‘You’ll have to cause a diversion,’ Maggie hissed at Mrs Dobson. ‘They must be about to start now the band’s playing.’
Above her, the gentry nodded and smiled in their finery and a bottle of champagne hung ready in its gaudy ribbons to smash on the battle-grey hull of the ship. HMS Courageous towered overhead as men in overalls swarmed over the unfinished boat. Later they would fit it out with its guns and trimmings, but now they were about to glory in its baptism, pride mixed with anxiety that the lumbering metal monster would float.
Maggie was filled with awe as she gazed up at the ship, then felt a lurch of panic at what she was doing. She was about to ruin the moment for scores of riveters and platers, joiners and smiths . . . Forcing the image of an outraged George Gordon from her mind, she elbowed forward towards the cordon of police. A tall, long-nosed man was starting to speak on the platform and Maggie realised the moment must be now.
It all happened in seconds and yet to Maggie it felt like the slow motions of an interminable dream. Beside her, Annie Dobson began an alarming coughing and choking, doubling up in agony. Her mother, Millie, cried for help. For a moment Maggie stopped in concern, but Millie pushed her roughly out of the way. Not knowing if Annie’s distress was genuine or a theatrical diversion, she crouched lower under her bonnet and hobbled towards the steps, clutching a battered posy of flowers. Gripping the arm of the nearest policeman, she gabbled, ‘Help the lass, she’s having a fit, please help the lass!’
He turned to look at the gasping Annie and stepped forward to help. Another constable by the steps did the same and opened up a gap in the protective cordon. No one on the platform seemed to have noticed the small commotion taking place beneath their dais and the man continued his speech. The policeman nearest to her now was watching the dignitaries, unconcerned by the fuss in the crowd over the fainting girl.
Maggie slipped past him, muttering about her flowers, and gained the steps. In seconds she had unhooked her cape and pulled the cord round her waist. Shaking the flag free, she dashed up the remaining steps and raised it in the air.
‘Votes for women, Mr Asquith!’ she shouted, pushing her way among the astonished party. Someone shrieked and behind her Maggie heard the thud of boots on the wooden steps. A man stepped into her path and attempted to hold her, but Maggie resisted and struggled free. She threw herself headlong at the aghast speaker, waving the purple, green and white banner in his face.
‘You can’t throw us all into gaol, Mr Asquith! Stop killing Mrs Pankhurst and give us the vote now!’
She felt a foot go out to trip her. She landed painfully on her outstretched arm and then gasped in agony as the hobnailed boot of a policeman pinned her hand to the ground. Hands seized her and dragged her up. She was aware of a ripple of noise from the crowd below and as she staggered to her feet, Maggie caught sight of Alice Pearson’s thunderous red face. The aristocrat’s brown unblinking eyes glared at her with astonished fury.
‘Remember Emily Davison!’ Maggie managed to shout, before being yanked round and pushed down the steps by her captors.
She saw no sign of the Dobson women but the mood of the crowd was openly hostile. People jeered and spat at her as she was led swiftly away behind the platform. One man came at her and punched the side of her head, spewing out a string of obscenities. The two constables gripping her did nothing to stop the assault.
With head pounding and nauseous from the blows, Maggie was dragged away, pursued by a crowd of onlookers baying for her blood like dogs. She was thrown roughly into the back of a Black Maria waiting by a side gate and was locked into a closet-sized cell in which she could not stand up. Slumping into a crouched position, her hand bleeding and pulsating from where the constable had ground his boot, she closed her eyes and fought back the urge to cry. As the horse-drawn police van lurched off over the cobbles and threw her against the opposite wall, she could hear and feel the banging of men’s fists as they angrily pursued.
Maggie was shocked into numbness by their hatred. Her noble gesture had turned into an ignominious scuffle that had hardly disrupted the launch. She had been dragged through the crowds like a common criminal, removed from the sight of the gentry and politicians as a piece of dung is tossed on the midden. Maggie felt humiliated and defiled. She began to shake and could not stop. She ground her teeth together to stop her sobs and wished for oblivion.
Then above the sound of the ringing hooves and fading abuse, Maggie heard it: not the jaunty tune as the Pearson shipyard band struck up but the triumphant screech as HMS Courageous stirred and juddered down the slipway. The launch was going ahead, contemptuous of her attempts to halt it. Nothing, she realised with desolation, could stop the might of the Pearsons.
Chapter 12
Alice felt her father’s fury in the brief look he gave her as they stepped off the launch platform; it was ice-cold. He said nothing to her as they left the shipyard with their guests, and Asquith was ushered into the waiting Bentley to take him to Oxford Hall.
Only Herbert spoke to her in indignant tones. ‘How could you, Alice! And after you’d promised nothing would happen. There’ll be a fearful row over this.’
Her mother ignored her, but Felicity gave her a malicious little smile as if she had enjoyed the drama and Alice’s embarrassment. Alice said nothing but inwardly she seethed. How could that common little upstart, Maggie Beaton, evade all her measures to gag her and carry out her startling protest? She had ruined everything. Now her father would never let her near the Prime Minister and he would not hear her well-rehearsed and persuasive arguments for enfranchisement, Alice fumed.
She drove her own car through the smoky streets of West Newcastle and out into the winding lanes of the Tyne valley, following Asquith’s police escort. The hedgerows and meadows were burgeoning with flowers and butterflies fluttered up as she roared past, her rage making her blind to the beauty.
‘She’s set back our cause!’ Alice railed at the road. ‘Girls like Maggie Beaton making unseemly protests will only confirm Asquith in his belief that we’re not fit to be trusted with the vote. I hope they lock her up for ever, damn her!’ Rosamund barked, confused by her mistress’s anger.
By the time Alice reached Oxford Hall, her temper had subsided and she was once more in control of herself. She would not let her family see how much the incident had upset her.
As she suspected, she was seated well down the table from Asquith and the conversation was kept light and trivial. She tried to gain her father’s attention after lunch, but he politely rebuffed her.
‘I shall visit you at Hebron House next week,’ he told her, ‘and we’ll discuss things then.’
As Herbert seemed in a huff and Felicity was deliberately ignoring her, Alice decided to leave. Even her mother did not try and persuade her to stay for dinner and the night. They all wished to punish her for the spectacle at the launch, Alice thought, so she would not stay to be humiliated further.
‘They can all go to hell!’ she muttered as she drove off down the crackling gravel drive lined with orderly saplings.
That night she went to bed early, but could not sleep. She tried to read, but could not concentrate. It struck her then how no one from the movement had attempted to contact her for weeks. Where were all her friends? she wondered in bewilderment. How alone she felt.
Dressing again, Alice went out onto the terrace and sat on a wrought-iron chair staring at the hazy orange sunset over the trees. She could just see the gantry lights of the riverside cranes winking in the descending darkness.
What was happening to Maggie Beaton at this moment? Alice wondered. She had exhausted her anger over the girl’s actions and admitted, in the quiet of the evening, to a stirring of shame. That unsophisticated working girl had done something astonishing; she had risked everything to protest for a few moments today, in front of a crowd that would have gladly lynched her. Maggie Beaton had shown a courage that Alice could never have summoned. The girl would probably be imprisoned and certainly lose
her job at Pearson’s, while she, privileged and powerful, had turned from the cause in fright of losing her independence and privileges.
Alice covered her face with her hands. Her guilt overwhelmed her. She had betrayed her fellow suffragettes. Was it any wonder that they had stopped calling at Hebron House since Emily’s funeral? She had not encouraged them and they in turn had not invited her to their homes or soirées. It had been easy to put her name to the women’s cause when it was just a matter of lending money and prestige. She had been happy to attend their fund-raising events, revelling in shocking her mother and brother with her radical show of independence. But never in a thousand years, Alice told herself brutally, would she have the courage to throw herself under the King’s horse or disrupt a launch for an ideal. That kind of moral fortitude took her breath away.
Alice saw again, behind her closed eyelids, the spectre of Maggie Beaton being hauled through the crowd, kicked and spat upon like a traitor.
‘My God,’ Alice whispered. ‘I’m the traitor!’
And then the tears came.
***
Maggie spent the night in a stifling cell at the police station. She lay for an eternity on a plank bed with a stained straw pallet and listened to the maudlin cries of a drunk in the next cell. For some reason the stranger’s erratic, tearful singing reminded her of Uncle Barny and she yearned suddenly for the crowded security of Gun Street and her family. What would they be thinking of her now? she wondered. Would they have seen or heard anything of her protest or would John Heslop have gone as promised to explain her absence?
Her mother and Susan would probably be distressed and furious. Helen would be unconcerned and already arguing for her clothes, while Jimmy would most likely boast of his part in the plan and be walloped. Only Granny Beaton would understand why she had done it and Maggie knew the old woman would be missing her companionship.
Maggie curled up tighter and tried to shut out the drunk’s singing. On Monday morning she would appear before the magistrates and be sentenced. She longed to see her friend Rose and hear what the other suffragettes thought of the surprise protest, frightened now that she would be cast out of the movement for acting on her own. And what of the Dobsons? Maggie fretted, hoping that they had not been caught up in the scuffles.
Her fears and doubts raced around her mind as the hours dragged by and the daylight never seemed to come.
***
Richard Turvey woke with a thumping head. It took him several minutes to work out where he was and when he remembered, he groaned and closed his eyes again. He had a vague recollection of the last bar he had been drinking in and the game of cards in which he had lost the last of his money - or rather Aunt Violet’s money. There had been a lot of hard drinking after the launch of the battleship, to which he had not gone, but he had entered into the spirit of the day.
Too much so, Richard thought, wincing at his hangover. Somehow he had got involved in someone else’s brawl, over someone else’s girl, and the last thing he recalled was being bundled inside a van and brought to the police station.
‘Well, that’s curtains to my job at the Olympia,’ Richard groaned. He should have been there last night calling for customers outside the doors and he was on his final warning from the long-suffering manager. He would have to think up a good story for Aunt Violet too, for his indulgent aunt would not turn a blind eye to his waywardness for ever, Richard was sure. As for Susan ... Richard sighed when he thought of the plump-faced, fussing, affectionate young woman who seemed determined to have him. He was far more partial to her saucy younger sister Helen, but Susan was a better home-maker and more likely to provide him with a comfortable life than pretty, moody Helen. After all, there would be the mother’s business to inherit, Richard mused, and judging by the way the old lady drank and wheezed with ill health, it might be sooner rather than later.
A key rattled in the lock and the duty sergeant brought in a mug of tea.
‘Looks like you could do with this, lad,’ he grunted.
Richard nodded and took the mug. To his dismay the policeman seemed in a mood to chat.
‘You’ll be going up after they’ve dealt with that suffragette lass on Monday,’ the constable told him.
‘Oh no,’ Richard murmured, his head thumping with the effort of sitting up. How would he explain his prolonged absence to Aunt Violet?
‘Doesn’t look the type to say boo to a goose, if you ask me,’ the portly sergeant continued. ‘Makes you wonder what gets into them.’
Richard became aware of a young voice singing robustly from a cell down the corridor.
‘That’s her making a racket,’ the sergeant nodded. ‘She’ll not be so happy when they put her away for a spell.’
Something about the singer’s voice made Richard ask, ‘What’s the girl called?’
‘Margaret Beaton, from down Elswick.’
Richard spluttered over his tea.
‘Do you know her or summat?’ the policeman asked.
‘Me? No, don’t recognise the name.’ Richard’s denial was too quick. The sergeant gave him a speculative look.
‘Might do you some good if you did,’ he said quietly.
‘What do you mean?’ Richard asked, his mind like a fog.
‘She’s caused a right stir that one - upsetting the Pearsons and the Prime Minister. Now if someone was able to give a bit of information on the lass - keep an eye on her once she’s out, that sort of thing - then there might be something in it for that someone. We can’t have these militant women terrorising our town, now can we?’
‘You mean spy on her?’ Richard asked slowly.
The sergeant said nothing, but continued to watch him.
‘Who would pay for such information?’ Richard whispered.
The policeman shrugged. ‘The Pearsons are wealthy folk. Now it doesn’t look to me like you’ve got much to rub together, lad. And there’ll be a hefty fine for your brawling.’
He was right, Richard thought desperately. He had no money of his own, only debts. He pretended to his relations that he had a good job at the Olympia, but he was merely the caller who tried to entice customers off the street. If he did not get some money from somewhere quickly, he would have to disappear from Newcastle in a hurry. But could he deliberately betray Susan’s sister Maggie? After all, she had saved him from a beating on that earlier night of trouble in which he had denied all involvement.
For a moment he fought with his weakening conscience, then gave up. Maggie had brought this upon herself with her high self-opinion and desire to be infamous. She brought nothing but trouble to the Beaton household anyway, Richard decided. It would be better for Susan and her mother and Aunt Violet if Maggie was kept under control. Easier for him too, for Maggie’s lack of interest in him had been infuriating and it disturbed him that she was the only one who seemed to see through his play-acting and suspected him for the lazy opportunist that he was.
‘Come to think of it, perhaps I do know something about the girl,’ Richard answered, feeling himself reviving with the tea.
‘Thought you might,’ the sergeant grunted and glanced out of the cell. ‘I’ll see what I can do for you.’
***
The court appearance passed in a bewildering rush. Maggie stood pale in the dock, surrounded by a sea of curious faces while two policemen gave evidence against her. She felt paralysed and unable to speak. When the time came to defend herself, Maggie could not think of a single thing to say. Then she heard the magistrate sentence her to six months’ imprisonment and her head began to spin. It stretched ahead in her mind like a lifetime of captivity and she felt real fear - fear of unknown horrors awaiting her in prison, fear of loneliness and isolation, fear that her old life would never be recaptured.
As she was led away, Maggie thought she caught a glimpse of Rose in the gallery. For a few seconds the sighting of a friendly, supportive presence lifted her spirits. She turned and shouted at the magistrates, ‘Votes for Women!’
; Her escorts grabbed her and ushered her roughly from the court.
Later, inside Newcastle prison, Maggie found herself among a motley group of petty criminals waiting to be dealt with by the wardresses. Still dazed, Maggie was astonished to hear one of the women call her name. It was the toothless pea-seller, Mrs Surtees, from the Bigg Market.
‘Got you at last did they, hinny?’ Mrs Surtees tutted.
‘Six months,’ Maggie whispered, still unable to believe her own words.
‘Eeh, never! A young lass like you - it’s a scandal!’
Mrs Surtees, it appeared, was in for stealing a purse from another stallholder.
‘I just needed a lend of some money till I got down the pawnshop,’ Mrs Surtees said with a baffled shrug, ‘but he didn’t see it that way.’
Then a tired-looking head wardress came in with two helpers and demanded silence. The prisoners were unceremoniously stripped and searched and weighed, then forced to take a tepid bath, while their paltry possessions were bundled up and removed. A couple of the women laughed and put on a show of bravado until the wardress upbraided them, but Maggie was sunk in a dispirited numbness.
Without protest, she put on a scratchy prison uniform, a starched cap and voluminous apron and was led away to a dismal cell. She stood in the middle of the stone floor for a long time, staring at the barred window and the patch of blue sky beyond as if it was a distant unattainable paradise.
What had she done? Maggie asked herself miserably. What had she achieved by her reckless protest? She had lost her liberty and her family had lost her precious wages, for which she would probably never be forgiven. Worst of all, women were no nearer to winning the vote than they had been two days ago. She had imagined herself as a romantic martyr to the cause, just like Emily Davison, but no one would remember the working-class Maggie Beaton, she told herself harshly. Heroines did not come from mean dwellings in Gun Street and common widows’ daughters did not get themselves into history books, Maggie thought with self-mockery.
THE GREAT WAR SAGAS: Box set of 2 passionate and inspiring stories: A Crimson Dawn and No Greater Love Page 58