Octavia

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘And now they’re being tortured,’ Betty said. ‘Because that’s what it amounts to, doesn’t it? The group in Birmingham say they’re really ill.’

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ Octavia said. ‘We must write and tell them how much we support them and admire them.’

  ‘We write every other day,’ Mrs Emsworth said and there was rebuke in her tone. ‘We’ve done it ever since they were sentenced.’

  ‘Of course,’ Octavia said, and was ashamed of herself again, thinking, I was speaking out of turn. Naturally they’ve written. As I would have done if I’d been here. ‘Do you know when they are likely to be released?’ she asked, trying to be helpfully practical. ‘Perhaps we should send a deputation to greet them. What do you think?’

  They arrived holding flowers and wearing their most impressive clothes, neat and bright in the sooty darkness outside the prison gates. A pervasive rain was falling and the October sky was wintry.

  ‘I hope they’ll be on time,’ Betty Transom said. ‘My feet are like ice already.’

  But the appointed hour arrived and passed and nothing happened. They were joined by two more groups of women and a quiet couple with a pale young man in tow, who arrived in a cab which was told to wait, and they all stood together on the cobbles, side by side for warmth, their breath pluming before them in the chill air.

  ‘Why are prisons so grim?’ Betty Transom said, looking at the blackened walls and that forbidding oak gate.

  ‘They’re designed that way,’ Octavia told her. ‘They’re supposed to deter us.’

  And then suddenly a small door in the forbidding gate was inched open and there they were: four pale women, holding on to one another and advancing towards them, very, very slowly. They gave them a cheer and walked towards them equally slowly with their flowers outstretched and offered. The pale young man was the first to reach them and now Octavia saw that he had a notebook in his hand and realised that he was a reporter. ‘Mrs Ainsworth?’ he said. ‘Mrs Laura Ainsworth?’

  One of the prisoners detached herself from her friends and answered him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am she. I haven’t the energy to stand for long but if you would care to come home with me I will tell you all you need to know.’ She was trembling but impressively calm.

  I hope I can behave like that when my turn comes, Octavia thought, because it would come, sooner or later. She couldn’t put it off forever. But the sight and smell of the prison was deterring her where she stood and she wasn’t at all sure how resolute she would manage to be when she was put to the test. Or how strong.

  That night when she was back home after her two long journeys, she wrote a letter to Tommy describing everything she’d seen and analysing everything she’d felt. It was rather a disappointment when his answering letter hardly mentioned what she’d said. But she forgave him when she read the PS.

  ‘I shall be in Paris on Saturday week, for three days. I told you I’d swing it, didn’t I? Write and let me know what train you are catching and I’ll be at the station with bells on. Can’t wait to see you again. Txxxx’

  To see him again, and so soon! It was wonderful news. Oh, wonderful! But it presented her with a problem. A trip to Paris had to be explained to her parents and she could hardly tell them she was going to visit Tommy, much less that they were going to stay in a hotel together. They were broadminded, but not that broadminded. She would have to think about what she told them and choose her words very carefully. But however she phrased it, the explanation was bound to be a lie. And oh, she did so hate the thought that she would have to tell lies. This is what comes of loving someone, she thought. It makes you dishonest. Or perhaps I ought to say, this is what comes of loving someone in a society that won’t accept a loving couple unless they are married. If you ever heard of anything so illogical.

  In the end she told them she wanted to go to France to meet up with a group of suffragettes who were staying in Paris. Her mother was most concerned.

  ‘All that way, Tavy,’ she queried, ‘on your own? Do you think that’s wise?’

  ‘I shall be met at the station,’ Octavia said. That much was true at any rate.

  ‘So you may be, but it’s a long journey. What do you think, J-J?’

  Fortunately her father thought it was a capital idea. ‘Paris is no distance these days,’ he said. ‘You go, my dear, and enjoy yourself. Just don’t go getting arrested.’

  ‘No, Pa,’ she said, bowing her head in mock obedience. ‘It’s not that sort of meeting.’

  ‘No,’ he said, grinning at her. He had a really devilish grin sometimes. ‘I rather thought it wasn’t.’

  So she travelled to Paris on her own and was met at the Gare du Nord by a beaming Tommy, who pulled her into his arms and kissed her, there and then, out in the street and nobody seemed to mind. He’d been right about that, she thought. But then he was right about so many things, her dear, dear Tommy. They spent the next three days visiting the city, arm in arm and stopping to kiss whenever the spirit moved them – as it often did – and the next four nights making luxurious love. By the time they parted again at the Gare du Nord, she felt as if she’d been with him for weeks.

  ‘When can we come here again?’ she asked, as she climbed into the train.

  ‘As soon as I can wangle it,’ he promised.

  ‘I do love you,’ she said.

  ‘Likewise,’ he told her.

  I could have stayed here forever, she thought, as the train rattled her through the Parisian suburbs. But there was work to be done in London and she couldn’t and shouldn’t avoid it, much though she wanted to at that moment.

  The debate about violent protest had been fanned into a rage by the forcible feeding of the hunger strikers. In October the now renowned Laura Ainsworth took the prison authorities to the High Court and although she lost her case, it was rumoured that there was going to be an enquiry into the whole business of force-feeding. In November, a group of militants broke into the lord mayor’s banquet and threw stones at the assembled worthies.

  ‘It is the wrong tactic,’ Octavia said, over and over again at one meeting after another. ‘We lose public sympathy every time we are violent and we need public sympathy if we are to prevail. I know the authorities are being extremely violent to us, but we should show our supporters a better way than throwing stones and hurling insults. We must go on pressing for proper democratic change, and that must come eventually through a bill in Parliament. We cannot bully our enemies into giving us what we want.’

  Many agreed with her, but they all knew that something would have to be done to persuade the men who made the law and drafted the bills and none of them could think what it could possibly be. Mr Keir Hardy, MP, was the staunchest of allies but there were times when he seemed to be the only one. ‘He’s a voice in the wilderness,’ they said sadly.

  If it hadn’t been for her infrequent visits to Paris, that winter would have been a very difficult time. She spent four days there at the end of November, when mist rose from the surface of the Seine and the city was dank with rain. And she was there for nearly a week in the middle of December, when the streets were brilliantly lit, the shops were crammed with Christmas treats and the pavements crowded with elegant shoppers, the women snuggled into fur-trimmed coats and hats like Russian Cossacks, the men in well-cut overcoats and leather gloves, escorting them in and out of shops and hotels, gallantly attentive. She was glad to be in their company. ‘They look so cultivated,’ she said to Tommy.

  ‘Like us!’ he said, putting his arm round her as they walked along. ‘You, my lovely Tikki Tavy, are the most cultivated woman in the city.’

  His lightness of tone sustained her. When she was with him, she could joke and flirt, as if the world were an easy, comfortable place, and no one had ever thrown stones or smashed windows or been spat at or force-fed. It was only in London that she had to be serious all the time. And as the months went by there was more and more to be serious about.

  The New Year brought a piece of ra
ther alarming news. It was tucked away in the middle pages of the newspaper and she wouldn’t have seen it at all if she hadn’t been scanning the pages for a report on the latest WSPU meeting.

  ‘Britain could face a serious shortage of horses should war break out, it was reported yesterday. The National Horse Supply Association was told that 170,000 would be needed immediately on the outbreak of hostilities, the same number being replaced every six months. Germany and Austria spent £200,000 each annually on horse breeding, Britain less than £5,000.’

  ‘Have you read this, Pa?’ she said, passing the paper across the breakfast table.

  He glanced at it and said he had. ‘There was something similar in The Times yesterday.’

  ‘It sounds as if they are expecting a war,’ she said. ‘That’s not right surely.’

  ‘We live in an age of empire, little one,’ he said, ‘and empires are belligerent by their very nature. They are won by armed force, don’t forget, and maintained by occupying armies.’

  ‘But there’s no reason for us to want to fight anyone now,’ she persisted. ‘Surely to goodness. We’re the biggest empire in the world.’

  ‘All the more reason,’ he told her. ‘The biggest empire has the most to lose.’

  It was a sobering thought. I shall write to Tommy, she decided and see what he has to say about it.

  It upset her that he seemed to agree with her father. ‘I daresay we shall put up a fight sooner or later,’ he wrote. ‘Not to worry your head about it. If it comes, it comes. I shan’t be in Paris until May but then I’ve got a whole fortnight’s leave. Good or what? I’ll take you to Versailles and show you the Sun King’s palace.’

  Which he did and very charming she found it. ‘The French are so civilised,’ she said. ‘They’re not talking about a war coming.’

  ‘Everybody’s talking about a war coming,’ Tommy told her lightly. ‘You should hear them in the embassy. It’s all they ever do talk about. That and the warring tribes. I can’t tell you how boring it is. Don’t let’s waste our time on it.’

  Fortunately the newspapers gave them something else to talk about the very next day. King Edward VII was dead. ‘Well, how about that!’ Tommy said. ‘I hope they let us home for the funeral. I shall put on a black tie and look sorrowful and ask them. It’s about time we got back to our flat, don’t you think?’

  The black tie and sorrowful expression paid off. This time it was a month’s leave and he came straight back to London to enjoy it. ‘The king can die any time he wants,’ he said to Octavia on their first afternoon in the flat. ‘It suits me to a T.’

  ‘I’m sure he did it to suit you,’ she teased. ‘All the papers keep saying what a diplomat he was.’

  ‘Come to bed,’ he said.

  It was a summer of good meals, family picnics on the river with Cyril and Em and the three children, frequent and cheerful visits to the theatre, occasional sorties out into the country on their bicycles, and all of it spiced with the most passionate and satisfying lovemaking. By this time Em was speaking quite openly about them ‘walking out’ but Octavia didn’t mind. She explained to her cousin, privately of course, that she and Tommy had got to be patient because they couldn’t marry until he’d finished his apprenticeship and naturally Em passed on all her news to her mother, who naturally passed it on in her turn to her sister Amy.

  ‘I knew there was something in the wind,’ Amy said to J-J. ‘All those letters he keeps writing. And now he’s home there’s never a day goes by when they’re not together. He’ll be speaking to you soon, J-J, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  Her husband made a grimace and returned to his newspaper.

  ‘Maybe I’ll say something to Tavy,’ Amy said. ‘When she comes in tonight.’

  But when Octavia came in that night she was bursting with such good news she couldn’t wait to tell them what it was. ‘They’ve formed a conciliation committee, Mama,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘Who have?’ Amy asked. ‘What for?’

  ‘Why, the MPs,’ her daughter said. ‘They’re going to draft a women’s suffrage bill and Keir Hardy’s going to steer it through the Commons. It’s going to be called the Conciliation Bill. We’re going to get the vote at last!’

  ‘I couldn’t get a word in edgeways,’ Amy said to J-J as they were preparing for bed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so excited.’

  The excitement was short-lived. Despite Keir Hardy’s most passionate efforts the bill was defeated. And so was the second a year later, and the third, when Em was expecting her fourth baby, a year after that. The movement was more demoralised than it had ever been and Octavia more angry. It was no surprise to her when a group of furious women stormed into Oxford Street on a mad March day with hammers hidden in their muffs and smashed as many plate-glass windows as they could before they were arrested. ‘I know so exactly how they feel,’ she wrote to Tommy. ‘I never thought I’d say this but I could do it myself.’

  But of course the result of their actions was a police raid on the headquarters of the WSPU and the arrest of Emily Pankhurst and the Pethick Lawrences. They were tried for conspiracy and sentenced to nine months.

  ‘Sometimes I think the whole world has gone mad,’ Octavia wrote, ‘for such people to be sent to prison as if they were common criminals is tantamount to lunacy. To say nothing of the way the government is treating the miners and the dockers. They are making it a crime to ask for a living wage. Is it any wonder there are riots?’

  The one bright moment in that crazy spring was the arrival of Em’s fourth baby. It was another little boy, born on March 20th and as pale and fragile as his brother Eddie. She called him Richard and even though she was wearied by his birth was instantly enamoured of him. ‘Dear little man!’

  As there was no hope of seeing Tommy again until the summer, Octavia spent a lot of time with Emmeline and her brood during the next three months. Dora was now a pretty little girl who had her fifth birthday four days after her new brother’s arrival and was given a special party by her mother because she’d been so good. Eddie was still pale and undersized for a child who was nearly four and had a decidedly nervous air but he loved his Aunty Tavy and crept happily into her lap for stories whenever she appeared. And as to baby Edith, she was so plump and cheerful it was a joy to see her.

  ‘Four babies,’ Octavia said to her cousin, who was sitting on her sofa with the new baby across her knees and Edith cuddled against her side. ‘You’re like the old woman in the shoe, Em.’

  ‘Who had so many children she didn’t know what to do,’ Emmeline laughed. ‘I feel like her sometimes, especially when they’re all crying. But I love them so much I wouldn’t be without them.’

  ‘They were your dream,’ Octavia said.

  ‘And the cause was yours?’ Emmeline said. ‘How oddly dreams turn out, don’t they? They seem so easy and straightforward when you’re young but when they come true everything’s so complicated it’s a different matter altogether.’

  ‘Mine is a bit of a nightmare sometimes,’ Octavia admitted. They were talking so openly to one another that a confession was possible. ‘We’ve been campaigning for such a long time and we’re no nearer to getting the vote than we were at the beginning.’

  ‘Don’t you ever want to give up?’ Emmeline asked, stroking the baby’s downy head. ‘Leave it all behind you and marry Tommy.’

  ‘No,’ Octavia said. She was quite certain about it, bad though things were. ‘We must go on now. There’s nothing else we can do.’

  ‘Even if it means being sent to prison and force-fed?’

  Octavia’s heart contracted at the thought but her answer was steadfast. ‘Even if it means that.’

  ‘You’re very brave,’ Emmeline said. ‘I don’t think I could stand it. It must be terribly painful.’

  ‘You’ve had four babies,’ Octavia said. ‘Now that’s what I’d call brave. And painful.’

  ‘Having babies is natural,’ Emmeline said sagely. ‘It is pai
nful – very painful, I’ll grant you that – but when it’s over you soon forget it and you’ve got a baby to show for it. Being force-fed isn’t natural by any stretch of the imagination. That’s the difference. I couldn’t stand somebody doing that to me.’

  And I will have to, Octavia thought. I can’t go on avoiding action forever.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The moment Octavia had been dreading arrived so unobtrusively that it had begun, and the whole terrifying chain of events had been set in motion, before she was aware of it.

  It was a blustery morning in March, not long after baby Dickie’s first birthday and she and Betty had gone up to London to help at the national headquarters, as they often did when there were committee meetings there and one or the other of them had been delegated to attend. They’d been the first to arrive that morning and had settled down to work at once while they waited for the others. Betty had gone straight into the inner office to do some filing while Octavia stayed in the outer office and started to open the mail. She was slitting open the second letter when an odd fluttering movement caught her attention and, turning her head, she saw that there was a sparrow frantically trying to get out of the upper window, throwing itself at the unyielding glass over and over again, its wings in perpetually baffled motion.

  It must have been shut in all night, poor thing, she thought, and she took her chair over to the window to climb up and let it out. It was in such a panic she was afraid it would do itself a mischief before she could release it, so she pulled her clean handkerchief out of her pocket, shook it out, and after a brief struggle managed to catch hold of the bird and soothe it until it was still. She could feel its heart beating wildly through the white cloth. ‘Hush! Hush!’ she said, speaking to it as if it was a baby. ‘You’ll be free soon. I’ve got you.’ It wasn’t easy to hold a bird with one hand and open a window with the other and she was still struggling to lift the sash when she heard footsteps and voices coming up the stairs towards her.