me before.
Yet I am only too aware that none of this makes sense. I am reminded of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – perhaps a Puck-like creature has poured a love potion into my eyes and madness has set in. Lord, what fools these mortals be...