The Hourglass Factory

by Lucy Ribchester

  ‘You could try asking them yourself.’ She cocked her head as if searching for a way into his thoughts. ‘Take a trip to their headquarters. A peaceful one, mind. See what they know.’

  ‘We have surveillance.’

  Clara rolled her eyes. ‘Because that’s the way to make them cooperate?’ She watched him. He tried not to give anything away, but could tell she saw through his expression. Trying to get an idea like that past Stuttlegate, who preferred to go in barrels ablaze, would be like trying to get a crooked sixpence past an expert minter.

  ‘There is this man,’ he began, ‘in Pentonville, that the Chief thinks might be able to help.’

  Clara narrowed one eye. ‘A man?’

  ‘He’s a suffragette supporter.’

  She shook her head, then stretched out her legs and got up from the chair, folding away her knitting. ‘I’ll fetch a plate for you.’

  He clasped her waist as she passed him. ‘No, don’t. Stay a while.’ He tugged her gently onto his knee. The shawl round her shoulders smelled of the kitchen.

  ‘You’re going to interview a man before you go to suffragette headquarters because you think he’ll be more likely to play turncoat?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be talking about it.’ Primrose clamped shut his mouth and looked away.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘The usual rubbish.’

  ‘I can tell. Cockles, was it?’ She retreated from his breath.

  They sat for a while with an awkwardness Primrose had not felt since their wedding, when they first bought the small house in Camberwell. He cast his eye round the room, the neat clean collection of furniture, the humble bureau and the stiff couch, a gift from his family. His gaze landed on the knitting on the armrest and she caught him, the too-small bonnet and stockings. ‘It’s for the parish.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They need it as much as the ones that live. You can’t go to God without a stitch on.’

  He said nothing.

  She stood up. ‘I’ll fetch your plate.’

  As she reached the door jamb she paused, hanging the door half open. A rush of the hall’s cold air flooded in like an unwelcome guest. ‘It was a boy, you know.’

  Primrose looked up sharply.

  ‘My sister’s. I didn’t think you’d ask.’ She smiled a little sadly. ‘She had a baby boy. Healthy and bonny.’

  Twenty-Two

  Frankie hunkered her shoulders into her jacket as the carriage rattled towards Maida Vale. Under her bottom she was aware of the raffia pressure of a nosebag, while up above, Liam’s heels rhythmically kicked the roof of the cabin in protest at being made to ride on top with the cabbie and the wind. She looked jealously at Milly who had borrowed a mink coat from Twinkle’s slaughterhouse collection, hanging with paws and tails. On the other side of her, crammed into the open-fronted carriage sat Twinkle, her feet bound by a pair of Russian boots and a skirt that hobbled her legs together. The fog was so thick they could barely see beyond the length of their own arms; streetlamps were balls of orange mist in a moonless night. The horse crept carefully, placing one hoof after the other.

  The cabbie stopped short and called the name of the street down to them. Twinkle grunted and thrust a fistful of coins up over the roof, at the same time making a great fuss of stepping onto the pavement. Liam jumped down, landing nimbly on both feet.

  ‘Come on, haven’t got all night.’ Twinkle waddled them to the front door like a goose. It was only the second time Frankie had seen her outside her boudoir. She looked faintly ridiculous in outdoor clothing, the way a pet might look dressed as a human.

  The Barclay-Evanses lived on the ground floor of a block of flats identical to Twinkle’s in all but the garish colour. A maid, nonplussed at being called to duty so late in the evening, showed them to a parlour where a fire sputtered behind an embroidered screen. The room was furnished with fine-legged settees and trinkets from the east; fans, elephant tusks and a Turkish water pipe, with tubes coiled around its glass dome like snakes. Frankie saw Milly eyeing it up, while Twinkle busied herself depositing Liam into the custody of the maid. She had tried to insist he use the tradesman’s entrance but he doggedly refused. For the first time Frankie saw behind his eyes a wounded look underneath the bravado. ‘He’s taking notes—’ she began.

  He held up his chin and winked. ‘I’ll keep guard outside. Don’t you worry about me.’

  In the bay window of the lounge a man with a solid figure was waiting, his belly thrust proudly in front of him. Though he was only wearing tweeds he carried the look of someone in uniform. His wife, standing by the fire, matched him in height. They both shared the same kind of soft face, flesh in their cheeks and chins that had grown plump and rosy with age, noses and eyes that had sharpened.

  They made their introductions and invited the trio to sit while the maid poured black tea. ‘Don’t mind our little habits.’ Mrs Barclay-Evans gave a half-hearted stab at humility. ‘We’ve travelled around a bit.’

  Twinkle beamed. Frankie tried not to think of how the three might know each other.

  An awkward silence spread as they sipped the strong brew and Frankie only then began to realise how tired she was, the strangeness of the night before closing in. Her head felt steeped in treacle, her brain all clogged. She found the Major’s low voice far too soporific and had to shake herself to concentrate as he gently probed, ‘Do you know if your girl is Peth or Pank?’

  Frankie and Milly cast glances at each other.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Twinkle, stirring sugar through her tea while not very subtly scanning the room for a liquor cabinet.

  Mrs Barclay-Evans explained. ‘When the WSPU split last week, they divided themselves into Pankhurst supporters and Pethick-Lawrences. We’re Peth, by the way.’

  The name stirred in Frankie’s head. She remembered seeing the name in the newspapers but had never paid it much attention.

  ‘The Pethick-Lawrences were kicked out of the organisation this week – Panks might dispute “kicked out”, but that’s the size of it – for refusing to go along with the new militancy.’

  Milly, who had been discreetly picking the sides of her fingernails, stopped suddenly and leaned forward. ‘The “new” militancy? What was wrong with the old militancy?’

  ‘Not violent enough.’ The Major picked up his cup. Silence hung and he went on. ‘Christabel Pankhurst – I don’t know if you know, but she’s hiding in Paris under an arrest warrant at the moment – well, she snuck back to London last week to a meeting to unveil new plans, now the Conciliation Bill’s officially kaput.’ He paused to slurp his tea.

  ‘What were the new plans?’ Milly asked, a note of impatience hovering in her tone.

  He hesitated. ‘Not something we could approve.’

  ‘Window smashing?’ asked Frankie.

  ‘Arson.’ Mrs Barclay-Evans, noticing Frankie fumbling in her pockets, passed her a sleek fountain pen.

  ‘Arson?’ The word hovered.

  ‘Do you want to start at the beginning?’ Frankie asked. ‘We’d like to know as much as we can about the suffragettes.’

  The Major and his wife exchanged a glance. At last Mrs Barclay-Evans said, ‘It depends how far back you want to go?’

  ‘Anything that can help us make sense of what Ebony Diamond might be running from.’

  ‘It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the beginning was.’ Mrs Barclay-Evans eased herself down onto a chaise longue in the window. ‘I suppose John Stuart Mill and Richard Pankhurst were important once. Ironic really, those men, back in the day. Well, I mean you could trace it back to Mary Wollstonecraft. Oh dear, you don’t recognise any of these names, do you?’

  Frankie shook her head politely, though her insides prickled.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, really. There have been official branches campaigning for women’s suffrage since before you were born. Before I was born. Not Nigel though,’ she added with a teasing smile. No one laughed and she coughed, embarrassed. ‘B
ut the militancy, the violent action, started with the Women’s Social and Political Union, the WSPU. You know that, don’t you?’ She could see Frankie nodding and went on, encouraged.

  ‘They started out travelling round street corners and fairgrounds, speaking, handing out pamphlets. That could have been where they met Miss Diamond. They disrupted the odd meeting but nothing notable. A couple of years passed like this, then Christabel and a woman called Annie Kenney decided to get themselves thrown in prison.’

  ‘For the publicity,’ her husband added.

  ‘Not just the publicity. They wanted people, they still want people, to know how serious they are, that being vote-less is so thoroughly intolerable you might as well be incarcerated. Disrupting a meeting wasn’t enough to end up in gaol back then. Christabel had to spit at a police officer. I had to slap the cheek of one once; I did it lightly, mind. He asked for my lapel badge as a souvenir.’ She smiled. ‘They started in Manchester but came to London about six years ago . . . But you’re not interested in that, are you? You want to know what might have gone wrong. Well, the first split in the union came just after that London move.’

  Frankie stopped scribbling. ‘What are the government doing all this time?’

  Major Barclay-Evans raised an eyebrow. ‘Standing firm. Asquith didn’t come to power until a couple of years ago, but the party have always toed the same line. Do you know, he says he will resign if women are given votes?’

  Mrs Barclay-Evans put her spoon down. ‘So on we went, meetings, rallies. I remember once the crowd threw live mice at Christabel. We’d march in deputations to Parliament, rush to the lobby. We’d get arrested for this, of course. That was the point.’

  ‘Arrested for lobbying Parliament.’ Twinkle raised an eyebrow. ‘And to think, it’s not that difficult really to get close to a politician.’ The corners of her mouth curled into a smile. Frankie shot her a look. Mrs Barclay-Evans shifted stiffly and Frankie wondered again what had brought them to know one another.

  ‘So, the first split,’ Frankie scuffed the nib of the pen against her pad.

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Barclay-Evans blinked, aware she was dawdling. ‘Bills were being raised by the government and talked out. We were busy chaining ourselves to the ladies’ gallery, hiding in cupboards, getting arrested. But then in the middle of this came the suggestion that we should have a conference. Vote for a new committee. Well, Christabel and her mother, Mrs Pankhurst, will tell you that they didn’t like this idea because they didn’t want to waste time canvassing for votes from their peers when they could be fighting the cause. But whether you believe them or just think they wanted to keep control over the movement,’ she shrugged, ‘they set up as autocrats. And at the time, I really think the majority of us believed that was the best solution. But a group of women objected and broke away to form the Women’s Freedom League, that’s Teresa Billington-Grieg’s organisation by the way, they are non-violent militants.’

  ‘Are these the suffragists?’ Milly asked.

  Frankie shook her head. ‘They’re all suffragists. It just means campaigning for a vote. But back a bit, are they autocrats, the Pankhursts, do they essentially control the suffragettes, undemocratically?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Milly cut in. ‘Isn’t the problem here,’ she asked pushing aside her finished teacup, ‘that there are so many factions fighting for the same end that they end up squabbling with each other?’

  Mrs Barclay-Evans looked at them in turn. ‘You could say that. You could also say that different people have different ideas on what they are willing to do to make themselves heard. Should they have to fight in a way they don’t believe is ethical, or not fight the cause at all? There should be a method of protest and an organisation for everyone.’

  Frankie gestured with her pen for her to go on.

  ‘Well, what next?’ She removed a strand of hair from her crinkled face and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Hunger striking, that was next. Mrs Wallace Dunlop rushed parliament one day, made it through the police lines and managed to stencil on the walls of the lobby, “It is the right of the subject to petition the king and all prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal”.’

  ‘Might I guess,’ said Twinkle, ‘that she was put in prison for it?’

  ‘Second division.’

  ‘Where the proper criminals are kept.’ Frankie remembered sitting in on trials for the Tottenham Evening News. You could wait all day for something juicy to come along, if it ever did, meanwhile line after line of sad drunk women were tossed into second division for pickpocketing, begging or soliciting.

  ‘So she went on hunger strike to protest,’ Mrs Barclay-Evans said. ‘Not so much about being sent to prison but about being given second division. After the others followed suit, the force-feeding began. It was about this time Constance Lytton decided to make a stand about the way privileged women were being treated compared to the working classes.’

  Frankie looked up sharply. ‘Why do I know that name? What did she do?’

  Mrs Barclay-Evans took a large breath. ‘She’s a suffragette, an aristocrat by birth, with I believe, a somewhat frail constitution, as every Lady should have.’

  Frankie noticed Milly wince.

  ‘When she was imprisoned first time round the doctors checked her heart and decided she was too weak to be force-fed. So she was discharged. She was indignant about this but the Home Secretary insisted it was medical practice, there had been no favourable treatment given. Lady Constance was not convinced. She believed the government were letting poor women waste away in prison and keeping the wealthy ones safe for the sake of the headlines. So she travelled to Newcastle, cut off her hair and forged herself some fake documents under the name of Jane Warton, Jane for Joan of Arc, Warton, I believe, was a corruption of an old family name, and she posed as a seamstress.’

  ‘She was arrested for vandalism,’ the Major interrupted.

  ‘You can be arrested with a false name?’ Frankie tilted her head. ‘Didn’t they cotton on to who she was when they had her lined up?’

  ‘My dear, you can tell them anything you want. You could say you were me, or your friend here, or the daughter of a beggar from France. The police of this country may think they are sophisticated, but compared to the continent their methods for logging prisoners haven’t advanced since the Domesday Book.’

  Frankie sat back.

  ‘And so this time when the doctors came to do the feeding, they took a stethoscope to her chest and announced her heart was “ripping splendid”.’ Mrs Barclay-Evans’s teacup rattled in her hand. ‘The horrors you will see in gaol are unimaginable. When you are left alone with your own thoughts and only a copy of the Bible and that dratted Englishwoman’s House and Home book that they leave in our cells, you begin to think that there is no mercy, that Christ has left the souls of these men and women who hold you down and look at you as though you are an animal when you are sick on them. To spend the night with vomit in your hair . . .’ She had turned greenish pale and made a little inarticulate groan, then sat her head back up fresh. ‘Silly to be so affected. There were women who went back again and again. Like your Miss Diamond.’ Her eye was drawn to the little gold carriage clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Time’s getting on. I should tell you where we are now. I hope it’s helpful. You’ll want to write this down, I’ll try to speak slowly.’

  She sighed. ‘Ironically, the background to the new militancy started with a truce. Two years ago. It looked as if it was going to be a year for change. Lloyd George’s People’s Budget, the promise of reducing the powers of the House of Lords. The government set up the Conciliation Committee, and it looked like we might be getting somewhere. Women came from all over the country to march peacefully. I remember it well because we marched the same day the National Vigilance Association marched on the Lords issue and some of our lot ended up in their parade and vice versa and—’

  Milly squinted. ‘What were the NVA doing marching about the Lords? What’s it got to do with c
losing down theatres?’

  ‘Die-hard aristocrats, the lot of them,’ the Major said. ‘Ferociously scared of change. That Thorne woman, the one whose father shot himself years ago – she’d march on the opening of a new brand of soap.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Mrs Barclay-Evans said, looking at her husband, ‘she’s a silly woman, always in and out of Biarritz curing spas, and they didn’t spoil our day. It could hardly have been better, in fact. The newspapers praised us for the first time. People began to speak of the philosophy behind giving us the vote, rather than simply calling us hooligans. So many of the MPs are behind us – Lansbury, Lloyd George, Lord Lytton – which makes it all the more infuriating that devil of a man Asquith . . .’ Her fingers scratched the knee of her wool skirt. ‘The truce lasted until November when arguments over reducing power in the House of Lords meant Parliament had to be dissolved. Well, that’s when Black Friday happened. November. Two years ago.’ She didn’t elaborate. Frankie could remember reading the headlines: women mauled and assaulted in alleyways, knocked sideways, left for dead. Winston Churchill, the then Home Secretary had been blamed by the suffragettes but never brought to task for it. Frankie exchanged a glance with Milly and wondered if she should mention the two deaths and the cocaine on Ebony’s mouth strap, or Jojo’s claim that cabinet ministers came to his shows.

  Mrs Barclay-Evans looked about to go on when something caught her eye outside. Startled, she jumped out of her seat. ‘Did you see that?’

  Twinkle’s head, which had been beginning to droop, sprang back up. Frankie leapt to her feet and crossed to the window. The panes gave off a chill air against her nose. The fog outside was still thick, the streetlamps casting dirty yellow shadows onto the pavement and shrubs.

  ‘Lot of feral cats round here,’ the Major said.

  ‘Perhaps.’ His wife sounded unconvinced. ‘But it looked larger than that. More like someone on horseback.’

  ‘Or a bicycle?’ Frankie offered.

  ‘Strange to be riding around at this time of night.’ Mrs Barclay-Evans looked unnerved, but they settled back down onto their couches. Twinkle, Frankie noticed, immediately slumped down again and looked ready to fall asleep.