The Hourglass Factory

by Lucy Ribchester

  Piggot prised open the door and snorted as he heaved himself into a chair at the head of the table. Frankie ignored them both and concentrated on not wincing as the marmalade went down. She watched Mrs Gibbons place coffee and a boiled egg in front of Mr Piggot then stand staring for a few seconds with her hands clamped to her hips. Frankie became gradually aware that she was spoiling for a fight and wasn’t about to move until she had one.

  ‘I’ll thank you to eat like a lady under my roof and use a plate so you don’t spill crumbs on the tablecloth.’ She swiped a claw at the oilskin cloth. A spray of crumbs hit Frankie’s lap.

  Frankie swallowed the mouthful of toast and imagined it curdling in her stomach with the gin. ‘Is something the matter?’

  Mrs Gibbons stopped assaulting the tablecloth and stared at Frankie. Her cheeks were puffed with an angry shine; she had fury in her brown eyes. Piggot, Frankie noticed, was concentrating harder than ever on his egg. She took a pile of newspapers from the side table and slapped them down on the oilskin. ‘That’s what’s the matter. Fenwick’s.’

  Frankie looked puzzled for a second, then bent over the wrinkled copy of the Daily Mail. ‘Suffragettes Smash Bond Street.’ Piggot sneakily reached across, extracted a copy of The Times from under the pile and spread it out across half the table.

  Mrs Gibbons went on, ‘They’re the only ones do the lavender pillows I like. I used my last one last night. Now there’s no chance of sleep until those bloody insufferables are dealt with.’

  A smirk tickled the corners of Frankie’s mouth but she bit it back and reached instead for the fresh coffee pot.

  ‘Well,’ she said slowly pouring a cup, ‘it is important. I for one am grateful to the women of the WSPU. I couldn’t survive Holloway. I’m glad someone can.’ She stretched a lazy arm behind her head.

  Mrs Gibbons narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve changed your tune.’

  ‘Beg your pardon? I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Thought Miss George was too busy and important to trouble herself with suffragettes. She don’t need to. She got a job with the menfolk.’

  Mr Piggot looked up. ‘Yes, there was something I recall, wasn’t it a cartoon?’

  ‘Oh, don’t go bringing that up now.’ Frankie put down her toast and wiped her fingers on a fresh napkin.

  ‘I recall when you first came here,’ Mrs Gibbons said, ‘wasn’t there an incident with one of them?’

  Frankie concentrated on the newspaper. ‘Says there were over two hundred arrested.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mrs Gibbons went on, as her pointy fingers began folding the napkins. ‘Didn’t you want to write for that paper they sell about votes but they said your English weren’t good enough?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything like that,’ Frankie snapped. ‘Why would I write for them for nothing when I can earn a perfectly good living on Fleet Street? Oh, of course I’d love to afford to support the cause but some of us have rent to pay.’

  ‘Speaking of rent, it was due yesterday.’

  ‘I get my cheque on Saturdays, you know that.’

  ‘Just as long as it comes in. More than a week late and I’ll have to charge interest. Got a living to make myself.’

  Suddenly Frankie sat up straight. She looked back down at the newspaper. ‘Over two hundred suffragettes arrested.’ Frantically she read down the thin columns until she found it. ‘Due to be sentenced at Bow Street Court.’ She checked the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It was quarter to twelve. A suffragette window smash? Ebony had to have been on that. She would be in court today for certain. Perhaps that was why she was so agitated yesterday at the corset shop.

  ‘Have to dash, Mrs Gibbons, breakfast was a treat, thank you.’

  Mrs Gibbons looked like she had been slapped with a fish. She watched speechless as Frankie sank her coffee and ran out of the door leaving it open behind her. ‘Cheek,’ she spat.

  ‘Sorry,’ Frankie called over her shoulder, ‘but I’m a working woman.’

  The Black Marias were pulling up thick and fast. Van after van drew to a halt outside Bow Street Police Court where a thin line of constables in dark wool tunics struggled to contain the crowd. The horses leading the vehicles were growing restless, hoofing the ground, tossing their heads. Someone threw a stone at one of the vans, scoring a dent into the metal. If there was a cry that came from inside, no one heard it above the din of the protests.

  Frankie didn’t have a press card but used her elbows to barge her way to the front of the public gallery queue. On her way she passed placard holders, jeering women and the shopkeepers who had divided themselves into those allied to the cause and those against it. Some of the placards said, ‘Send ’em to second division,’ while others declared, ‘Let the Government pay for my broken windows.’

  Inside, bodies were squeezed into every inch of the court’s dark wood galleries: women in hats, families and children in their Sunday best, newspapermen with yellow notebooks on their laps, lady journalists in slender skirts. The air was close and stifling with a stew of fragrances. From beyond the dock a rattling of metal from the cell passage filtered through.

  Frankie wedged into a seat between a woman with a pair of seagulls taxidermied to her hat, and a father with two children. The younger, a little boy in a brown suit, was staring through the wooden bars at the magistrate.

  Frankie followed the little boy’s gaze to a plump man wearing pince-nez and a wig that had yellowed at the fringes with tobacco stains. She had seen him on the bench before, but he looked dog-tired today. On the way in, two laywers had been discussing a rumour that he had a police escort now – constables on bicycles following him to and from court – owing to the number of threats he had received from the WSPU.

  She looked round the court for Ebony but couldn’t see her. Women were being brought up in groups of ten, squashed into the dock looking like they had spent a rough night in the cells; young women, old women, women in torn silk and dirty-looking fine-cut clothes, women in jute and linen and ill-fitting jackets. They were all in high spirits, laughing and linking arms as if they hadn’t a care for what was coming to them. As Frankie watched she felt a growing sense of bewilderment and a strange envy.

  Mrs Gibbons had tweaked a nerve. It was true a sharp-tongued woman at the WSPU had told her a few years ago that if she wanted to write for Votes for Women she would need to find something to say. But it wasn’t the reason she hadn’t joined the suffragettes. It was the righteousness that unsettled her, the knowing look they had in their eyes. It made her uncomfortable and she didn’t quite know why. They knew what they wanted and they knew they were right.

  The first two groups were sentenced to two weeks each in second division, after being offered a fine to pay and refusing. As the magistrate’s gavel slammed down someone in the gallery cried, ‘Well done, duckies, you’ll get your Holloway degrees!’

  When the third group was led in, the little boy beside Frankie leapt out of his seat and plunged his arms through the gallery bars. His father and sister quickly moved to grab him, prising his fists from where they were clutched round the wood.

  ‘It’s all right. Mamma’s going on holiday again. Mamma’s very brave and so must you be. Brave boy. Home by Christmas.’ The father rocked the boy back and forth.

  The yellow-wigged magistrate looked put out to have been interrupted, then turned to his clerk who read out the charges. ‘Breaching both Section 12 and Section 51 of the Malicious Damage to Property Act 1861, by smashing glass windows on Old Bond Street. In doing so you did create tumultuous assembly. Three among you, Mary Clune, Florence Jackson and Edith Craggs, did also breach an order, allowing you release from prison for recuperation from hunger-striking, on the condition you engage in no further acts of vandalism.’

  ‘I never signed no order saying I’d not keep protesting,’ a large woman in a crumpled tweed jacket called out.

  The magistrate removed his pince-nez. ‘Your sentences will of course be commuted if you are willing t
o pledge not to engage in further acts of vandalism, you do all realise that?’

  He was met with cries of ‘Shame!’ and ‘No surrender!’

  ‘It is an insolence of your worship,’ the mother of the little boy spoke up, ‘to expect us to put up with torture in that prison, and then to be asked to behave ourselves when we’re set free. All we want to do is to be treated as equal citizens. Instead we are treated like animals. Your worship.’ Two Holloway wardresses on the edge of the dock exchanged a glance.

  ‘Over one hundred doctors,’ she continued, ‘have signed a petition against force-feeding. I dare this magistrate to swallow vomit, take a slap across the face and not feel bitterness with the whole country . . .’

  ‘Quiet!’ the magistrate slapped his gavel down.

  ‘That’s it, duckie, go on, have your say,’ a woman leaned over the gallery rails close to Frankie. Frankie looked at her hands. They were gripping the bar, shaking.

  Then a voice cut through, deep and male. ‘Let the lady have her say. She has a degree in law. Allow her to use it.’

  An uneasy silence spread through the court. Some of the police on the benches turned round to look for the source. Frankie frowned and scanned the gallery before realising with a start that the man who had spoken was in the middle of the group in the dock. He was squashed between two women, both of whom looked old enough to be his mother. His thick straw-coloured hair was ruffled like a bird’s nest. He looked less than thirty and had a clean handsome face, a sharp nose and large blue eyes with tired purple rings spreading round them.

  The magistrate squinted at him. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘William Reynolds,’ the man said loudly. ‘Suffragette.’

  There was a snigger, then a timid round of applause, as if the gentleman had just played a fine hit in a tennis match. Some of the policemen coughed uncomfortably.

  ‘What on earth are you doing in the dock?’ the magistrate asked.

  The gallery responded, hooting and hissing.

  The man straightened his black wool jacket and stood up to his full short height. He had a confident note in his voice with a hint of an accent Frankie couldn’t quite place. North perhaps, or Bristol. There was a roguish look in his eye; he was enjoying himself. ‘If it weren’t for women you wouldn’t have a home to go to at the end of a day’s work. None of us would. In fact, you’d probably be sitting there naked as the day you were born. I’m willing to wager a woman wove the cotton for your gown. Your worship.’

  ‘I’ll have you held in contempt of court.’

  ‘Just let the lady finish.’

  Frankie craned forward. Chattering from the galleries and scratching from the press pencils had stopped.

  The magistrate cleared his throat and scanned his notes. ‘You’ve been arrested before, haven’t you? Attacking a Cabinet Minister with a horse whip.’ He replaced his pince-nez to get a better look at the man, as if his face would reveal his character or provide an explanation for why on earth he had chosen to fight for such a cause.

  ‘That’s right, sir. And I’d do it again.’

  ‘You’re a member of the Men’s League for Women’s Rights or something?’

  Someone cut in from the gallery, ‘The only woman’s right is a man’s left.’ Some of the policemen sniggered.

  The magistrate chewed his tongue. Then he said three words: ‘Pentonville. Six weeks.’

  There was a woman’s gasp from further back in the gallery.

  William Reynolds raised his hand and bowed his head gently. ‘I would expect no less.’

  As he was bundled away with the rest of his group down to the cells, the clerk announced ‘Mrs Rosemary Muskett,’ and the wardresses led in a woman in brown sackcloth printed with black arrows, the Holloway Gaol uniform. A pile of thick grey hair was heaped on her head like straw, which she scratched with thin fingers every now and then.

  ‘Ah, we’ve seen you before,’ said the magistrate.

  ‘That’s right, sir, I’ve been here six times and I’m ready to come another sixty. What is the point of a country like ours if—’

  ‘You’ll get to make your point. Swear the arresting officer in.’

  Constable Tipple 675A was brought to the witness box and testified that he had arrested the woman on Oxford Street after she had broken three windows with a hammer concealed in a black stocking. According to the young man she had hit him and left him with a bruise. Finally the magistrate turned to Mrs Muskett. ‘Your turn now, my dear. Have you anything to say?’

  She stiffened, swallowed a couple of times, looked as proud as she could in her sack cloth and made sure the room was silent. ‘I stand here before you as a mother of four children, two boys, two girls, who will be raised as equals. Our tax-paying women are working in worse conditions than the miners. You only have one point of view and that’s the man’s, but this country is made up of men and women. We have been driven to this, and we’ll be driven further, mark my words. That’s all I have to say on the matter.’

  The magistrate leaned forward on the bar, his eyes tiny under huge hoods of skin. ‘Are you threatening me, Mrs Muskett? Driven further? There is no question of doubt that you recognise the law, you recognise you are doing wilful damage and each of you tells me you intend to go on with it. But you have brought London into a state which cannot continue. A seventh offence, Mrs Muskett? I have no choice but to sentence you to two months’ hard labour in third division.’

  She wasn’t quick enough to stifle the cry that escaped. Second division was one thing, but hard labour in third? Third meant straw mattresses with things living in them, cold, damp, pickpockets, madwomen. Composing herself, she drew three or four breaths and looked up to the galleries.

  She was met with a stunned silence. She dropped her head again and stared at her hands, gripping the cold square metal bar of the dock.

  ‘Take her away,’ the magistrate nodded to the two wardresses. As they moved forward, Mrs Muskett’s fingers curled faster round the bar. One wardress looked at the other. Lawyers on the counsel benches stopped perusing their papers and looked up. One of the wardresses ran her hand gently down Mrs Muskett’s arm.

  Then the storm broke.

  Cries of ‘Shame!’ pelted from the galleries. Fists banged wooden posts; feet thundered the floor. Someone threw an egg at the bar and the magistrate ducked. It smashed against the wall sending a backsplash of yolk into the face of his clerk. The next missile was a boot with a spiked heel. Frankie flinched as it went flying over her head into the press gallery.

  Mrs Muskett was trying to beat off the wardresses who were aiming rubber clubs at her face, while the prosecution counsel joined in, wrestling her arms under control. Screams and cries of ‘Votes for women!’ mingled with the racket.

  The magistrate slammed his gavel on the bar, shouting at the constables ‘Clear the court, clear the court!’ There was a rush from the back of the gallery as families tried to whisk their children to safety above the clamour of police hands fighting to grab suffragette arms.

  Eventually the scrapping died down into a hazy aftershock of panting and grunting. The magistrate stared them all down with the yellow-whites of his eyes, then said coolly, ‘Clear the court.’

  Frankie sighed as she heaved herself to her feet. She gave another sweep of the room with her eyes, but there was no sign of Ebony Diamond, and if she was in custody, there was no saying now when she would be sentenced. The hearings could spread over until late afternoon or even the next day.

  At the door, she passed the magistrate’s clerk who was wiping egg from his face with a handkerchief. His eyes looked crestfallen. He was busy saying to the duty constable, ‘I don’t know why they threw the egg at me. I love ladies, everyone knows I love the ladies. Fat ones, thin ones, posh ones, common ones. All of them.’

  Back in the yard outside, Frankie withdrew a cigarette from her jacket pocket and felt around for her box of matches. Sighing, she remembered she had left them on her desk at home. She looked around for
a likely candidate to scrounge from. Standing over by a Black Maria, a well-dressed woman in a neat crimson tailor-made was sucking nervously on a long thin white cigarette, fiddling with her hair in between draws.

  Frankie trotted up to her. ‘Don’t suppose you have a match?’ The woman looked up suddenly. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  She breathed out. ‘No, it’s just I expected you were going to come and tell me to put it out. Women smoking in public. I don’t normally you see, but . . .’ She reached into a lean clutch bag and pulled out a small box of Vestas.

  ‘Much obliged.’ Frankie took one and struck it off the stone wall of the building.

  The woman replaced them with a shaky hand.

  ‘We lady smokers stick together, don’t we?’ Frankie let the cigarette hang from the corner of her mouth, enjoying the taste of the paper. ‘I mean, watching that in there, why shouldn’t we enjoy a little smoke or a glass of brandy? Only time you ever get given brandy as a woman is if you’re a toff or you’re sick.’

  The woman gave a slight laugh. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a brandy myself. My husband has just been sent to prison.’ She laughed nervously again and Frankie realised she was the woman who had gasped when the magistrate said ‘Pentonville’.

  ‘That was him was it? Handsome fellow.’

  ‘It should be me really,’ she said quickly. ‘Silly, I know. But I’m not quite brave enough.’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t know what possessed him; my family would be quite embarrassed if they saw him up there. Still, they won’t know, will they? I’ll tell them we’re off to Bath or something.’ She gave a fragile smile. ‘My husband loves women, you see. In the most incredible way.’ There was more to her than nerves. There was a wateriness in her dark eyes and a bitterness in her voice. Frankie watched her carefully for a few seconds. Then she remembered why she was there in the first place.