Authors: Tim Vicary
If I keep my mouth shut and do nothing, I shall be damned, Ruth thought. Perhaps nothing will happen and I shall marry and be prosperous but I shall know, all my life, that I turned and passed by on the other side of the road. I will have ignored, not an injured Samaritan, but little orphan girls who are being corrupted and abused, and a woman who is being forcibly fed.
But she's a madwoman, the doctor's voice inside her said. A liar, a slanderer, a sufferer from paranoid delusions. A woman who could perfectly well eat if she chose to. A militant suffragette —
Oh, leave me alone! I don't know which is right! What am I going to do?
Ruth flung the bedclothes aside, got out of bed, poured some water into a basin from a jug beside her bed, and began to wash herself briskly. The cold water revived her. For a moment she felt fresh and healthy and forgot all about the torments in her mind. Then as she was soaping her neck and under her arms she caught sight of her breasts in the little cracked mirror and thought: Oh no. This is what the doctor was thinking of when he looked at me that time. He thought of me as a naked woman to exploit as he does those poor little girls.
It's because of that look that I
know
he's not telling the truth. It's not proof, any more than Sarah Becket has clear proof. I just
know
.
As she does.
Ruth got dressed and had breakfast and did her housework and went shopping — and still the dilemma was there. What to do. Who to approach for help. Which choice was the right one.
She boiled herself an egg at lunchtime but she could not eat it because it was slightly underdone and the white reminded her of the bile that had come out of Sarah Becket's mouth after the forcible feeding last night. Sarah had continued retching long after all the soup had come up. That woman will die of it if we go on, Ruth thought. Bromide treatment or not. She is being tortured. And I am one of the torturers.
At one o'clock she got up, put on her coat and a long scarf over her head like a factory girl, went out into the street and caught a tram. Half an hour later she was in Clements Inn. She walked up and down it for another half hour.
Each time she came near number 4, she screwed up her courage to go in, and failed. It was a double-fronted shop entrance with plate glass windows either side and a large clock projecting out into the street above the heads of the shoppers. The window frames and doors were painted blue and slightly tattered, as though they had been damaged by vandals. On the face of the clock, in place of the numbers and across the middle, were the letters
VOTES FOR WOMEN
.
And in the shop window were dozens of posters, books, leaflets and newspapers, all proclaiming more or less the same message. There were also hats, scarves and handkerchiefs in the suffragette colours of purple, white and green.
As Ruth went past she saw a number of women going in and out. A few were well-dressed, but most, she saw with relief, wore quite ordinary, even dowdy clothes. There were a number of young girls who looked more like shop assistants or factory workers than anything else, as well as middle-aged matrons and the sort of women who might well have been running a small hospital or giving orders to half a dozen servants in their own homes. The distinguishing feature, Ruth thought, was the business-like, purposeful air they all had. A cheerful energy which suggested that there were a dozen vital things that had to be done and they all had to be finished
now.
Ruth felt superfluous and embarrassed. I don't belong in there, she thought, I'm not like them at all. I might agree with their aim but certainly not with their methods. Most of them are militants — criminals, for heaven's sake!
They don't abuse children, though . . .
The fifth time she walked past, she turned and went in.
The door did not have a bell that rang when it opened, and nobody looked up when she came in. The inside of the shop was filled with a number of tables, piled high with books, newspapers, pamphlets, leaflets and clothes. Around and behind the tables women were writing, typing, reading or talking busily. They all seemed to belong and know exactly what they were doing.
Ruth almost walked straight out again.
‘Ah, good. Lucy Shaldon?’
‘Sorry?’
Ruth turned and looked into the face of a cheerful, fair-haired young woman of about twenty. There was a welcoming smile on her face and she was holding out a large bundle of copies of a newspaper called
The Suffragette
. She smiled and said: ‘These are yours.’
‘Why?’ Ruth stared at the newspapers in confusion.
‘To sell, of course.’ The young woman frowned. ‘I'm sorry, you
are
Lucy Shaldon, aren't you?’
‘No. No, I'm not.’
‘Oh, I do apologise. I've been waiting for her for twenty minutes and I was told she was tall, like you, so I just assumed . . .’ She laughed, a friendly, happy laugh that reassured Ruth despite her embarrassment. ‘You must think I'm a fool. I haven't seen you here before, that's all. Can I help you?’
‘Yes. I want . . .’ What did she want, really? Ruth had spent so much of her energy just deciding to walk through the door that she had not worked out exactly what she would say when she got in. She flushed and said: ‘I want to talk to someone about Sarah Becket.’
‘Oh.’ It was the young woman's turn to look surprised. ‘But I'm afraid you can't, you see. She's in prison.’
‘I know. I've seen her there. That's what I want to talk about.’
‘You've seen her in
prison?
Good heavens, I didn't realise. When did you get out?’
‘I didn't, exactly. I mean, I work there, I’m a wardress. Look, can I talk to someone — I mean, someone who knows her? It's very important.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. Just stay there.’
The young woman disappeared into the depths of the shop, and Ruth stood awkwardly beside the table with the pile of newspapers on it. All around her the women continued to talk and work energetically. Ruth glanced at the newspaper and saw the banner headline
CABINET OF TORTURERS
printed above a number of small photographs of the Prime Minister, Asquith, with Churchill and Lloyd George and his other government colleagues. She shuddered, and glanced away through the window. Two police constables were strolling along the pavement, observing the suffragette shop with considerable interest.
Those are my people, she thought desperately. What am I doing in here? This is all wrong.
Her feet began to edge their way towards the door. Then, when she had almost reached it, the cheerful fair-haired young woman reappeared, marching briskly towards her. Behind her was a middle-aged lady with glasses, and another woman. All three of them looked anxious and excited.
‘There she is, Mrs Watson,’ the young woman said. ‘Over there by the door!’
‘You say you saw her yesterday evening?’
‘Yes. I told you once already.’
‘At what time?’
‘Four o'clock, about. When we force fed her.’
Alice Watson shuddered and, beside her, Deborah Cavendish's eyes misted over with tears. The conversation was extraordinary, but so, from Deborah's point of view, was the entire day. She had begun the day thinking about her letter from Charles, and spent most of the rest of it in the WSPU headquarters with Alice Watson, looking through their files on prostitution. The evidence, she thought, was depressing, but lacking precise, relevant details. The name of Dr Armstrong cropped up once or twice, but there was nothing definite, nothing completely damning that would have held up in court. She began to wonder if Mrs Watson was blaming the man unjustly.
She had come to the suffragette headquarters with Mrs Watson expecting long tiresome arguments about the rightness of militant tactics, and had prepared what she thought were clear reasons why burning post boxes, smashing windows, and pouring weedkiller on golf courses — not to mention slashing the
Rokeby Venus
— were bad ideas. But none of that had been necessary. The women she had met had been friendly, open, talkative, but also brisk, extremely busy, and unnervingly sure of themselves. Since she was Sarah's sister, and had come with Alice Watson, they assumed that she supported their cause. In any case, to them, the necessity for militant action was so transparently obvious that it was not worth discussing. More important were the day's press, the points they were going to make in speeches that afternoon, and the most cogent articles from
The Suffragette
.
When she had read everything Alice Watson had to show her, Deborah sat for a while in an upstairs room, staring into space and thinking. She supposed she ought to be thinking about Sarah. Clearly Sarah was in a terrible position if this Martin Armstrong was as bad as Mrs Watson thought. But Deborah didn't see what she could do about it, other than warn Jonathan. And then what? The problem kept drifting away into the distance, and Deborah thought instead about Rankin walking away from her with his hands in his pockets, and the baby, growing inside her.
I am surrounded by women who might help, she thought despairingly, but I daren't say a word. I don't know any of them well enough and anyway, they might despise me. None of them would be so foolish or immoral as to do what I've done and get found out. And what help could they offer except tea and sympathy and gossip later behind my back?
I'm on my own.
No, you're not. There's me.
For the first time ever she thought of the baby inside her as the person it would become. It would have blue eyes at first and black hair, and then maybe the hair would stay black and the eyes shade to green. The skin would be sallow and smooth like Rankin's — and, whatever I've done, it will love me.
We're on our own, my baby. You and me against the world.
Oh God what will Charles say when I tell him?
Suddenly, a young fair-haired woman, Mary Lemprier, to whom she'd been introduced earlier, burst into the room. She was bubbling with astounding news. A prison wardress from Holloway was actually
downstairs
, and she had seen Sarah Becket! Deborah gazed at her vaguely, and then dragged herself back into the present. This is what it is like, she thought, I remember with Tom. The longer the pregnancy goes on the more distant everything around you becomes. Of course it's very important that someone has news of Sarah but I can't feel it.
A few minutes later she found herself sitting with Mrs Watson in a little gloomy office at the back of the building, staring at the newcomer.
The girl did not fill Deborah with confidence. She sat on the edge of her chair as though she were about to leave. She wore a long black coat and had a scarf over her head. She looked unusually big, almost mannish, with a slightly stooped back that conveyed an air of embarrassment. But she also seemed pathetically anxious to speak; and, if her story was true, her embarrassment was hardly surprising.
Mrs Watson asked: ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Forcibly feed Sarah Becket.’
‘Why? 'Cause she refused food, o' course. And because it's doctor's orders.’
‘Doctor's orders?’
‘That's what I come to tell you about.’
Slowly, hesitantly, Ruth Harkness told her story. Of the two women in front of her she preferred the older lady, the woman in the green dress with the round glasses and grey hair. She had a manner like an old-fashioned schoolteacher, Ruth thought; she would stand no nonsense but you knew where you were with her, you could trust her. The other one, the fair-haired lady in the fine grey dress, upset her. She had been introduced to Ruth as Sarah Becket's sister, but she was as unlike the defiant woman in prison as she could be. She thought of Sarah Becket as slim, haggard, with a pale suffering face and haunting dark eyes that could flash and mock and make you tremble; this woman opposite her now seemed quiet, anxious, almost afraid of what Ruth had to say.
Ruth described the forced feeding, and told them what Sarah had said to Dr Armstrong about her husband, and what she had heard from the women in the collecting cell about the house in Red Lion Street, Hackney; and how she had followed her husband to his premises in Kensington and seen Dr Armstrong come out and Jonathan stay in.
‘But why did she go there?’ Mrs Watson asked. ‘I mean, what led her to suspect him in the first place?’
‘She said she got a letter, ma'am, from some prostitute. Warnin’ ‘er to keep you suffragettes away from Dr Armstrong because her husband was involved.’
‘Dear God,’ Deborah breathed. ‘The poor thing.’
‘Did she say where that letter is now?’ Mrs Watson asked.
‘No, ma'am. Didn't mention it.’
‘Pity,’ Mrs Watson said. ‘Nevertheless, that explains it.’ She glanced at Deborah.
‘Explains what?’
‘Why she didn't tell me what she was planning to do. Why she slashed the picture and got herself arrested instead of talking to me first. If we could have exposed the person who was running these bawdy houses it would have had enormous political impact and done far more for our cause than slashing the painting. But if — God forbid — Sarah believed her husband was involved in any of this, then of course she would have been shocked. Emotionally disturbed, perhaps. She wouldn't have been able to control what she was doing.’
‘Dear God!’ Deborah sat down, stunned. She didn't want to believe it but it was too likely, too inescapably true. All men betrayed their women, in the end. Even Jonathan. Poor, foolish Sarah. No wonder she had taken up the knife. She must have been so shocked she couldn't think what else to do.
‘That's what the doctor says, too.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Ruth's flat tones dragged their attention back to her. ‘Dr Armstrong. He says she's emotionally disturbed. Suffering from paranoid delusions, he calls it. It's his way of saying her whole story's a pack of lies. That's why he says she's insane.’
As Ruth explained Dr Armstrong's diagnosis, and the subsequent conversation she had had with him about it. Deborah leaned forward slowly on the table, resting her head in her hands. Tears were trickling down her cheeks but she made no effort to wipe them away. Her eyes were still fixed on Ruth.