Polly's March

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by Linda Newbery


  “I can’t stay long.” Polly glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Mama has a lie-down this time of day, and—” She stopped, not wanting to say that she was forbidden to be here. Edwina glanced at her, and she said instead: “Such good news – Lily’s coming to stay, in two weeks! My best friend Lily, whose flat this used to be.”

  “How lovely! I shall invite you both to tea,” Edwina said at once. “I’ll ask Kitty to bake a special cake.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” Polly said formally; but her brain was churning over the new problem this created. How could she bring Lily to tea, when she wasn’t allowed here herself? And in any case, wouldn’t Lily hate to see her flat, her own bedroom, all changed and cluttered with other people’s things? And what would Edwina think of Lily, with her good-girl manners and her love of pretty things?

  “That’s settled, then. I shall look forward to it!” Edwina moved to the writing desk in the corner, which was arranged like a small office, with an upright chair, typewriter, and stacks of box files and papers.

  While Polly sorted out fabric letters and pinned them to the banner, Edwina bashed the keys at furious speed, occasionally breaking off with a “Blast!” when she made a mistake. (Mama would be shocked about that, too – a lady, cursing like a workman!) Fascinated, Polly kept glancing at her. Perhaps Edwina earned money by working at home, doing people’s typing for them? A record was playing from a gramophone on the floor, the music punctuated by the uneven clatter of keys, the ting of the bell at the end of each line, and the swoosh as Edwina tugged back the carriage.

  “There!” Edwina said at last, pulling out her final sheet of paper.

  “Is this what you do?” Polly looked up from threading a needle. “Secretary work?”

  “No, it’s journalism. I write articles for various newspapers. It’s a way of spreading the word, you see. I take every opportunity I can.”

  “Oh!” Polly felt out of her depth. Writing for newspapers! It sounded very impressive: maybe Edwina wrote pieces in The Times newspaper Papa read every day! But if they were about votes for women, he wouldn’t read them – just huff, and turn to the business pages.

  “What do you want to do when you leave school, Polly?” Edwina said, rummaging in the bureau drawers.

  Polly hesitated; then said in a rush, “I want to be an explorer. I know it’s silly, and Mama says girls can’t be explorers—”

  “Of course they can,” Edwina said sharply. “What about Mary Kingsley? What about Gertrude Bell? Women have travelled through Mesopotamia, climbed mountains in the Himalayas. Can’t be explorers? Try telling them what they can and can’t do!”

  “Mama and Papa want to send me to Switzerland, to a finishing school. Doesn’t it sound funny, being finished? It means learning all about manners, and how to give dinner parties, and what to say when you meet a duke or a countess.”

  “I know. My parents would have sent me to one, but I refused to go. Schools for young ladies!” Edwina gave her horse-like hrrrumph. “Finished! Finished as an independent human being, more like! Education, that’s what girls need. Exactly the same education as boys. The same opportunities. If you want to be an explorer, Polly, that’s what you should be. Where do you want to go?”

  “Oh—” Polly thought of all the countries in the atlas and on the globe, the places her finger had landed. “Africa. Antarctica. India. Australia. Little islands right out in the Pacific Ocean. It’s just that – when you look at the world, and see what a small place England is, it seems silly to stay here all your life, just because you happen to be born here, when there are all these other, different places!”

  “You’re absolutely right there. I must lend you a favourite book of mine – you’ll love it, I’m sure. Just a moment—” Edwina left the room, but kept calling out questions from along the hallway: “What’s your favourite lesson at school, Polly? What are you good at? What don’t you like? Have you got good teachers?”

  At first Polly called back her answers: “Geography. I’m best at that, and at Art, and I quite like Games, except in winter. I’m hopeless at Maths and French. I can never remember how irregular French verbs go, and Mam’selle gets so impatient—” After a few minutes of this, as Edwina showed no sign of coming back, Polly followed her.

  “Here it is! Knew it was here somewhere.” Edwina emerged from one of the bedrooms, holding out a book in a red cover. Polly looked, and read: Under Desert Skies: the Journal of a Female Traveller, by Olive Kingston.

  “Take it. Borrow it. And anything else you like the look of,” Edwina said, brushing dust off her hands.

  “Can I?” Polly flicked through the pages, handling the book carefully. “Thank you!” She looked up, and past Edwina at shelves and shelves of books that took up a whole wall of the bedroom. This used to be Lily’s room, and there had been only one small shelf above the bed; Edwina must have had these put up specially. “Are they all yours?”

  “Have a look.” Edwina waved an airy hand. “Borrow as many as you like. I’ve just got to write a quick letter, then we’ll both get on with the sewing.”

  “I’ve just remembered something,” Polly said. “About the girl who used to live here – the one who planted the walnut tree. She wanted to be a gardener, and people told her it wasn’t a job for a girl, but now she is one. Was, rather, because she’s old now, and retired. But she worked as Head Gardener at a big house in Sussex. Mrs. Parks told me, because Miss Frazer – I think that was her name – called to see the house, and her walnut tree, when she came to the Flower Show at the Royal Hospital last year.”

  Edwina looked delighted. “Well, there you are! A wonderful example here in this very house.”

  She returned to her typing. Polly knew she should be going back downstairs, but couldn’t resist; she went into the bedroom and moved along the shelves, touching the spines of books, reading the titles. It was like a private library! Poetry; novels; history; lots of books about politics and the rights of women. No wonder Edwina was so clever, if she’d read all these…

  She was looking at The Mill on the Floss when she heard a key turn in the lock, and someone entered in a hurry. Violet, it must be. Polly was replacing the book, about to go into the hallway and say hello, when Violet’s angry voice made her jump.

  “Edwina, I thought you’d promised! A fool, I am, to believe what you say – I thought I heard the door, in the middle of the night! Agnes told me – you went sneaking out to break windows, didn’t you? It’s lucky you’re still here, not in Holloway Prison! Only I suppose that’s what you want, really?”

  Edwina answered, with perfect calmness: “We’ve got to keep up the pressure. I can’t bear to sit about doing nothing.”

  Violet had marched into the drawing room, but her voice was loud and clear. “It’s like a sport to you, though, en’t it? Breaking windows under the noses of the police. You’re addicted to it!”

  “Nonsense!”

  “And you haven’t got your strength back, not yet,” Violet persisted. “Will you promise me – and I mean really promise this time – not to go out again at night?”

  “I’ll promise nothing of the sort.” Edwina sounded haughty now. “Could you stop shouting, please? You’re giving me a headache – and Polly’s here.”

  This was Polly’s cue to slink back and join them, red-faced and embarrassed to find herself overhearing such a quarrel.

  “Oh, hello, Polly,” said Violet, attempting a smile; but then she rounded on Edwina again, evidently too full of outrage to hold it in. “When it comes down to it, it’s votes for ladies you’re fighting for, en’t it? For upper-class ladies. For you and your sort. Not votes for the ordinary working women where I come from – the East Enders, the factory workers, the wives struggling to make ends meet, with five kids and a drunken husband – the ones we really need. How are they meant to make themselves heard?”

  Edwina looked at her exasperatedly. “We’ve got to be single-minded, don’t you see that? We can’t get sidetracked
into all sorts of other causes.”

  “It’s got to be for everyone, not some sort of – of personal triumph!” Violet stomped over to the window, and stood for a moment leaning on the sill, while Polly looked anxiously from her to Edwina and back again; Edwina, quite composed, addressed an envelope and stuck on a stamp. Kitty came in, raised her eyebrows, then, catching Polly’s glance, gave a conspiratorial half-grin, as if she were quite used to spats like these.

  “Oh, Kitty,” said Edwina, “are you making tea?”

  “Nearly ready,” Kitty replied; “crumpets, too, if you want.”

  “Ooh, I should think so. Do we?” Edwina looked at Polly, then at Violet.

  Violet wasn’t going to be sidetracked by crumpets. “You know, I sometimes wonder if we’re fighting for the same thing at all! Sometimes I wonder how much you understand. That chaise long-ew you bought on a whim the other day – that’d be six months’ housekeeping for my mum!”

  “Chaise longue,” Edwina corrected, in an emphatically French accent.

  Violet looked exasperated. “Oh, Edie, you’re such a terrible snob!”

  Polly held her breath: how could Violet say such things? But, to her amazement, Edwina burst out laughing.

  “Yes, you’re quite right! Just listen to me! How terribly prissy I am! Let’s have tea and crumpets and forget all about our differences.”

  Violet began to laugh too, and Kitty rolled her eyes at the ceiling and turned for the kitchen.

  “Sorry, Polly. You must think we’re a pair of alley cats, spitting and scratching!” said Violet, settling herself on the despised chaise longue. “We’re not always like this, fortunately. Oh, you’ve made a start on the sewing!” she added, noticing Polly’s work – a V and an O tacked, none too neatly, to a strip of purple and green.

  “Yes. But I think I’d better go home now,” Polly said awkwardly.

  “What, and miss the crumpets? Not because of my little temper tantrum, I hope?” Violet pulled a rueful face.

  “No – it’s just that I’m expected.”

  “Thank you, Polly,” said Edwina from her desk. “We’re very grateful.”

  It was Violet who went with her to the door. “Do come again – whenever you like!” she called, as Polly crept down the stairs.

  Polly hoped she hadn’t spoken loudly enough for Mama to hear. She slid through the front door of Flat Two, which she had left on the latch.

  She felt shocked by the vehemence of the argument – almost shaking. Edwina and Violet were behaving now as if nothing had happened; but how could they disagree so strongly, and still be friends?

  Chapter Ten

  Reasons

  Next morning, Polly let herself out into the garden before anyone else was up, even before Mrs. Parks had arrived in the kitchen. She liked to be outside in the early morning: she liked the damp smell of grass and earth, the sense of everything waking up to the day, a wood pigeon cooing in the top of the walnut tree, and the sounds of hooves and wheels in Oakley Street beyond the old mews, which gave her the smug feeling of having a day of leisure ahead of her while the rest of London busied itself with shops and offices and delivery rounds.

  She glanced up at the top flat. Perhaps the quarrel last night hadn’t been as bad as she thought it at the time. Violet’s outburst might be better than the way Papa and Mama went about it, on the rare occasions when they disagreed – not so much an exchange of views as a cooling of the air that spread chillily through the whole flat, so that Polly felt numbed by it.

  With her special notebook, Lily’s leaving present, she sat on the swing. The seat was wet with dew; immediately she felt dampness through her skirt and petticoats, but it was too late to worry about that now.

  Lily’s notebook had marbled covers and a silk ribbon bookmark. At first Polly had thought she might write a story in it; but as no story had come to her, she now decided to use it for Plans and Ideas. It would have to be kept secret, of course; she would hide it under her pillow, wrapped in her nightdress.

  Plans and Ideas, she wrote carefully on the first page. Find out about being an explorer. Read “Under Desert Skies” and lots of other books. Then, on page two, a heading: Ten Reasons why Maurice shouldn’t have the vote.

  She sucked the end of her pencil, then went on:

  He tells tales.

  He is rude.

  He treads on ants.

  He pulls girls’ hair and knocks their hats off in the street.

  He took the last jam tart at teatime without asking if anyone else wanted it.

  He thinks he knows everything.

  He stole Lily’s doll and threw her up in the tree and laughed when she got caught by her hair.

  He is a horrible, slimy, nasty, unkind boy.

  He thinks boys are better than girls.

  He will be even worse by the time he is grown-up and old enough to vote.

  There! she thought with satisfaction, drawing a squiggly line underneath. That was Maurice summed up!

  “Morning, Polly!”

  It was Violet, coming out from the back-stairs entrance with a basket of laundry under her arm, making for the washing line at the end of the garden, which was separated from the lawn by a bed of shrubs.

  Polly darted across. “Let me help!”

  “You’re out early – what a glorious day!” Violet propped the heavy basket against one hip. “Just putting these out before I go off to work.” She looked so cheerful that Polly could hardly believe she was the same person who’d ranted at Edwina last night. She couldn’t decide which of the two young women she liked best: Violet, for her kindness and ordinariness, or Edwina, so clever and determined. Just imagine, going out on a window-smashing raid, after a demure tea with Mama and Mrs. Dalby!

  According to Papa, Polly should have said a stiff “good morning”, and gone straight indoors.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” she confided. “And now Edwina says she’ll invite me and Lily to tea – that’s my best friend Lily who used to live in your flat. Only we won’t be allowed!”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s Papa, you see. He’s terribly strict.” Polly explained about Papa’s New Rule, while they pegged out the blouses and undergarments (she could just imagine Mrs. Dalby having something to say about that, if she ventured this far down the garden: “How utterly shameless! Underclothes hanging on a washing line, for the whole world to see! Did you ever hear the like?”)

  Violet listened in concern, then said, “I wouldn’t want to stir up trouble for you, with your ma and pa. Shame though – just when we was getting to know one another! Can’t you talk to your pa – convince him we’re really quite human?”

  “I don’t know,” Polly said doubtfully. Papa was not really open to negotiation, once he’d made his views known.

  “Anyway, that’s a job done. Thank you,” said Violet, when the washing was pegged jauntily on the line. “We’ll find a way, somehow or other. You can always blame it on me if your pa finds out.”

  “But I want to carry on helping with the banners and leaflets!” They were walking slowly back up the garden.

  “Well, you know you’re always welcome – whenever you can come up for the odd half hour. You know the old saying, What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over?”

  Polly considered. That did sound rather like her own thinking; but it hadn’t stopped Violet from being angry when Edwina slipped out of their flat without telling her. It sounded fine as a saying, but she wasn’t sure how well it would work.

  Violet paused, seeing the notebook on the swing seat where Polly had left it. “That yours? Are you writing a story?”

  “No, not a story.” Polly fetched it. “Here. I did this.” She handed over the open book and stood self-consciously while Violet read the list, sure now that it was a very childish thing to have done.

  Violet laughed. “Poor Maurice! You can’t blame him for being a boy, you know! He can’t help that, and there are some very nice ones about!”
>
  “Are there?” Polly said. “I’m afraid I don’t know any.”

  Violet looked at her. “Don’t go thinking we hate men, you know, just ’cos we stand up for women’s rights. Well, there’s some might do, but I en’t one of them. There’s men in our movement, too – male suffragists!”

  “Oh!” said Polly, confused.

  “One of them, Mr. Pethick-Lawrence, even went to prison and went on hunger strike. You see, Poll, you don’t have to be a woman to think us women deserve the vote. Any more’n you have to be poor to think people shouldn’t have to starve,” Violet explained. “Fair-minded people want the best for everyone.”

  “Doesn’t everyone want the best for everyone?”

  “It would be nice if they did. But lots of folk’s only interested in themselves.”

  She was about to go indoors; Polly hesitated, then said, “Violet?”

  “Mm?”

  “Yesterday – you know, the – the argument.”

  “Oh, that.” Now it was Violet’s turn to look embarrassed. “You mustn’t take any notice of us. Go at each other hammer and tongs, we do, sometimes.”

  “It sounded as if – as if you don’t really like each other.”

  Violet grinned. “Sometimes I could wring Edwina’s neck! But it’s not because I don’t like her. She’s been so good to me, and I admire her for what she does, even if I don’t always agree. It’s the risks she takes, the way she drives herself! But we’re in this together – always have been, always will be.”

  Polly smiled with relief. Really! The peculiar ways grown-ups behaved! At least with Maurice she knew what to expect.

  “Sometimes, you know,” Violet went on, “the people you care about most, are the ones you get most angry with. Best go now, or I’ll make meself late.” Violet turned for the side door, but added over her shoulder, “That list of yours – how about ‘Ten reasons why Polly should have the vote!’”

  Yes, of course. Polly sat on the swing again, and began at once with the new heading.

 

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