Primrose Square

by Anne Douglas

  But small though her dad’s flat was, there was still the rent to find, for of course he didn’t own the property, only leased it from the man he’d worked for as a young man. That was a man who’d given up shoe mending to run a grocery in Newington, saying it was more profitable than cobbling in Friar’s Wynd – and heaven knows that could only have been true, for cobbling wasn’t profitable at all. How many people could afford to have their shoes mended? How many children didn’t have shoes or boots, anyway?

  Walter, though, always said they could manage with what he made. Pay the rent, buy the food, as long as Hessie kept up her work, cleaning at Logie’s Princes Street store, and ‘obliging’ various ladies in the New Town. And Hessie did, of course, keep on with her cleaning jobs, and never risked saying they’d manage a lot better if Walt didn’t go to the pub so much. Neither of her children blamed her for that.

  ‘Come on, come on, up the stair, then,’ Walter Rae was ordering now, as Elinor still lingered, looking down at the shelves behind the counter where pairs of shoes and boots were tied by their laces and labelled with their owners’ names. Seemed to her she remembered seeing a good many of these on the shelves before. Were any folk coming in to collect their shoes? Just how much would her dad be short, paying his bills that week? As soon as he’d had his tea, she knew he’d be out to the Dragon, or the Castle, or whichever pub he chose. He’d find the money from somewhere, always did. Probably Hessie’s purse, or one of the boxes where she kept funds for this and that.

  Maybe I can find a shilling to put in one of Ma’s boxes, Elinor was thinking, and would have looked in her own purse if her father hadn’t been pushing her upwards.

  ‘Come on, what are you waiting for? I can smell something good. Always does well for you, you know, your ma.’

  ‘Does well for everybody,’ Elinor retorted, opening the door to the flat, gladly taking off her hat and looking for her mother.

  ‘Ma, it’s me!’ she called. ‘I’m back.’

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ cried Hessie Rae, turning a flushed face from the kitchen range. ‘So grand to see you, pet. Sit down now, and rest your feet. It’s like an oven outside, eh?’

  With her light brown hair and large blue eyes, Hessie, at thirty-nine, still showed something of the pretty girl she had been in her youth, but the brown hair was greying, the blue eyes were shadowed, and only the artificial colour from the heat of the range made her look well.

  She and Walter would have made a handsome couple when they wed, though, Elinor sometimes thought, her dad’s dark good looks contrasting with the delicate prettiness of his bride, and wished she could have seen a photograph. Probably, at that time, wedding photos were too expensive for most folk and so there was no record of the happy day. And her parents would have been happy then. Of course they would.

  ‘Tea ready?’ Walter asked now, washing his hands under the kitchen tap.

  ‘All ready,’ Hessie answered quickly. ‘I got a nice piece of shin at the butcher’s, half price, a bargain, left it simmering all day, and it’s that tender, you’d never believe!’

  ‘Onions with it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, plenty. And carrots. So I’ve just the tatties to mash . . .’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Elinor said quickly. ‘But where’s Corrie?’

  ‘Aye, where is the lad?’ Walter asked, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table. ‘No’ reading again?’

  ‘Studying,’ Hessie answered, beginning to look flustered. ‘He‘s been in our room since he got back from work.’

  ‘Studying . . . what a piece of nonsense. He’s got a damn good job at the tyre factory, what more does he want?’

  ‘He wants to be a draughtsman, you know that – he told us, eh?’

  ‘Well, I think he’s wasting his time, let him stick to what he’s got.’ Walter stood up and gave one of his famous roars. ‘Corrie, come on now! We’re all waiting for you, what the hell are you playing at?’

  ‘Playing?’ asked Corrie, appearing from the back room where his parents slept. ‘I’ve been studying.’

  ‘Now don’t you be sharp with me,’ his father told him, his eyes flashing. ‘You know what I think of you studying. Now sit down and let your mother dish up. We’re ready for our tea, if you’re not!’

  Taking his seat at the table, Corrie said no more. As tall as his father, he had his mother’s looks – the wide blue eyes, the light brown hair, and for his height was slender. As he looked across at Elinor passing a filled plate to her father, their eyes met, exchanging messages which required no words, a skill they’d acquired early in childhood, and which had stood them in good stead.

  No one spoke as the meal was finished, the dishes cleared and the tea brewed. Then Walter lit a Woodbine and passed one to Corrie, while Hessie, relaxing a little, stirred sugar into her tea and asked Elinor about the Primrose.

  ‘What’s been happening this week, then? I always like to hear what you’ve been up to. Makes a change.’

  ‘Nothing much.’ Elinor sipped her tea. ‘Except Miss Ainslie called us all together to talk about votes for women.’

  A hush fell over the table as Walter took his cigarette from his mouth and leaned forward to stare at his daughter.

  ‘What did you say?’

  She looked at him, her heart plummeting.

  Oh, Lord, she’d done it now, eh? Why hadn’t she remembered what she’d told Mattie, when Mattie had talked of her dad’s views on suffragettes? ‘Bet mine thinks the same,’ she’d said, and sure enough, he was shaping up to sound off about them now, ready to blow like a volcano, and it would all be her fault.

  Oh, yes, she’d done it now.

  Seven

  ‘Elinor, I’m asking you what you just said,’ Walter was saying, his voice taking on the husky note that came with his rising temper, his eyes already glowing with fierce dark light. ‘About your Miss Ainslie.’

  Elinor, returning his stare, managed not to flinch.

  ‘I said she’d been talking to us about votes for women.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘I’ll clear the cups,’ Hessie murmured, half rising, but Walter waved her down.

  ‘Leave the cups. Let’s hear what the lassie has to tell us.’

  ‘What’s it to us?’ Corrie asked, drawing on his cigarette, not looking at his father.

  ‘What’s it to us? I’ll tell you what it is to us. In this house, we want nothing to do with women like that, supposed to be wanting votes, and I want to know what this Miss Ainslie’s been saying about ’em to my daughter.’ Walter leaned forward. ‘So – I’m waiting.’

  ‘Dad, all she asked was if we’d think about . . .’ Elinor hesitated, looking down at the table, ‘ . . . think about going to a meeting.’ She slowly raised her eyes again. ‘See what the suffragettes had to say.’

  ‘Going to a meeting? Joining ’em, she meant?’

  ‘No, just . . . finding out what they believe in.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Elinor, we know what they believe in!’

  Walter brought his fist down to the table with a crash which made the cups rattle and his family jump like puppets on a string.

  ‘Do we no’ hear what they believe in every day of the week?’ he bellowed. ‘Criminal damage! Setting fire to houses, damaging the King’s portrait, blowing up the Royal Observatory! They don’t give a tinker’s cuss for votes – they just want to cause trouble, get their names in the papers. Why, if they got the vote tomorrow, they wouldn’t know what to do with it, they’d have to ask their husbands to tell ’em what to do, that’s if they’ve got husbands, which half of ’em haven’t because nobody’d take ’em on!’

  ‘Oh, Dad!’ Elinor groaned. ‘That’s unfair, that’s very unfair.’

  ‘Unfair, is it? Well, I’ll tell you this, I don’t want you having anything to do with the votes for women brigade, and I don’t want you to have any more to do with your Miss Ainslie, either. It’s clear enough to me that she’s a bad influence on you and I want you out of the Primr
ose Club and out of her way. When you go back tonight, you can hand your notice in.’

  ‘My notice?’ Elinor was staring at him with eyes as dark and fiery as his own. ‘Dad, what are you talking about? I’m no’ leaving the Primrose. It’s a grand place to work; I wouldn’t leave it for anything.’

  ‘You’ll do as I tell you,’ he shouted. ‘You’re no’ twenty-one yet, I’m your father and what I say goes. When you go back to the Primrose tonight, you’ll give in your notice, or you needn’t come back here. You understand? If you stay there, you don’t come here.’

  Walter sat back in his chair, breathing heavily, and with shaking fingers lit another cigarette.

  ‘Give over looking at me like that, Hessie,’ he ordered heavily. ‘I won’t be disobeyed in my own house. If Elinor wants to see us, she knows what to do.’

  ‘Walt,’ Hessie cried, twisting her hands together, while her children beside her sat like stones. ‘Walt, you canna ask Elinor to give up her job. She’s happy, she’s doing well . . .’

  ‘There’s plenty jobs she can do in this city, Hessie. She doesn’t have to work for a woman with criminal ideas.’

  Criminal ideas. Miss Ainslie. Slowly, Elinor rose to her feet.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want to hear any more, Dad. I’ve put up with you and your tempers long enough. Now, if you want me to go, because I won’t leave the Primrose and Miss Ainslie who’s been so good to all us girls and is truly against violence, so be it. I’ll go.’

  As her father sat very still, seemingly so stunned by her daring to answer him back he could think of nothing to say, Hessie began wailing.

  ‘Oh, Elinor, lassie, think what you’re saying! You canna give up your home. Your dad would never want you to do that, he never meant that, did you, Walt? Now you just sit down and we’ll all be calm—’

  ‘Be calm?’ he cried. ‘Who’s going to be calm? And who the hell are you, Hessie, to say what I want, or what I mean? I’ve told Elinor what she can do, and if she doesn’t want to do it, she can go.’

  His voice was shaking, his face scarlet as he leapt to his feet, his cigarette hanging from his lip, and pointed at the door.

  ‘There you are, Elinor, there’s the door. You want to be mixed up with suffragettes, you can go out of that and no’ come back. And that’s my last word.’

  ‘Dad, stop it!’ Corrie shouted, jumping to his feet. ‘Elinor hasn’t even said she wants to be a suffragette. She just wants to keep her job at the Primrose.’

  ‘And I’ve told her, if she does, she doesn’t come back here. I’ll no’ have my own daughter defying me and don’t tell me I don’t mean that, Hessie, because I do.’

  ‘And I believe you,’ Elinor told him, her voice thickening with emotion. Her gaze went to her mother, who was quietly crying.

  ‘Ma, don’t worry, I’ll be sure to still see you. I’ve a few things in your wardrobe, I’ll collect them some time. Corrie, keep in touch, eh?’

  She turned to her father, who had stubbed out his cigarette and was watching her, breathing fast.

  ‘Goodbye, Dad. Just remember, you made me do this.’

  ‘The key’s in the shop door, you can let yourself out,’ was all he said, but she could see that his passion was subsiding. Quite likely, in spite of all his roaring, he would be changing his mind soon, but if he did, it would be too late. This time, he’d gone too far.

  Going down the stairs, her legs trembling, she could not really believe she was actually leaving home. This was something different from going into service, where you lived away but home was still a part of you, and though she’d always had to worry about how things would be, Elinor knew that she was going to feel like a lost child, not seeing home again.

  The key was in the shop door, though, as her dad had said, and all she had to do was open it and step out into the Wynd, where the summer evening was still as light as day and where the air was just as warm as ever. Children were playing, and neighbours standing around, or leaning out of the tenement windows, gossiping. Everything was just the same. Yet changed for ever.

  ‘Ellie!’ she heard her mother’s voice, calling her by the old pet name she no longer used. ‘Ellie, come back, come back!’

  ‘Aye, come back!’ echoed Corrie, who was with Hessie, holding her arm. ‘You mustn’t leave us like this.’

  ‘Oh, Ma – Corrie . . .’

  Elinor ran back to hug them both, tears mixing with her mother’s, and feeling Corrie’s thin shoulders shaking as he held her.

  ‘I don’t want to go, but what can I do? Dad’s got no right to stop me working at the Primrose; he’s got no right to stop me going to meetings, but if I do, he’ll no’ let me come home.’

  ‘He doesn’t mean it,’ Hessie sobbed. ‘You know what he’s like. All blow and thunder, and then it’s gone and the sun’s out again. Just you come back and he’ll no’ turn you away, you’ll see, eh?’

  ‘No,’ Elinor said firmly, withdrawing from her mother’s clasp and blowing her nose. ‘He’s gone too far. I’m taking him at his word, I won’t be coming back.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Corrie groaned. ‘If only I could stand up to him! If only I didn’t let him get away with it – every time – every damn time. You were good, Elinor, giving it to him straight, but I just sat there. What a great Jessie, eh? What a fat lot of use.’

  ‘You have to keep the peace,’ she told him. ‘There’s no point two of us finishing with him, we have to think of Ma.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’ Hessie sighed, wiping her eyes. ‘I can manage him better than you folk. I know him, I understand him.’

  ‘Oh, Ma,’ Elinor sighed. ‘Look, I’m away for the tram. I’ll come in and see you at Logie’s, eh? We’ll arrange a meeting.’

  ‘I’ll walk you to the tram,’ said Corrie, as Hessie, crying again, turned back to the shop door. ‘And then you can fix up to see me some time – if you don’t come back.’

  ‘I’ve said I won’t be coming back.’ Elinor, taking his arm, shook her head. ‘Dad’s made up my mind for me. I’m definitely going to Miss Ainslie’s meeting now, so that’s me the outcast. If that’s what he wants, I want it, too.’

  And at that the brother and sister, shoulders drooping, made their way slowly through the warm streets to the tram stop. They didn’t speak again until the tram came in sight, when they hugged and said goodbye. There didn’t seem anything else to say.

  Eight

  Sometimes, it seemed, the suffragette groups held outdoor meetings, usually attended by a handful of grown-ups and children, who were not above jeering, but the first meeting Elinor went to was in a large church hall in Newington, an area on Edinburgh’s south side. The warm weather had moved away and the evening was chill and wet, but nothing could dampen Miss Ainslie’s enthusiasm as she and Elinor made their way to the meeting under glistening umbrellas.

  ‘I’m so glad you agreed to come!’ Miss Ainslie told Elinor who, though trying to look confident in her best walking-out jacket and skirt, was still very unsure about this whole venture. ‘It’s such a shame about the weather, but I know you won’t be disappointed. Miss Denny can’t be with us, unfortunately, as she has to be at the club when I am not, but she’s getting quite keen on our work. After all, why should any woman not want the vote?’

  ‘There is this property qualification, though.’

  Miss Ainslie was silent for a moment.

  ‘What I’d like to see,’ she said finally, ‘is universal suffrage. That means everyone over twenty-one being given the right to vote.’

  ‘And is that what the movement wants, too?’

  ‘Well, I think at present, we’re just trying to have the same rights as men. We could campaign later for an extension to the vote.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem fair, if you’ve got to have property to be able to vote.’

  ‘No, I’ll admit, it’s not fair. Does your own father, for instance, have the vote?’

  ‘No,’ Elinor replied shortly, and said no mor
e. She didn’t want to discuss her father, as she had not yet told the manageress of his views, or that he had forbidden her to go home while she still worked at the Primrose. In fact, she had told no one, for though there was no hope in her mind that the situation would change, she still wanted only to keep it secret.

  ‘Here we are!’ Miss Ainslie cried, as they reached the open door of the meeting place. ‘Oh, listen to the chatter – seems we have a good audience in spite of the rain! This way, Elinor.’

  Keeping her brave face, Elinor followed Miss Ainslie into the hall. Large and bleak, filled with rows of chairs, it reminded her of school, but on the platform, draped across a table, was a large ‘Votes for Women’ banner and, instead of pupils, there were crowds of women, not yet taking their seats. Most were well dressed, in fitted jackets, pretty blouses, and large hats – just the sort of ladies you might see any day of the week having tea in Maule’s or Logie’s department stores. Others appeared more casual, in tartan stoles and bonnets, or loosely draped shawls and floating print dresses. But all were animated, talking in high, educated voices, smiling, seeming to know everyone around them; all were sure of themselves, very much at ease.

  Miss Ainslie was the same. She also knew everyone, greeting them delightedly, to which they responded with cries of ‘Jane, how lovely to see you!’ and little brushed kisses on her cheek, while Elinor stood apart, thinking she’d known it would be like this and wishing she hadn’t come. But then Miss Ainslie suddenly turned and, taking her arm, propelled her forward into a group of interested faces, exclaiming, ‘Ladies, may I introduce Miss Rae, who is joining us tonight to hear Mrs Greer? Elinor, I won’t try to give you names at this stage, but I know people will want to make you welcome. Everyone, Miss Rae!’

  Miss Rae . . . Miss Ainslie had called her Miss Rae. At the formality, so unusual for her, Elinor’s heart rose and she blushed and smiled, as the ladies bent forward to greet her. She was beginning to make some sort of reply, when a ginger-haired woman appeared on the platform, accompanied by the rector of the church, the only man present, and called for people to take their seats. Mrs Greer, already stepping up from the front of the hall, was ready to speak.