‘There’s a job for just one of you,’ Lady Lee glanced from Isobel to Florrie and back again. ‘We want you to attack paintings in the National Gallery.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Florrie said at once. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘Take a sharp knife hidden in your reticule and don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t wear our colours – not even your brooch on this occasion, my dear – or it’s likely you won’t get beyond the door.’
Florrie nodded, her eyes afire with excitement. At last, she was being allowed to do something on her own without Isobel to nursemaid her.
She dressed with care in demure white, with a broad-brimmed hat decorated with white ostrich feathers. In her silk reticule she carried a sharp, pointed knife. Her heart was beating fast as she passed through the door of the gallery and wandered through the rooms, looking pure and innocent in her white gown.
She chose the room where there were several large paintings and sat down on a seat in the centre of the room, pretending to rest whilst she admired the works of art. In truth, she was waiting until she was alone.
Her heart beat even faster and bile rose in her throat as, slowly, she withdrew the knife, stood up and strode towards one of the pictures. She raised her knife and slashed at the canvas – once, twice, three times – before a cry behind her made her turn to see one of the gallery’s officials running towards her.
‘Hey, stop that!’
She turned to face him, the knife pointing threateningly at him. The man stopped a few feet from her and held out his hands. ‘Now then, lady, no need for that. I ain’t goin’ to hurt you.’
‘And I’m not going to hurt you. We don’t hurt people, just – things.’ She lowered the knife.
His face cleared. ‘Oh, you’re one of them suffragettes, are you?’ He paused and looked her up and down, but not in an offensive manner. ‘You’re far too pretty, love, to be involved with them mad women.’
‘We’re not mad. We’re just determined to get the vote.’
‘Women voting? You are mad. It’ll never happen . . .’ At that moment, another official came running into the room followed by a policeman. The first man held out his hand warningly. ‘She’s got a knife.’
‘I told you – I’m not going to hurt anyone.’ She held out the knife, turning it in her gloved hand so that she held the blade and the handle was towards her captors. The constable inched forward, his gaze fixed on the knife. Gingerly, he took it from her grasp. ‘Now then, miss, you’d best come quietly.’
Florrie bestowed her most winning smile on him. ‘Gladly, officer.’
When Florrie didn’t return home that afternoon, Isobel, who’d waited nervously all day, hurried round to Lady Lee’s. Timothy was at home too.
‘She’s not come back. Do you think she’s been arrested?’
‘I’ll find out,’ Timothy said at once. He kissed his fiancee’s cheek hurriedly and squeezed her hands. ‘You stay here with Mother. Try not to worry . . .’ And he was gone.
The two women sat in silence, but now and then they paced the room agitatedly. ‘I should never have let her do it,’ Isobel moaned. ‘Gervase will kill me.’
‘That girl has a mind of her own. She’s only young, but she’s strong and determined,’ Lady Lee declared, confidence and admiration in her tone. ‘We’ll get the vote – I don’t know when – but with her sort on our side, we’ll get it one day.’
It was two hours before Timothy returned. Two hours in which Isobel had gone through all sorts of horrors in her mind, imagining what might have happened to her friend.
‘She was caught slashing a painting in the National Gallery. I presume you two both knew about this?’ He eyed them suspiciously, but then continued without waiting for an answer. ‘She’s been arrested and will appear in court tomorrow.’
‘We’ll be there,’ both women chorused.
The following morning, the three of them took a hansom cab to the courtroom and were seated in the gallery when Florrie was brought up from the cells. She glanced around and caught sight of them, smiled and waved.
‘She – she looks all right,’ Isobel murmured.
Lady Lee laughed softly. ‘She’s positively glowing. I think this is what she’s been wanting. To be arrested and have her day in court.’
The court procedure commenced, and at last the moment came when Florrie was asked if she’d anything to say for herself.
She smiled up at the magistrate and said, ‘Indeed I do, Your Worship. I’m truly sorry for damaging a valuable painting—’
Shocked, Isobel drew in a breath. Was Florrie so easily cowed? She’d never have believed it. But the girl’s next words swept away any doubts.
‘But my action was regrettably necessary,’ Florrie went on. ‘Until the right to vote has been granted to women – all women – we shall continue to commit whatever acts we deem appropriate to bring this about.’
The magistrate (for once a benevolent gentleman) looked at her over the top of his spectacles. ‘And do you think,’ he said in a sonorous tone, ‘that such acts as the one perpetrated by you yesterday, and other outrages against property and possessions, are going to get you the vote?’
‘We’ve tried peaceful tactics and they haven’t worked. We’ve been driven to this.’
‘Don’t you think this sort of militant action will damage your Cause rather than help to further it?’
In the gallery, Lady Lee gripped Isobel’s arm and whispered, ‘If only it was Mrs Pankhurst standing there. This is the first time I’ve ever known a magistrate at least show an interest, if not exactly sympathy. If only it wasn’t Florrie there. She’s far too young to be able to put our case across effectively.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Isobel murmured. ‘She’s not doing too badly.’
The girl was still speaking, holding the courtroom in thrall. Even the hard-hearted police officers standing around the room were at least listening to her words.
‘We’re in the twentieth century now. It is a time of change and a time for change. All men and women should be allowed to have a say in matters which affect their lives. Women are going to university, gaining degrees, becoming doctors and scientists and teachers. Do you really think they should not be given the vote? And women who are landowners – they pay taxes just like the men, so why shouldn’t they have some say in how their money is used by the government?’
‘What about the mass of uneducated women who wouldn’t know what they were voting for?’ the magistrate countered. ‘There are still a great many who can neither read nor write.’
‘He’s really a most unusual man,’ Lady Lee murmured.
Florrie was smiling impishly at him, ‘Your Worship, they only have to put a cross to vote.’
The court erupted in laughter, and in the gallery Lady Lee, Isobel and Timothy cheered loudly. Even the magistrate covered his mouth with his hand, but his eyes sparkled with amusement. As the noise died down, he said soberly, ‘The fact remains that you have committed a wilful act of destruction and I have no choice but to send you to prison for a term of twenty-eight days.’
There was a murmur around the courtroom and a shuffling as the onlookers believed that to be the end of the matter, but the magistrate wasn’t finished yet. ‘And a fine of fifty pounds towards the cost of the restoration of the painting by an expert.’
Then he rose and left the court, whilst a warder grabbed Florrie by the arm and led her down the steps back to the cells, but not before she’d given a cheery wave to her three friends in the gallery.
‘Well, it could have been a lot worse,’ Lady Lee said as they arrived back home and she rang the bell in her morning room for tea to be served.
‘It’s bad enough.’ Isobel was still anxious. ‘Gervase will get to hear of it for sure. Florrie’s “speech” will make headlines.’
‘Wasn’t it splendid? And from one so young too. Oh, she’ll deserve our medal when she comes out, for there’s no doubt she’ll go on hunger strike.’
/> ‘Oh, don’t,’ Isobel groaned and covered her face.
Eleven
It was dark by the time Florrie was led from the cell and pushed roughly into the prison van, along with three other suffragettes arrested and sentenced on the same day. A small crowd had waited outside the court and pressed forward as the four women appeared.
A voice rang through the night air. ‘Take heart, girl. Be strong.’
‘Thank you . . .’ Florrie tried to shout back, but her voice was only a whisper and, before she could say more, she was in the vehicle and being shoved into a tiny compartment, locked away from the others. The vehicle bumped over the rough road and Florrie was thrown from side to side. By the time it stopped outside the ominous high walls of Holloway women’s prison, she felt battered and bruised. The prisoners were led along cold, dimly lit corridors, through heavy doors that clanged shut behind them with a terrifying finality. The four women were shut in a cubicle together. There was nowhere to sit, nowhere to lie down except on the stone floor. They squatted against the wall, huddling together for warmth.
‘What will happen to us?’ Florrie murmured.
‘This your first time, dear?’ The woman next to her spoke kindly.
‘Yes,’ Florrie answered, trying to keep her voice steady.
The woman put her arm about Florrie and drew her close. ‘All new to you, ducks, is it? Well, they’ll leave us here till morning, by which time they hope the damp and the cold will have broken our spirit and made us see the error of our ways.’ She chuckled. ‘No chance of that, I’m afraid. We’re all old hands at this game. It isn’t pleasant, dear. I won’t lie to you. But our sufferings won’t go unnoticed. You can bank on those outside to see to that.’ The woman ran her fingers gently along Florrie’s cheek. ‘You’re very young, my dear, and far too lovely to be in this awful place. Who are you with?’
‘How – how do you mean?’
‘Who introduced you to the Cause?’
Florrie hesitated. She wasn’t sure whether it was wise to give names to strangers. This was such an alien world to her. She was no longer sure what was right or wrong. If anyone had told her only a few months ago that she’d have taken part in an act of violence, she’d have told them they’d lost their senses. Yet now, here she was in prison for having committed a criminal act.
‘A friend, I. . .’ She hesitated again.
The woman’s chuckle came out of the darkness. ‘It’s all right. You’re among friends. They haven’t yet thought of planting spies amongst us.’ She laughed again and the other women joined in. ‘They’re very slow – these men.’
‘I think I know you.’ One of the other women spoke up for the first time. ‘You’re with Lady Leonora and Isobel Richards, aren’t you?’
There was no point in trying to hold back the truth now. ‘Yes – yes, I am.’
‘I saw you at one of Lady Lee’s meetings a few—’
What more she might have said, Florrie didn’t know and was never to know, for at that moment the door was opened with a rattle of keys and a wardress shouted for them to come out. They stumbled after her, their limbs cramped and cold, as she led them to a room where a doctor waited to give them a cursory examination and pronounce them fit enough for their sentence to be carried out. Then they were led to a room where they were made to discard all their own clothes and dress in a rough cotton chemise. Their clothing and belongings were handed to an officer and carried away. For the next few hours they were harried and pushed here and there. There was another examination by an officer, this time more of a bodily search than for medical reasons. They were taken to the dingy bathroom and told to step into almost cold water and then dress in some clothing heaped on the floor. Shivering, the four women sorted through the coarse green garments, picking out chemises and drawers, skirts and bodices and thick woollen stockings. Most of the items, drab and shapeless, were marked with arrows. There was no escaping where they were and what they were. Next they scrambled for shoes, but amongst the heap, Florrie couldn’t find a matching pair. One shoe pinched her toes; the other – far too big – flapped as she walked.
‘Be quick!’ the wardress snapped. ‘You’re not going to a garden party at the Palace.’
Lastly, they were each given a white cap, which tied with strings under the chin, an apron and a handkerchief. Then the four prisoners were marched through the forbidding building, through heavy doors and along dismal corridors to the cells. Provided with a Bible and a hymn book, Florrie was at last alone in her cell. The room, about seven feet by five, had a stone floor and a tiny barred window near the ceiling that would give little light even in the daytime. But there was a gas light, behind a pane of glass in an opening in the wall, which was lit from the corridor.
Resting against the wall was a plank bed, which was lowered to the floor at night. The mattress and blankets were rolled up in one corner, with a pillow and a small, almost threadbare towel on top. There was a small tin washbasin, a slop pail, a dustpan and brush and a stool. On the table beneath the gas light was a well-used wooden spoon, a pint-sized tin vessel, a tin plate, a piece of hard soap and a small scrubbing brush, a comb and some cards listing the prison rules and prayers. Florrie glanced about her, taking in the grim place that was to be her ‘home’ for the next four weeks. The last thing she noticed was a prisoner’s badge: a circle of yellow cloth with the number of the cell – fourteen – printed on it.
‘Make your bed quickly,’ had been the last words the wardress said to her. ‘Lights out in ten minutes.’
Florrie moved stiffly to the plank bed and pulled it down into position, then unrolled the mattress and laid it on top of the rough boards. She was reaching for the blankets when the cell was plunged into darkness.
‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘I’m not ready. Put that light back on.’
But, of course, there was no response.
Feeling about in the blackness, she managed to make the bed after a fashion and almost laughed aloud to think that the first bed she’d ever made for herself was in Holloway jail! The surge of amusement raised her spirits and she huddled, fully clothed, on the hard mattress, with a lingering smile on her lips. Surprisingly, sleep claimed her at once and she slept soundly through the night until the early-morning banging on the door of her cell woke her.
Florrie refused to eat from the very first day. She left untouched the food that was pushed into her cell, though she drank the water. Days passed – almost two weeks – and then the moment came that she’d been dreading and yet, with some perverse pleasure, welcomed. At last, she would really prove herself to her fellow suffragettes.
She heard the ominous sound of the footsteps of several people coming along the landing. They stopped outside her cell. A key rattled in the lock and the door swung open. She saw the wardresses, four or five of them, and two doctors. One was carrying a long tube with a funnel at one end, the other a jug of liquid. Her heart missed a beat as they all crowded into the cell.
‘One moment.’ The elder of the two doctors spoke in a booming voice. ‘Young woman, you have refused all food and drink, save water, for twelve days now. Do you intend to continue this ridiculous hunger strike?’
Florrie gazed up at him. ‘I do,’ she said quietly and firmly, though her insides trembled at the thought of what her refusal would bring about.
‘Very well then. You leave us no alternative.’ The wardresses advanced towards her. Two grasped her arms and two more her legs. They wrapped a towel around her and dragged her to lie flat on the bed, and held her down. One wardress clamped Florrie’s mouth shut whilst the doctor inserted the end of the tube into her left nostril. Her eyes began to water. The pain was excruciating as the tube was pushed in further and further. She was aware of a burning sensation and her ears felt as if they were going to burst. Pain welled in her chest. But struggling was futile against the six of them.
One of the doctors stood on the stool above her and the other handed him the jug of liquid. ‘It’s a mixture of milk and eg
g, young woman. If you do not value your own life, I am sure there are others who do. We won’t let you die in our custody.’
Florrie made a gurgling noise, longing to shout at him, ‘You stupid old man. I’m young and fit. I could survive for weeks on water alone.’ But she couldn’t speak; she couldn’t say a word in protest. As the liquid was poured into the funnel and down the tube, her right nostril was pinched so that now she had no way of breathing. She began to struggle, feeling she was going to suffocate, but the four wardresses were too strong for her. As she fought for breath, the liquid was sucked up her nose and down her throat.
At last it was over as the tube was withdrawn. The rough hands that had held her down released their grip. Slowly, Florrie sat up, retching and spitting. She felt dizzy and sick and her chest heaved painfully. One of the doctors checked her pulse. He nodded and they all trooped out of the cell, leaving Florrie to fall back on her bed and shed tears of humiliation and remorse at what she felt to be the failure of her hunger strike.
The dreadful force-feeding went on for several days until Florrie was exhausted and in constant pain. She was lying on her bed, where she now spent most of her time, only dimly aware that someone she thought to be one of the doctors was standing over her. There were other figures behind him. Any moment now, it would begin again. She tried to brace herself for the rough handling once more, but she was too weary and dispirited to care. She closed her eyes as she felt a hand on her forehead. But this man’s touch was gentle and the arms that raised her up were strong and caring. And then she heard a voice she knew. No, no, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t be here.
‘How is she?’
‘Not good. We must get her out of here as quickly as possible.’
‘What must I do? Who do I have to see?’
‘Leave it with me. I’ll see my colleagues. You stay here with her, if they’ll let you.’
‘They’ll have to drag me out by force,’ he said. ‘And I might just put up a little more resistance than a defenceless woman.’
Suffragette Girl Page 8