Mrs Bruton looked round. At the same moment the woman turned and Ursula saw it was someone quite different.
‘Fancy mistaking her in that way,’ said Ursula in a light tone. ‘I must learn to look at faces before making an identification. But it was a remarkable hat, and a remarkable afternoon,’ she added.
But Mrs Bruton was securing the attention of a waiter and asking for a jug of water on their table. ‘You always have to ask for anything that is free,’ she said to Ursula as he hurried to carry out her command.
‘In America glasses of water are served even before an order is taken.’
‘I think I should like to visit there,’ Mrs Bruton said. ‘It seems a most interesting place.’ Then she grew serious. ‘I am afraid, Ursula, I shall have to ask you to give up your work at Maison Rose.’
Though she had been half expecting some such request, it still came as a shock. But her first loyalty must be to Mrs Bruton.
‘Of course,’ she said lightly but even as she said it, she wondered how easy it would be to find another part-time job.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The door of the police station slammed shut behind her and Rachel was left standing on Marylebone Lane. After the dark of her overnight cell, the brightness of the day was blinding. All around was mid-morning bustle but all she was conscious of was the prison smell that had soaked through to her central core, an odour of rank bodies, neglected dirt, and a despair compounded of ignorance, aggression and hate. She felt she was now marked as clearly as if she had a sign round her neck as ‘criminal’, a ‘jail bird’.
John placed his arm around her shoulders and held her tightly. ‘Let’s get you home, dearest. My motor is just down here.’ He guided her away from the police station.
Anger boiled in her. An anger so intense she was incapable of words.
She pushed away John’s arm as he tried to help her into the passenger seat and sat, her face as set as a stone buddha’s as he swung the starting handle. The vehicle backfired with a jerk and Rachel grabbed at the side door. It was the only movement she made until they pulled up outside her building. Then she jumped down and was inside before the engine was switched off.
Martha rushed to her. ‘Oh, my precious!’ she cried. ‘They have let you go.’
Rachel pushed past her outstretched arms and screamed, ‘A bath, I need a bath. I must have a bath.’ She discarded clothes as she went through to her bedroom, Martha picking them up after her. John, without his goggles, driving coat and helmet, sat uneasily in the living room, his expression worried.
Half an hour later Rachel emerged wearing a dressing gown tied tightly around her waist, and rubbing wet hair with a clean towel. She stopped as she saw John.
‘I shall never forgive you,’ she said, her voice tight with anger.
‘What for? For asking my father to help get you out of prison?’ He tried to draw her into his arms.
She pulled back. ‘Just because he’s a duke! All he has to do is snap his fingers and that vile inspector decides I should be freed. How many dukes are there in England?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘Thirty! That’s all. And how much of England do they own?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I expect a goodly slice of London is your father’s as well as acres of land elsewhere. He has power. I have none. None! I should never have been arrested. Where was the evidence?’ She struggled to keep her voice from breaking.
‘That is what my father told the Commissioner of Police. He said it was a miscarriage of justice that had to be corrected.’
She ignored this. ‘I achieved my law degree with honours. But I am not allowed to practice. Why? Because I’m a woman. Your father has done nothing but be born in the right cradle and yet what he says goes.’
‘Dearest, I know how frustrating it is for you …’
‘How dare you call it frustrating!’ Rachel threw away the towel, her half-dried hair falling about her shoulders. ‘Women have spent decades battling for the vote. Without it we will never have equality.’ She wrapped her arms around her body and paced up and down the room, an angry energy coming off her like electricity. ‘The Liberals were supposed to support our cause; now Mrs Pankhurst says they are terrified that if we get the vote, it’ll mean men’s wages will be forced down! As if we would not want to earn, job for job, the same as they do. Can you believe such twisted thinking?’ She caught hold of thick strands of her hair and pulled at them as though they could be torn from her head.
‘Mrs Pankhurst says that our suffrage battle isn’t getting us anywhere and it is time for deeds, not words. Without equality, without an equal moral code for men and women, half the human race – that’s we women – will be fair game for men to continue treating viciously. So now it is time for us to turn ourselves into an army, use intimidation and violence, force Parliament to recognise our rights.’ She flung out her arms, her voice triumphant.
John stared as though seeing her for the first time.
Rachel dropped into a chair. ‘Oh God, John, I’m just so tired and so angry I don’t know what I’m saying.’
‘Sounds to me as though you aren’t having any difficulty.’ He sounded halfway between admiration and despair.
‘I’m amazed your father didn’t refuse to have anything to do with rescuing me from that brute of an inspector. Didn’t he tell you to have nothing to do with a criminal such as I? That he couldn’t sully his name with such a sordid matter?’
He dropped down beside her and caught up her hand. ‘I told him I love you. That you are the most wonderful girl in the world.’
She looked into his eyes, their gaze fastened passionately on hers, and for the first time felt guilty. He was such an innocent. What did he understand about what drove her? What had he actually told his father, that so-powerful duke? Surely she had to be grateful to be freed from that vile cell? She couldn’t bear to think of Alice, suffering weeks and months in such conditions.
What did her own freedom mean? Was she now bound to John? Or should she make him understand they could not have a future together?
Martha entered. ‘Mail has come, late again; that postman needs a rocket put under him. Just the one letter.’
Rachel took it, didn’t recognise the writing and slipped it into her pocket. ‘Martha, why haven’t you got your coat and hat on? It’s time you left for your Sunday visit to your sister.’
‘With you only just out of that prison? I must prepare a luncheon for you both. Sister can wait.’
‘Nonsense, John and I can find something to eat without your help. Off you go now.’ Rachel rose and planted a kiss on her maid’s cheek. ‘I’m fine.’
Martha gave her a searching look, then capitulated. ‘I’ll be back around six o’clock. And what would your dear mother say to see you entertaining a young man in your dressing gown? You’re not even affianced.’
‘Oh, I think we are, Martha,’ said John. ‘At least, I hope we are.’ He looked across at Rachel. ‘I told my father that you were to be my wife.’
Irritation fought with a rising passion in Rachel. ‘Now go along, I can get dressed without your help,’ she said to Martha. ‘I’ll see you this evening.’
As the door closed behind her maid, Rachel turned to John. ‘Let’s forget about the future,’ she said, her voice now warm, intimate. Instead of me getting dressed, how about you undressing?’
A little while later she turned to him in bed. ‘How could Alice return to that brute, Joshua, after finding love with Daniel? I could never have done that.’
He smiled into her eyes and drew his hand through the shining hair spread over the pillow. ‘Then you do love me!’
She smiled back but laid a finger on his lips, ‘How could I not? Now, I’m hungry, let’s see what food’s about.’
She slipped out of bed and drew her dressing gown on again, then took out the envelope that had arrived that morning and opened it.
‘How strange; it’s from Millie, A
lice’s maid. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.’ She handed the letter to him.
‘Dear Miss Fentiman,’ he read out loud. ‘I am with the menagerie circus, I have no choice. But you could give me choice. I know things. You need to see me. Millie.’ He gave Rachel back the piece of paper. ‘It’s a schoolgirl’s hand, look how carefully she forms her letters.’
‘I’m looking at what she’s saying. Does it sound like blackmail to you? “I know things”?’
‘What could she know?’ he asked.
Rachel didn’t answer; she was too busy dressing.
* * *
An hour or so later, Rachel and John were at the menagerie and asking for Millie. They were sent to the area behind the circus tent, where there were a number of travelling wagons.
Millie saw them approaching and waved. She was sitting on the steps of one of the caravans, wearing some sort of uniform; Rachel had noticed other circus and menagerie staff dressed in brown tunics and trousers or skirts, all trimmed with flashes of red.
Rachel looked at her sister’s ex-maid searchingly as the girl came towards them. Did she know something?
‘You got my note,’ said Millie.
She seemed taller than Rachel remembered and carried herself with a new confidence.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Rachel bluntly. She’d never particularly liked Millie; thought she was untrustworthy and sly. But Alice said she was loyal and was very fond of her. ‘What do you want?’
Beside her Rachel could feel John looking around, interested in everything that was going on. There was a great deal of activity. Men, dressed in workmanlike gear, were carrying items of equipment about; all seemed to be heading for the big, round tent that stood to one side of the menagerie.
‘Is Mrs Peters out of prison yet?’
The question struck Rachel almost like a physical blow. She herself was free but her poor sister was still incarcerated in Holloway gaol.
‘I am afraid she isn’t.’ Rachel dragged Millie’s note out of her pocket and held it out. ‘What do you mean, you “know things”? And why do I need to see you?’
Millie’s confidence immediately wavered. She looked down at the ground and kicked at a small pebble. ‘I dunno, really.’ Then she looked up at Rachel and seemed to gather courage. ‘I’ve learned things here. I’ve made all sorts of costumes; Ma says I’ve a real gift for design.’
‘Ma?’
‘She and Pa run this whole show. Thomas Jackman brought me here; he saved me from an awful fate worse than death,’ she said with dramatic emphasis.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Millie. I would like you to get to the point.’
John put his hand on Rachel’s shoulder. ‘The thing is, Millie, Miss Fentiman found it difficult to understand what it is you want from her. She even felt …’
Rachel shook herself free. ‘The thing is, Millie, the stories I hear about what went on between you and Joshua Peters after my sister left him make me reluctant to give you any help, if that is what you want.’
Millie coloured but looked straight at Rachel. ‘I could say he left me no choice. And, yes, that’s what happened. I had no choice.’
‘We women have to fight for our choices.’ Rachel looked around at the busy scene again. She had no desire to know what had happened to Millie, she only wanted to get to the bottom of the girl’s note. Was it, she wondered for the first time, that poor education had meant Millie hadn’t been able to find the right words? ‘You seem to have found something of a home here.’
‘It’s all ending. Soon they’ll be packing up and on their way to winter quarters in the north.’
‘So you want me to give you a job.’
Millie kicked at another pebble. ‘It’s not just that I can be a very good lady’s maid – Mrs Peters will say I gave every satisfaction – I can design and sew costumes now.’
‘Circus costumes!’
‘But I can make your sort of clothes, I have the skills.’ Millie clutched at the other girl’s sleeve.
Rachel felt an instant repulsion followed almost immediately by guilt. What was it that she herself was fighting for? What was the battle that lay behind every action she had taken since she had left Manchester University and particularly in the last few months? ‘We women,’ she had said to Millie only a few minutes ago, admitting her into the sisterhood.
She straightened up. ‘You must join the fight for women’s suffrage. Once we have that, doors will open, we will have equality with men. Then you will have any number of choices laid before you.’
Millie looked astonished. ‘Women’s what?’
‘Suffrage. The vote! It will empower us.’ Rachel yanked out a notebook and pencil from her bag. ‘You say the circus is going up north. I will give you Emmeline Pankhurst’s address in Manchester. She will find you a job and you can make uniforms for all us suffrage fighters. I will write and tell her you will be getting in touch. She will inspire you, Millie. She inspires all women.’ She tore the page out of the notebook and handed it over.
Millie looked at it suspiciously.
At that moment two uniformed attendants rushed by saying, ‘Come on, time to get the show under way. You’re on Aisle C today, Millie.’
The piece of paper was scrunched into a pocket. ‘Got to go now. But, thanks, Miss Fentiman. And you’ll let me know when Mrs Peters comes out of prison? She’ll need a maid.’
Then she was gone.
Rachel went over to where John was inspecting an item of machinery. ‘It’s a generator,’ he said, wiping oil off his hand with a handkerchief. ‘Haven’t seen one like this for years. I suppose they can’t afford anything more up to date.’
Rachel slipped her hand through his arm. ‘Come on, we’re finished here.’
‘Did you get what you wanted out of the girl?’
Rachel thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure there was anything to get. But I may have enlisted a new worker for Emmeline’s Women’s Army.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Brown’s doorman whistled up a hansom cab for Mrs Bruton and Ursula.
‘You see,’ said Mrs Bruton, placing hand on Ursula’s knee as they pulled away from the hotel’s main door, ‘I could not, really could not, bear anyone around me who was in contact with, with …’ her voice trailed away for a moment or two; then she seemed to recover herself. ‘I realise, my dear Ursula, that the loss of the additional pay you have been earning at Maison Rose may cause you embarrassment …’
Ursula could not prevent herself shifting a little in the confined space.
‘… I shall be happy,’ Mrs Bruton continued smoothly, ‘to see if I can find amongst my acquaintances someone who requires the services of a person so highly qualified as yourself. And perhaps,’ she gave a short, judicious pause before adding, ‘perhaps I myself may be able to raise your wages a modicum. My stepson is due to visit again shortly, I shall ask him if my finances could stand the additional outlay.’
‘That would be very good of you,’ murmured Ursula, wondering a little at Mrs Bruton’s sudden wish to discuss her financial situation with the stepson she had previously shown herself to dislike, even to be slightly afraid of. ‘And I can apply to the employment agencies I contacted on my arrival in London; they may well have details of a part-time post for which I could be suitable. After all, I think Maison Rose will give me a good reference.’
Or would the count feel he was within his rights to withhold such a document since she would be giving him so little notice?
‘But let us forget such matters for this afternoon,’ Mrs Bruton went on. ‘I hope you enjoyed your lunch?’ she added pleasantly. Then, taking Ursula’s agreement for granted, said, ‘I have been wishing to visit the menagerie for some little time. Being able to see all those fierce animals at such close quarters, what a thrill!’ She gave a little shiver.
The brightness of the morning had given way to an overcast, chilly afternoon. Ursula appreciated the warmth of her coat and wondered whet
her visiting the menagerie would mean that they would see Millie. Now there was someone whose financial position was much worse than hers.
For once traffic was not slowing their progress and sooner than Ursula would have thought possible, the cab had reached their destination. She climbed down, then offered her hand to aid Mrs Bruton’s descent. The flash of a suede bootee suggested that her employer had not perhaps considered what the conditions underfoot might be like.
Ursula once again found herself transfixed by the sight of the mighty carved screen.
‘Oh, my,’ said Mrs Bruton, similarly overawed by the variety of wild animals it carried. There came the roar of several lions and the breeze suddenly brought a strong whiff of the beasts themselves.
‘There is a marvellously dressed lion-tamer who gives performances from time to time,’ said Ursula.
Mrs Bruton looked expectant. ‘Will we see him with the lions this afternoon? That would be wonderful.’
‘Would you like me to get the tickets?’ It was a small service Ursula had performed when she had been out with Mrs Bruton. She had grown used to her employer producing a well-filled purse from whichever handbag she carried that day. The one she had chosen to accompany her cashmere outfit was of a matching blonde suede and large enough to hold several bulging purses.
Mrs Bruton smiled. ‘I think I would enjoy performing that small task myself this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Look, there is a man selling sweeties. Do go and buy us some.’ She took out her purse and gave Ursula a sixpenny piece. The morning’s upsetting event when Madame Rose’s true nature was revealed seemed to have been forgotten. Once again Mrs Bruton was her quietly assertive self.
Ursula went over to the sweet seller and joined a small queue. Soon she was supplied with a paper cone stuffed with striped, mint-flavoured humbugs.
A Fatal Freedom Page 36