by Vicary, Tim
To her surprise, Ruth learned that Alice Watson had come from an unpretentious lower middle-class background, little better than her own. Her parents had not wanted her to become a nurse; that had been a struggle. But, like Ruth, she had a strong sense of right and wrong.
‘They used to think nurses were prostitutes, too — do you know that?’ she had said, as they sat drinking tea at the little table in her window, looking down on the tops of trams and drays in the street below. ‘Men thought they could do what they liked with them, especially the doctors. That's why the uniform was so important. It marked us out, made it clear we were doing something decent and clean for society. I can understand you felt something of the same for the prison service.’
‘Not any more.’ Ruth had told her of her childhood struggle to get a decent job, the pride she felt in her own little flat, her hopes of a decent life with her fiancé, George Smith. ‘If I help you now,’ she said. ‘I'll lose all that.’
‘It's possible, certainly,’ Alice said. ‘And I've no right to ask you to take that risk. I'm just grateful for what you've done already. If you decided to do no more, I couldn't complain.’ She paused, looking at Ruth calmly through her round spectacles. Waiting perhaps for me to get up and walk out, Ruth thought later.
But she hadn't. So Alice had poured her some more tea and said: ‘If you go on, then of course we'd welcome you and there'd be a lot of companionship. But it's not easy. You should be clear in your mind that what you're doing is right.’
That, for Ruth, was the crux of the matter. She was a very moral young woman. She had gone into the prison service not just because it was a secure, respectable job, but because she had believed she would be on the side of right against wrong. Of Christian against Apollyon. Now, with a man like Martin Armstrong in authority over her, she felt that was not true. Either she kept her job and served the devil, or left it, and served God.
Alice Watson had listened to her explanation, and smiled. Then she reached out and patted Ruth's hand.
‘You are a brave young woman,’ she said. ‘I am proud to have met you. It is not easy, what you are doing, but let us not despair too soon. If everything we have planned works out as I hope, there will be no reason for anyone to point a finger at you. They will blame the suffragette movement, which is too big to arrest and imprison all at once, however hard they try.’
Ruth remembered that conversation now as she stood in the upper corridor of Holloway, a few yards away from Sarah Becket's empty cell. Certainly they had planned carefully, and it had gone well enough so far. Alice Watson had been in Holloway herself, twice in the past five years, and that had been invaluable. But, as a prisoner, she remembered long empty stretches of utter boredom, when she was left in her cell to think or starve or watch a sunbeam crawl slowly across the floor. To her it seemed quite likely that no one would notice Sarah's absence for two hours.
To Ruth, now, feeling the sweat prickle on the back of her neck, it seemed almost impossible.
Prison, to a wardress, was a busy place, with countless duties to get through in the course of a day. Not the least of these was keeping an eye on the prisoners. Spying on them through the judas hole as you went down the corridor, just to see what they were doing.
Any wardress could do that, on any landing. Any time.
They had decided on two hours for a number of reasons. They had hoped to get Sarah in the basket between nine-thirty and nine forty-five, ready for the van which usually arrived and began to load at about ten to ten. It then took the best part of an hour, perhaps longer, to splutter its way through the traffic to High Holborn and stack the baskets in the large shed beside the laundry for the laundresses to empty. That was the most frightening part, Ruth thought. There would be little enough air in those baskets as it was, and the men might easily stack one or even two baskets on top of the one Sarah was in.
Then the drivers usually stopped for a cup of tea and a chat in the laundry. They were not part of the plot, nor were all of the laundresses. So it would take at least another half an hour, maybe more, before Ruth could be reasonably certain that Sarah was out of her basket, and free.
Then she could sound the alarm. They had agreed that if Ruth herself found that Sarah was missing, it would point less suspicion at her. Providing I can act well enough, Ruth thought.
I'll blush, my hands will shake, sweat will pour down my face. I was brought up to never tell lies . . .
She walked out onto the landing to look at the clock in the main hall. Five to eleven. Another forty minutes. Then she would be safe.
Safe?
‘Where is the girl, damn it? Miss Harkness? Ah, there she is. Come here, girl. I need you.’
Oh my God. Ruth turned, feeling her mouth dry, sweat damp in her palms. Dr Armstrong, climbing the iron staircase towards her. Control your face, girl. Don't show any nerves now.
‘Yes, doctor?’
‘Just doing my rounds on your landing. Thought I'd call in on that blasted suffragette of yours. What's her name — Bucket?’
If it was meant as a joke even he did not seem to think it was a good one. Of course he knew her name, very well — as she knew his. Ruth looked at him and saw that behind the bluff, confident authority of his face there was something . . . what was it? Fear? Anxiety? Guilt? The eyes seemed smaller, darker, more sunken than she remembered. He was not examining her, quite the reverse. His gaze shifted away. He was sweating!
Ruth's mind worked fast. Five to eleven, it was too early. Sarah was still in the basket, she might be caught. Why is Armstrong sweating like that?
Because of that medicine he gave her last night? Perhaps it was too much. He thinks she may be dead!
‘Becket? She's asleep, Dr Armstrong.’
‘What's that you say, girl? Asleep, at this time of day? What is this, a rest home? Don't you get the damn convicts up?’
Not when they've been murdered, no. We leave them to lie until the doctors find them.
I was right. He's sweating more now. I've never seen guilt written so plain on a man's face. Murderer!
‘Well, we'd better go along and wake her up. Got your keys?’
‘Yes, of course, Doctor.’
Ruth turned and led the way along the corridor. But as she walked, she thought, this is no good. I've aroused his suspicions when I shouldn't have. He has to go in now because there's something unusual. And it's too early!
She stopped outside the cell door, glanced through, and said: ‘She's still asleep, Doctor. It seems a pity to wake her. She was up early this morning, carrying the linen downstairs. I expect that tired her. She's only just started eating again, as you know.’
Dr Armstrong hesitated. ‘Up early this morning, you say?’ Is that disappointment on his face? ‘What was she like then?’
‘Oh, a bit tired, I would say. Not very strong, but all right in her mind. I expect the exercise was too much for her. That's probably why she's sleeping now.’
‘What do you know about what's all right in her mind?’ Dr Armstrong took a deep breath, staring at the cell door as though coming to a decision.
Go away, please! Let him come back in an hour and it won't matter, please God. Ruth prayed, her hands clasped demurely by her belt where she thought Armstrong wouldn't notice. Our Father, who art in heaven . . .
‘Open the door, girl.’
‘You're going to wake her up?’
‘Yes, of course. I haven't got time to fool about. It's a medical matter. Come on, you've got your keys, haven't you? Hurry up!’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
Ruth sighed, unclasped her hands, and slipped the key into the lock. As she did so a vision of the clock in the main hall came into her mind. Forty minutes too soon, she thought.
Eleven o'clock . . .
When Sarah awoke it was because the basket was moving, swaying abruptly and violent up and then down again, sideways, being carried somewhere at a slant so that she slid down towards her own feet and felt sure she would break through the
wicker walls entirely at any moment. There were men's voices, grunting softly with the effort, swearing. Then without any warning the basket seemed to fly through the air and land with a crash on an echoing wooden floor.
It was dark. Cautiously, she stretched so that she was no longer bundled into a ball around her own feet, and moved until her head once again came into contact with the basket wall at the far end. It was less comfortable than before. The sheets had tangled themselves in a perverse way around and under her and for a moment she had a second panic attack. This time she would really not be able to breathe, and would have to scream. Another basket was heaved on top of hers, so that the wicker lid bent down, inwards, touching her head. Sarah could hear the men outside and stuffed a sheet into her own mouth so if she did scream she would not be heard. Then they were gone.
When they came again more baskets were slammed in behind and around hers, and with the noise that they made she knew that the men were so distant and so busy that they would not hear her anyway unless she really yelled out loud, and she was not going to do that. Not now. She was going to escape!
It was really hot and close in the basket by now and she did have trouble breathing, but for a while she felt too elated to care. There was panic again when the van doors closed but then joy when the engine started and the van began to move — she actually sang for a moment and then felt suddenly, horribly sick with the jolting and the smell and the close, stale air. But she could still breathe. She took shallow, careful breaths with the top of her lungs only and thought, irrelevantly, this is how the midwife told me I should breathe when my baby was born, only it never was born. Not alive. Perhaps this is my delivery instead. I am being delivered. I am delivering myself.
The van stopped with the engine running and men talked outside for ages and ages. Sarah thought, miserably, they've discovered I'm missing and they've sent someone to search all the baskets and I'll be found and dragged out and . . . The van started.
This time it drove quite steadily with only brief stops here and there in the traffic for a long time and in the hot close air Sarah began to sweat and then doze again, so that she had no idea how long it was before the engine was switched off and there was a crash of doors opening. A little grey light seeped into the basket which let her see the weave of the lid. Then she heard grunting from the men again and the van bounced upwards on its springs as the first baskets were lifted out and there was more light. The basket came off the top of Sarah's lid and it was her turn; she felt herself dragged along the floor of the van and then lifted swooping into the air, with what seemed a louder grunt and curse from the porters.
Like a queen, she thought. Cleopatra wrapped in a carpet. She smiled to herself, enjoying the unpredictable jolting motion, and then panic came again — who opens these baskets?
If these men open them they'll take me straight back to Holloway and it'll all have been for nothing, all wasted. So I must — her basket was slammed down to the floor so suddenly that she banged her head on the lid and the bile came into her mouth and she thought nothing, nothing at all for a long moment until she came to and realised that the men had gone away.
Then no one came for quite a long time. Slowly, all the joy and anticipation drained out of her and a small voice began to whisper: it's all a mistake, no one knows you're in here and you'll have to wait for hours and hours, perhaps they don't even open the baskets to begin the washing until tomorrow and by then you'll be too cramped to move, and also . . .
A door opened. Footsteps, a rustling noise, skirts, women's voices, furtive, excited whispers.
‘Sarah?’
Should she call out? Somehow the pressure of keeping hidden for so long kept her mouth shut. It was like a child's game of hide and seek — just because the others call you don't give your hiding place away. Anyhow, could she trust them?
The creak of a basket opening. Not hers. Cries of disappointment. ‘Sarah, where are you? Tell us, quick — are you all right?’
‘Yes, here.’ Her mouth was so dry it sounded like nothing to her. She shouted again and banged her hand feebly against the lid. A woman called out: ‘Alice! This one!’
The straps loosened, the lid was pulled back and there was sudden, glaring light. And there above her was Alice Watson. Round spectacles on the lined face, grey hair as ever pulled back into a severe bun, thin lips pursed with anxious determination. Like a nanny with a naughty child. Sarah began to laugh. She could not help it. And with the laughter, tears, so that she could not see well. She tried to get up, failed, flopped back.
Hands came down to help, untangling her from the sheets, beginning to lift her. Many hands, many women. Her sisters in the movement. Laughing, anxious, triumphant.
‘There now,’ Alice Watson said. ‘Put her down on her feet, gently, the poor dear lady. She weighs less than a ten-year-old child!’
23
WHEN SHE was out of the basket, she could not stand. Her legs crumpled under her. But there were arms all around — to hold her, support her, carry her gently to a chair in the corner of the big laundry store room. Women all around — tears, laughter, kisses, celebration, and a lady doctor testing her pulse, peering quickly into her eyes, her sore mouth, asking how she felt.
‘Wonderful!’
Sarah's first word led to smiles, laughter, applause even. But Alice Watson had no time for that.
‘Then you must get out of that prison dress as quickly as you can. Here, I've brought one of your own. I'll help you put it on. The others will turn their backs if you wish.’
‘What? No, no need. I'm not modest any more, I've nothing to hide.’
Indeed she had not, Alice thought, as she and the doctor bundled the dirty prison smock over Sarah's head and saw the thin arms and legs, the narrow sinewy neck, beneath. She had been thin enough before she slashed the picture; since then, Alice thought, she could scarcely have kept a mouthful down at all. Hunger is an illness when it looks like this.
But the cure is freedom — and joy.
As Sarah stood, tottering slightly, in her own long blue woollen dress with little white stars around collar and cuffs — one that Deborah had chosen from Sarah's wardrobe — Alice thought she understood, once again, what a striking figure Sarah must have made as a young bride. The beautiful society girl who had married the elegant rising young bachelor and prospective MP, Jonathan Becket. Someone combed her hair for her, and with a smile of relief on her face and a sparkle in her eyes, she looked radiant. Her bones were good — only one did not expect to see them quite so clearly, in such a starved, emaciated face.
She will look like that when she is old, Alice thought. When she looks back and remembers these days.
Sarah smiled, overjoyed at her reception. She tried a few steps in her dress, swayed, and sat down rather too abruptly on a hard wooden chair.
‘But how did you get this, Alice? It's perfect — it's my own!’
‘Deborah sent it.’ Alice Watson glanced up from a sack into which she was hurriedly stuffing Sarah's heavy shoes and grey, arrow-striped prison dress.
‘Deborah? But how could she?’ Sarah asked, confused. ‘She's at Glenfee!’
‘No. That's where you're going. Soon.’ Mrs Watson stood up, the sack in one hand, and smiled down at her friend quietly. Ruth had been right. Sarah's mind was wandering. The bromide, perhaps. ‘Didn't you get our letter?’ she asked gently.
‘Letter? Oh yes.’ Memory came back, slowly. Everything in the prison seemed so distant, already. A dream. Another country.
But Alice Watson was full of bustle and orders. She handed the sack to one of the laundry women, with orders to burn it immediately. Then she bent down, put one of Sarah's arms gently round her neck, and raised her to her feet. The doctor, Rachel Camperdowne, took Sarah's other arm, and they walked her quickly out through a small door at the back of the building. Then down an alleyway between some dustbins.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To a car, I hope.’
A car was
waiting in a back street at the end of the alleyway. A gleaming yellow 6-cylinder Noiseless Napier, with a young woman in plus fours and a motoring helmet holding the door ready for them to get in, and a crowd of street urchins in flat caps and oversize jackets clustered around to gape.
‘Not perhaps as discreet as I could wish, but we'll change to a taxi cab before we get to the hotel,' Mrs Watson said. 'The chief thing now is speed, and young Miranda here makes a speciality of that! I don't want to have the air sucked out of my lungs or see any dogs run over, now, miss. We've an invalid aboard.’
What little they could see of the face of the young lady chauffeur grinned, and a gauntleted hand saluted. Then she walked round to the front to crank a handle, leapt aboard, and the car set off with an unfortunate jerk which dislodged three of the most curious street urchins from the back mudguard.
As they turned out into Holborn High Street, swerving between bicycles and grocers' drays at twenty and sometimes even thirty miles an hour, Sarah sat back in her seat and laughed in sheer exhilaration at the sudden extraordinariness of it all.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To meet your sister, Deborah Cavendish,’ Mrs Watson said. ‘She's in a hotel run by one of our sympathisers near Euston.’
‘But — why not home?’ Sarah asked. ‘I have to meet Jonathan sometime. It may as well be soon.’ At the thought of what she would have to say, all the joy went out of the unaccustomed sunlight, and a pulse began to beat unpleasantly in her neck. Alice Watson glanced at her oddly.
‘Well, you can't meet him in Belgrave Square. Use your wits, dear — you've just escaped from Holloway, in open defiance of His Imperial Majesty's government. The first place the police are bound to look for you is your home, so you can't possibly go there. We hope they won't realise for some time just how you got out, but the chances are they will, so we had to leave the laundry as fast as we could. Not every woman there sympathises with us, or has the sense to keep her mouth shut.’