by Vicary, Tim
The letter ended:
It will be a fine tale to tell Tom when I see him next weekend, as I hope. A soldier's life really can sometimes be a matter of secret codes and midnight assignments as the storybooks tell! I hope that you too, my dear, will forgive me if I seemed a trifle abrupt at our last meeting. You and I are going through choppy waters at the moment but so long as we keep our chins up and pull together we shall not go under!
Yours as ever,
Charles
‘A fresh pot of tea, madam?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Deborah looked up to see Reeves, Jonathan's butler, hovering near the table with a tray in his hand. To her surprise her eyes were full of tears, whether of surprise or laughter she could not tell. She brushed them away with her sleeve, and smiled.
‘Oh yes, please, if you would. And could I have a couple of slices of toast?’
‘Certainly, madam.’
As Reeves disappeared, Deborah read the last paragraph again, with astonishment and — hope? What had come over the man? Did he really miss her, care even a little?
It was so like Charles to see his exploits in the UVF as an exciting schoolboy's game, something to boast about to his son. But that he should apologise to her, even briefly, was almost unheard of. Even if it was in such ridiculous boy scout language. Choppy water, chins up and pull together — did the silly man think their marriage was some sort of boat trip? If so, she thought, he doesn't imagine me in the stern sheets cradling a gypsy child in my arms, surely?
But he does care. He realises there's something wrong and he wants to put it right. Even if he doesn't know how wrong. Maybe there is a faint hope.
What shall I do? Write back to him and put it all in a letter? I must write something back. She picked up a pen and wrote:
My dear Charles,
I was pleased and touched to receive your letter this morning. With all the difficulty and danger of landing so many guns it must have been hard for you to find time to write . . .
And harder still to find the words, she thought sardonically. That had never been Charles's strong point. But then, it's the same for me. What in the world can I say to him of what has been happening to me, and to Sarah and Jonathan? Nothing of that.
I had an uneventful journey over and Jonathan is well . . .
It was absurd. Her hand shook as she wrote the word Jonathan, and her eyes misted over with humiliation. If Charles knew how Jonathan had behaved towards her . . .
‘Excuse me, madam.’
‘Yes, what is it?’ Reeves was in the room again, waiting discreetly for her response.
‘There is a Mrs Watson at the door. She has heard, apparently, that you are here and has asked to see you.’
Not now, for heaven's sake! ‘Mrs Watson? Who is she?’
‘She is a friend of Mrs Becket's — her nurse, in fact. She was here most days during the past month to look after Mrs Becket during her convalescence. She is herself a member of the women's suffrage movement.’
Reeves was a butler of the highest order; he might have approved of Mrs Watson or loathed her, it was impossible to tell which from his manner. Deborah hesitated a moment. She wanted to be alone, to think about her baby and Charles. But, after all, she had come to London to help Jonathan and Sarah too, if she could.
‘Of course! Show her into the front drawing room. I will be there directly.’
Mrs Watson proved to be a small, bespectacled, grey-haired woman of about fifty. She wore a long olive-green dress and matching short jacket over a cream-coloured blouse, and a small round hat with a single rose in it. On her lapel was the badge of the WSPU. She had been sitting on a chair by the window, but when Deborah came in she stood up and held out her hand.
‘Good morning! I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs Cavendish, but I am instructed by the officers of the union to find out if you have any more information about the imprisonment of our colleague, Mrs Becket.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Deborah was taken aback by the directness of the woman's manner. ‘Well, of course I am pleased to see you. Won't you sit down?’
They sat together on two upright chairs by a small table in the window, where the early morning sunlight streamed in through the leaves of the trees in the square outside. The window was open at the top, and Deborah thought how much quieter the hum of the traffic seemed in the daytime, when one was awake. She offered Mrs Watson coffee, but she refused. So this is an English militant suffragette, she thought, the first one I have ever spoken to. She seemed quite normal except rather brusque, somehow. Forceful and direct.
‘Well,’ Deborah said calmly. ‘I don't know a great deal, I'm afraid. She was arrested last week for slashing a picture and . . .’
‘Yes, of course, we know all that. I wondered if you had visited her?’
‘I’m afraid not. We tried, her husband and I, but we were refused access. It seems she can have no visitors for a month . . .’
Mrs Watson smiled, and shook her head. ‘She will hardly be in Holloway that long, if I know Sarah.’
The use of Sarah's first name surprised Deborah. It was not that it was wrong, exactly, but Mrs Watson was hardly the sort of woman to be on first-name terms with anyone of their class. Perhaps suffragettes regarded all women as sisters, or something.
‘Well, I — I'm not sure about that,’ she said slowly. ‘You see, she has agreed to eat.’
‘What?’ The small brown eyes stared at her from behind the spectacles. Deborah repeated what she had said, and explained what Jonathan had told her last night. Mrs Watson shook her head in real surprise this time.
‘I would never have thought it of her. I don't believe it!’
‘Do you mean you expect her to starve herself to death?’
‘To death?’ Mrs Watson looked at her scornfully. ‘No, of course not, not to death. It is a hard cruel business but one only has to put up with it for a few days, a week at most, then they let you out. Unless of course she is being force-fed.’
‘Oh no, I don't think so. Dr Armstrong told Jonathan nothing about that. They would never do anything so dreadful to a woman like her, anyway, would they?’ Deborah flushed. ‘I mean, from what I have heard about these things in Ireland, I thought they only did that sort of thing to poor women.’
‘You're lucky in Ireland. They've only force-fed two women there.’ Mrs Watson's eyes fixed themselves on Deborah's face, thoughtfully. ‘And we thought they had given up forced-feeding in England, too, in favour of this Cat and Mouse business, until a month or so ago. Then it started again, in one or two cases. There seems to be no rhyme or reason, just chance and spite. Dr Armstrong, you say?’
‘Yes. He's a friend of Jonathan's. He works in Holloway prison sometimes. Indeed, we met him there.’
There was a silence. Mrs Watson continued looking at Deborah, and Deborah had the uncomfortable impression that she was being measured by someone who did not entirely approve of what she saw. When she had finished staring, Mrs Watson stood up abruptly and walked across the room to the fireplace. Then she turned and came back and said: ‘Are you very fond of your sister, Mrs Cavendish?’
Deborah flushed. It was an insolent question and she resented it. ‘Well yes, of course. I came over from Ireland especially to help her, if I can.’
‘But you are not a suffragette?’
‘No. I think women should have the vote but I don't believe that throwing stones or slashing pictures is the way to go about getting it, that's all. It just puts men's backs up.’
Whereas if you're nice and reasonable to them they smile at you and speak kindly to you and get you pregnant and then abandon you, a bitter dissident voice hissed in her mind. If you'd been Sarah you would have just picked up a knife months ago and cut Rankin's throat with it and slashed everything in sight and then . . .
Don't be silly! Your own stupid misfortune is nothing to do with Sarah or politics.
It's the only thing that's important, though, isn't it? What am I going to do?
‘How wo
uld you get the vote, then?’
Deborah frowned at the woman, collecting her thoughts with an effort. This is going badly, she thought. I agreed to see her because I thought she would tell me more about Sarah, but all that happens is that she interrogates me
‘Well, by persuasion, peaceful, rational argument. Convincing men of the logic of our case, I suppose.’
‘Do you think we haven't tried that?’ Mrs Watson smiled' ironically. ‘Men are not logical rational beings, my dear — surely you've found that out for yourself by now?’
The remark was meant, probably, as a joke, but it stung Deborah too sharply to be funny. First Charles, then Rankin - now even Jonathan had let her down. Tears sprang unwanted to her eyes.
Mrs Watson noticed, surprised. Clearly this woman was softer, less forceful than her sister. In a gentler voice she said: ‘I beg your pardon, my dear, I have no right to come here and browbeat you. But I had hoped you might have more news.’
It was even worse to be pitied by a stranger than interrogated by one. In a high, sharp voice Deborah said: ‘I told you! No one is harming her at all. Jonathan has heard from the prison doctor that she has agreed to eat and obey the regulations and is serving out her sentence as best she can.’
‘Yes. I know that is what you said.’ Mrs Watson glanced away from her, out of the window. She drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the table, and for a moment Deborah thought she was about to get up. Then she changed her mind and said: ‘Is that the picture you have of your sister, then? An obedient woman, sweeping the floor in prison?’
Deborah stared at her, and saw that behind the thin face and tight lips there was a glint of humour.
‘No,’ she smiled. ‘I suppose not. People have said many things about Sarah but I have never heard anyone call her obedient!’
‘Exactly. That is what worries me. What can they have done to her in there, to change her so suddenly?’
Deborah shuddered. She had read of women being beaten, kicked, hosed down with cold water in prison. Surely not Sarah? She pushed the vision away and said: ‘They didn't do anything. Dr Armstrong persuaded her, that's all. He told Jonathan.’
‘Dr Armstrong, yes.’ Mrs Watson looked at her again, carefully. Deborah had the impression she was making up her mind about something. ‘You've met the man, you say. What did you make of him, Mrs Cavendish?’
Deborah thought. ‘Well, I suppose I would call him pompous, to tell you the truth. A big, heavy, rather fat man, short of breath. Very full of himself.’
‘The sort of man your sister would take to easily?’
‘I shouldn't think so, no.’
‘Then how did he persuade her to obey orders and eat?’
‘I don't know!’ The conversation was beginning to make Deborah feel ill. She had a vision of that big fat man with his thick fingers leaning over Sarah in a prison cell, doing — what exactly?
But Jonathan knew the man and trusted him. Feebly, she said: ‘Jonathan said he persuaded her that she was only harming herself to no purpose.’
Mrs Watson took a deep breath. ‘Mrs Cavendish, I am going to tell you something about your Dr Armstrong. Something that is known already to several women in the WSPU, though I believe not to Sarah. I have only just found out about it myself. I am afraid it is not pleasant.’
Deborah said nothing. She waited, sitting at the little round table in the window of her sister's house, transfixed by this forceful, businesslike woman who had walked into her life just a few minutes before. She had a feeling that maybe she should get up and leave the room because what she was going to hear was something she was going to regret, but she did not move. She had so many tragedies in her life, one more could not matter.
She heard the clock on the mantelpiece tick and the voice of Reeves giving instructions to a maid somewhere outside in the corridor, and still Mrs Watson's eyes watched her, as though gauging for the last time whether it was wise to speak.
Then she said: ‘Three days ago we received a complaint, at the WSPU, from a woman who had been imprisoned in Holloway. The woman was not a suffragette, she was a criminal, a petty thief. She had been imprisoned for stealing children's clothes.’
‘From a shop, you mean?’
‘No, from the children themselves. She and her partner, a man, would lure the children away from their nannies, in Green Park or Kensington Gardens or other places like that. They would offer the child a sweet or something and then, when the child was out of sight of the nurse, they would strip it and run off, leaving the child half-naked. Then they would cut all the labels out of the clothes, dye them, and sell them in the market.’
Deborah shook her head, puzzled. ‘How awful! But — what has this to do with Dr Armstrong?’
‘Nothing, directly. But this was not the first time this woman had been convicted and she was sent to prison for some time. Her man was imprisoned too. And the problem was that the pair had three children — three girls. The eldest was not yet twelve, and so, of course, when the parents were imprisoned the children were unable to care for themselves. This is where Dr Armstrong came into the picture.’
‘How?’
‘Well, he is a doctor at Holloway and he is also on the board of a charitable institution for the children of prisoners. So apparently, when the mother arrived in Holloway, he arranged for her three daughters to be taken there.’
‘So — what is wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, of course — but wait. Remember, the mother was, sent to prison for four years, and we did not hear of this story until she was released a few days ago. She went to collect her children — and it was because of the state she found them in that the poor woman came to us.’
‘Why? Were they badly fed or clothed? They could not expect, all that much, after all, I suppose, from a charitable children's home. I have cared for the poor myself, Mrs Watson. I have seen these places.’
‘I see.’ Mrs Watson looked at her with increased respect. ‘Well, then, you will understand that these children had not been used to much, Mrs Cavendish. They were children of the streets, after all, and their mother was a criminal. But, in fact, they were well clothed and fed; that was not the problem. The problem was that while they were living in the institution they had been going out in the evenings to work, to earn that food and clothing. And the work they did . . .’ Mrs Watson sighed, and looked down at her hands a moment, before saying: ‘They had been earning their living with their bodies, you see. They went to a house where they were visited by men, most evenings, and these little girls had been taught to — well, you can imagine, I suppose. It seems that there are men — quite a number of men — who will pay a lot of money to deflower and — abuse young girls in this way. By the time the mother found them her daughters were quite used to this; they were proud of it, even, because of the money they earned. The eldest was fifteen by this time, the youngest — eleven.’
Mrs Watson paused, and again Deborah was aware of the silence in the room. Occasional sounds — the ticking of the mantelpiece clock, the clop of a horse's hooves outside — oppressed her. And there was something else: a singing in her ears, the pounding of her own blood in a pulse at her neck. She knew these things happened, of course — so why was she blushing? I am like these girls, she thought. They could have been me!
‘And you say that . . . Dr Armstrong arranged this?’
‘It is possible. We are not quite sure. He is a careful man, he covers his tracks well. But since we heard this story some of our ladies have investigated this charitable institution and it is clear that such stories are not uncommon. He is the doctor there and has treated some of the girls for venereal disease. They wrote a report for our files, which I have just read. It is hard to imagine he does not know exactly what goes on.’
‘My God!’ And Jonathan knows this man — he introduced me to him, he calls him his friend. He has asked him to talk to Sarah! ‘Have the police been told?’
‘Not yet, no. It is a difficult matter, you see. The complain
ant, the girl's mother, is a convicted thief, and the girls themselves want nothing to do with her. They seem to like their work, that is the worst of it. They did not want to go home with her. They said they could earn more money by themselves. That is the cunning of it, you see — many of the girls in this place are the daughters of convicted women who have very loose morals anyway, so the parents are usually pleased because of the money the children bring in. This is the first time any parent has dared to object.’
‘But this is a scandal! It's monstrous!’
‘Yes, of course.’ Mrs Watson looked at Deborah quite simply across the table. She did not look pleased or triumphant, nor did she apologise for the appalling story she had told. Her lined, resolute face looked quite calm, composed. Thin lips pressed closely together, grey hair, brown quiet bespectacled eyes watching curiously for Deborah's reaction. Her expression said: this is the truth, lady, this is what life is like. How are you going to face it?
‘But why are you telling me? I mean — did Sarah know this?' Deborah suddenly thought of the knife again. If Sarah had known about something like this, that knife would begin to make sense. If I myself had a knife, Deborah thought, and that Dr Armstrong were here now . . . but I wouldn't know what to do, I wouldn't have the strength or courage. Anyway they weren't my children. If they had been . . .
‘Well, I am not sure.’ Mrs Watson looked suddenly embarrassed, hesitant. ‘Certainly, she knew nothing of the story I have just told you. She couldn't have. We only learnt about it after she was arrested. But nonetheless, on the last day I saw her — Monday — she did ask me about this suffragette investigation. She must have heard something about it, I suppose, so I told her what I knew. It was all in fairly general terms because I hadn't read the files properly then. But now I think of it, she went very quiet. I didn't think anything of it at the time. But since then I have consulted the files more closely, and the name of this Dr Armstrong you mentioned was in there. Under suspicion, no more.’
Thoughts were crowding into Deborah's head, too quickly for her to make sense of them all. She said: ‘And two days later she took that meat-knife and slashed the picture?’