No Greater Love

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Straining to see in the dark, Maggie gave a stifled cry as George put his hand about her mouth. They both saw Annie Dobson being dragged away between two policemen, with Millie screaming obscenities at them in their wake.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong lass!’ Mrs Dobson yelled, quite hysterical. ‘Leave my Annie be!’

  George held on to Maggie tightly, to prevent her dashing out into the lane. When the police van had gone, leaving Millie Dobson sobbing on the cold cobbles, he let her go.

  ‘They were after you, Maggie,’ George said grimly.

  ‘We should have helped her!’ Maggie hissed at him.

  ‘And let you both get arrested?’ George snapped. ‘What good would that have done?’

  Maggie was shaking with fright and anger, but she knew George was right.

  ‘I must go to Millie,’ she said, listening to the woman’s anguished sobbing.

  George caught her arm again. ‘You can’t go back there, Maggie. They know where you’ve been hiding - there might be someone waiting inside.’

  ‘Oh, poor Annie!’ Maggie groaned, thinking of how terrified the girl would be. ‘It’s my fault they’ve taken her.’

  But he shook her impatiently. ‘Maggie, you’ve got to get away from here.’

  ‘Where can I go?’ she asked in bewilderment. ‘Someone’s betrayed me.’ She gave an anguished moan, her mind trying to grapple with the implications of her near arrest. Who knew of her hideaway? Heslop, Miss Alice, Rose...

  ‘Nowhere’s safe now,’ she gulped in fear.

  George stared into her face, his eyes intent. ‘I’m the only one you can trust. Come with me, Maggie,’ he urged. ‘You’ll be safe with me.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  On a cold, sharp, black night just before New Year, the sky above Elswick lit with the brightness of daylight. Yet it was a sinister, lurid light that leapt and danced in the inky dark and brought the jangle of fire engines and horses to disturb the sleeping townsfolk.

  People came out of their houses in the early hours, wrapped in shawls to gaze at the conflagration beyond the fortress walls of the Hebron estate. Rumours spread like the fire.

  ‘It’s a canny blaze!’

  ‘A fire in the woods?’

  ‘Looks close to the house ...’

  ‘It’s the house itself!’

  ‘It’s punishment for them that’ve got above themselves!’

  The comments of bystanders grew bolder and more inventive as the firemen fought to bring the fire under control. By daylight the blaze had exhausted itself into a damp smoulder, filling the winter morning with an acrid stench of charred wood and stone.

  The evening newspapers ended speculation as to the damage to the Pearson mansion. They reported that the fire had mysteriously started in the summer pavilion which had been gutted, but Hebron House itself was untouched.

  A day later, a suffragette bill was discovered pinned to a nearby tree, decrying the Cat and Mouse Act and proclaiming, ‘The Liberal Cat - Electors Vote Against Him! Keep the Liberal Out!’

  The local newspapers over the following week were not slow to make the connection between Herbert Pearson’s bid as the Liberal candidate in the pending by-election and the burning down of his summerhouse. The fire was now being treated as arson and the search for the suffragette arsonist intensified.

  And Richard Turvey was a worried man.

  For the past ten minutes he had stood in Herbert Pearson’s study and listened as his paymaster hurled vitriolic abuse on his character and competence as an informer. He seethed inwardly that Maggie should have escaped arrest so narrowly on Christmas Day. He was sure that the prostitute in his pay had given him accurate information that Maggie was helping out at Heslop’s mission and that a garrulous, half-drunk, former whore called Dobson was harbouring her.

  On his last frantic visit to the seamier parts of the quayside on Christmas Eve, trawling for news of the elusive Maggie, he had finally heard the indiscreet old hag for himself, boasting in a bar that she knew the lass who had brought the launch of the battleship to a halt. Richard’s fury that he had missed Maggie at Gun Street by less than an hour had turned to triumph at Millie Dobson’s words. Others confirmed that a blonde-haired woman called Maggie was living with the Dobsons and it suddenly dawned on Richard that Maggie must have changed her appearance and so made his descriptions of her useless.

  He had gone to the police with the Dobsons’ address, gleeful that Pearson would be receiving an extra Christmas present and would reward him well. Richard had enjoyed the excess of food and drink and flirtation at the Beatons’ that Christmas Day, knowing that Maggie would soon be under lock and key once more and he would be many pounds the richer.

  But Maggie had escaped, Pearson’s private pavilion had been destroyed, his election campaign was foundering and the suffragettes had achieved stunning publicity for their cause once more. Furthermore, Maggie’s elusiveness and militancy was growing into a local legend and Richard was beginning to take her defiance as personally as Herbert Pearson was.

  ‘We still don’t know it was Beaton,’ Richard pointed out.

  ‘Don’t try and make excuses for your balls-up, Turvey. Of course it was Beaton. She’s a thorn in my side. And no one seems to care that my pavilion’s in ruins. Instead the press are running stories about the treatment of suffragettes in prison as if it’s all my fault! By God, I’d have her hanged, drawn and quartered if it was left up to me. Force-feeding’s too good for the likes of that common trollop!’

  Richard let him rant on for another ten minutes until he’d exhausted himself.

  ‘So give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you out without a penny?’ Herbert spat the words, puce in the face.

  ‘Because, sir, I found her. If the constables had been a bit quicker on Christmas night, we would have caught her right and proper,’ Richard complained. ‘I want to get this girl for you, sir, honest I do. She’s bad news for both of us - stirring things up among the family against me, she is.’ Richard assumed his most earnestly willing look. ‘I know how to bring her out the woodwork, sir. I’m going to hurry on my marriage to her sister Susan. Blood’s thicker than water, sir. She’ll not be able to stay away, believe me. And she may not like me, Mr Herbert, but she can’t think I’ve got anything to do with her near arrest.’

  Herbert snorted. ‘I suppose you have a point. And I don’t have much choice, do I? Very well, I’ll give you a bit longer to deliver. But by God, you better deliver and I better get elected, else I’ll hang you from the Swing Bridge, Turvey!’

  ***

  Maggie sat curled by the small coal fire, her head resting against George’s knees while he read to her. Sometimes he read essays or plays by the Fabian, G.B. Shaw, or novels by Dickens and Scott, but tonight he had borrowed a translation of a Russian novel by Turgenev. After a faltering start, George lost his inhibition at reading aloud and was delivering the story of a nihilist hero with some passion.

  Maggie gazed into the fire, mesmerised by its flickering warmth and George’s resonant voice. The hearth tiles were cracked and the fender dull with age, while the mantelpiece held only a packet of spills and matches and Maggie’s two photographs. Thankfully, she had been carrying them with her in her coat pocket to show George the night of her attempted arrest.

  The dinginess of the room was banished into the shadows as George read by candlelight in the one armchair. Hidden in the dark were a small round table and three stools, a mattress which George used as a bed and a cumbersome dresser which held his collection of books and pamphlets, clothes and crockery.

  In a tiny box room beyond was Maggie’s bedroom with its three-quarter-sized bed and an upended wooden crate that served as a chair cum table.

  It was their second ‘home’ since Maggie had taken refuge with George, for he had thought it unwise to stay in lodgings where his family and friends might call. They had moved east and north, to an area of the city known as Arthur’s Hill where they were unknown. George continue
d to visit his family without telling them he had moved and if he met his friends on a Friday night to go drinking, the arrangements would be made at work. But increasingly he was reluctant to go out and leave Maggie on her own. He watched the firelight glinting off her now red-dyed hair and could not resist pausing to stroke its burnished softness.

  To the outside world they were Mr and Mrs Gordon and kept to themselves, paying the rent promptly and causing the neighbours no upset. Maggie had taken a position as a part-time clerk for a coal merchant, while George continued to work in the giant forge at Pearson’s. They could have afforded something more spacious and genteel than the poky rooms in Arthur’s Hill but did not want to draw attention to themselves.

  Inside their home they maintained proprieties by sleeping in separate rooms, yet Maggie knew how scandalised her mother and sister Susan would be at such an arrangement. For herself, she felt no guilt. Glancing up at the man now stroking her hair, she smiled in contentment and found it hard to think of a time when she had felt so secure or at peace with life. Yet each day was so uncertain and shadowed by the threat of re-arrest that Maggie thought only of here and now, grateful for the snatched happiness of these stolen weeks with George.

  She was living the double life of the fugitive, working quietly in the coal merchant’s draughty shed every morning, then returning home to await instructions from the movement. Yet the idea that someone had betrayed her to the police preyed on her mind at times, though George had pointed out that many people came and went at Heslop’s mission hall and could have been paid to find her. Heslop himself was reported to be very upset at the arson attack and at the arrest of Annie Dobson who was now serving a two-month sentence for window-breaking. Maggie felt wretched for the hapless Annie and had made sure that she would be cared for by the WSPU on her release. As for Alice Pearson, there was no way of knowing what her reaction to the fire was; it was too dangerous to try and make contact with her.

  But if Maggie regretted anything about her new life, it was the way Rose had turned her back on her after the arson attack. Maggie blanched to think of the scene her former friend had made at their lodgings.

  ‘You’ve gone too far with your violence, threatening the Pearsons like that,’ Rose had cried. ‘How could you betray Miss Alice?’

  ‘It was a symbolic attack on a summerhouse,’ Maggie had protested. ‘Alice Pearson should understand that even if you can’t. You’re only this upset because the Pearsons are rich and upper class and it flatters your snobbishness that Miss Alice pays you attention. You wouldn’t be half so bothered if I’d bombed a poor man’s house or a public building.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Rose had shaken with fury. ‘You’ve stepped over the line, Maggie. Just look at yourself living in cheap rooms with a man you’re not even married to. I’m ashamed of you now.’

  Maggie had glared back. ‘So that’s what’s really bothering you, isn’t it, Rose? That I’ve chosen to live with George as well as carry on being a militant. You’re jealous because I’m doing things my own way now, instead of doing what you think is best for me. And you’re jealous of my love for George, aren’t you?’

  Rose had stormed to the door, puce with indignation.

  ‘Do what you want, Maggie, I really don’t care anymore. But this thing with George Gordon is wrong - hiding like a rat in a hole. It’ll come to no good, but don’t depend on me to be around to pick up the pieces!’

  It had been a horrible, horrible argument, Maggie winced at the memory, and she had seen nothing of Rose or her mother since.

  Maggie sighed.

  ‘What’s bothering you, pet?’ George asked, closing the book.

  Maggie laid her warm cheek on his knee. ‘How long can we go on like this before I’m discovered?’ she asked.

  ‘They’ll not find you,’ George tried to reassure her, stroking her face. ‘If you’re worried we could leave Newcastle - go abroad where no one’ll know us. Isn’t it Paris the suffragette leaders gan to when there’s bother?’

  Maggie chuckled. ‘The ones with money, maybes.’

  ‘Aye, Paris.’ George began to daydream aloud. ‘A place of revolution - we’d fit in there, bonny lass. We could join in the workers’ struggle with our French comrades.’

  ‘And how much French can you speak, Geordie?’ Maggie teased, twisting to look up at him.

  ‘Nowt!’ he laughed. ‘But revolution is the same in any language.’

  ‘Oh, George, you really would leave with me, wouldn’t you?’ Maggie smiled in amazement.

  ‘If that’s what it takes to keep you,’ George answered earnestly.

  Maggie regarded him fondly, wistfully. ‘Sometimes I wish we could run away,’ she said quietly. ‘But that’s the coward’s way, isn’t it? We’ve got to try and change things here, for our people, haven’t we?’

  George gazed into her troubled grey eyes, like dark pools in the candlelight.

  ‘By, Maggie, you’re a strong lass. You inspire me, you do. More than ten speeches or a bucketful of beer.’

  Maggie smiled and stretched up her hand to caress his face. ‘I wish it could always be like this, Geordie,’ she said tenderly.

  Suddenly he bent and kissed her full on the lips and felt her answering passion. Their arms went about each other and he pulled her up into his hold.

  A banging on the door startled them out of their embrace and sent the candlelight flickering crazily.

  ‘Get in the bedroom,’ George ordered immediately.

  Maggie hid herself in the other room, straining to hear who the caller was as George opened the door. The draught nearly blew out the candle and it seemed an age before the door closed again.

  ‘It’s all right, Maggie,’ George called. ‘It’s Mr Heslop.’

  Maggie emerged from the box room, feeling bashful and bewildered to see the lay preacher standing in her secret haven, muffled in a large black coat and clutching his bowler hat.

  ‘Will you sit down and have a cup of tea with us, Mr Heslop?’ Maggie asked in a strong voice that belied her nervousness at his unexpected arrival.

  ‘No thank you, Maggie.’ He cleared his throat, appearing just as awkward to be there. ‘I just come with a message.’

  ‘How did you find me?’ Maggie gulped.

  George intervened. ‘Rose told him.’

  ‘Rose!’ Maggie exclaimed, indignant.

  Heslop held up his hand. ‘I know you’ve argued and gone your separate ways, but Miss Johnstone still worries for you. She knows I would never give away your whereabouts to the police and I wanted to tell you the news in person.’

  ‘What news?’ Maggie was suddenly anxious. ‘It’s not Mam?’

  ‘It’s not bad news.’ John Heslop smiled for the first time. ‘Your sister Susan and Mr Turvey are going to be married on Saturday at the chapel.’

  ‘I see,’ Maggie said. ‘That’s all very sudden. I suppose Susan has asked you to find me and tell me to come.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ John Heslop said, clearing his throat once again.

  ‘Maggie can’t go,’ George broke in, grim-faced and feeling resentful of the older man’s intrusion into their privacy. ‘It’s too dangerous. She’ll be picked up straight away.’

  ‘It’s hardly a society wedding,’ Heslop answered dismissively. ‘It’s a simple chapel service and it’s been arranged so quickly that I doubt that anyone in authority will link it with Maggie.’ He turned to stare at Maggie. ‘I think you should go. It’s an opportunity to be reconciled with your family. As you know, your mother is not well and it would cheer her greatly to see you. Susan too, I’m sure, would want you to be there.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Maggie answered bluntly, ‘and I don’t believe Susan would want me to spoil her day by appearing like the prodigal either.’

  Heslop stepped towards her and took her hands in his.

  ‘That’s it, Maggie. The prodigal. Go home to your family where you belong - where you’re needed. Give up this destructive life you’ve fallen into, thi
s militancy. They’ll forgive you.’

  ‘Forgive her!’ George shouted ‘There’s nothing to forgive. You’ve got a bloody cheek coming here and preaching at her like some fallen woman.’

  Heslop turned on George. ‘It’s not right, her living here like a criminal. You’re protecting an arsonist, remember.’

  ‘If that’s what you think of me, why are you here?’ Maggie asked, furious at his condemnation of them both. ‘And you used to be full of such praise for the women’s movement and equal rights. You hypocrite!’

  John Heslop flinched at her scorn. ‘I did believe in those things - I still do. Your non-violent protest was brave and right, but not this burning and breaking of people’s property. I want to save you, Maggie. Go and see your sister married and then give yourself up.’

  Maggie shook him off, horrified. ‘Do you know what you’re asking? You’re asking me to admit defeat, to go back into that prison and submit to their torture.’

  ‘Not if you renounce your militancy,’ Heslop urged. ‘Admit that you were misguided and that you won’t have any more to do with violent protest or terrorism. Then you’ll be free to go home. You have so much to offer the world, Maggie, I can’t see you throw your life away, here with this man.’

  George cursed in anger, but Maggie grabbed the hand he raised at the butcher and held on to it.

  ‘George Gordon is a good man,’ she answered with passion, ‘and he’s stood by me when everyone else turned their backs. This home of ours may be damp and poor, but it’s not a place of sin, Mr Heslop. It’s a place of love and warmth, where I’m cherished for the lass I am, not the lass others would make me. And I’ll carry on with me work to free women from the slavery they’re in even if it meets with the hostility of me family and so-called friends.’

  Heslop looked at her dumbstruck, but her tirade continued.

  ‘I never expected the struggle to be easy but I’ve chosen to struggle rather than submit to an easy life, to letting things go on as they are. I know you came here with good intentions, Mr Heslop, but I don’t want saving from the life I’ve chosen. And if it means ganin’ back to prison then I’d gan, but at least I’ll know I’ve not betrayed me own beliefs or the sisters I fight for!’