Crooked Pieces (29 page)

Mrs Garrud prepared me a bath and put me to bed with a hot stone wrapped in flannel to warm my feet. I cannot get warm. She says it is because I have not eaten for so long, but I am not hungry any more. She brought me some warm milk with honey in it which I sipped as best I could, but my stomach churned and churned and I thought I should be sick. She told me to rest and she would fetch the doctor to me but I begged her not to, for I never want to see another as long as I live. They are foul, deceitful creatures with smooth tongues and wicked ways.

One day on and I am feeling so much better. Today I had a coddled egg and then later some bread mashed in milk. Mrs Garrud helped me wash my hair again for yesterday I could do no more than sluice it.

Miss Sylvia called round with the papers. ‘I thought you would like to see how things are turning our way at last.’

It was true. Though some still insisted we were nothing but criminals and should be treated as such, many were coming to the view that our cause was a just one and in any case that it was cruel and barbarous of the Government to punish us with prison. There were lots of articles about the
window-smashing
.
‘We understand that one of the female vandals broke seven panes, no less. Put her in the stocks, we say, till she has learnt her manners.’
I felt like writing back and saying, ‘Is it manners to shut someone in a black hole for seven days?’ but then I found another that said I was a
‘latterday Joan of Arc’
. Joan of Arc is a great favourite with Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Christabel so I asked if I might cut it out to keep.

‘Of course. Keep them all if you like.’

‘No. Just that one, please,’ for I did not want to remember my week in hell.

I asked when I was expected back in the office. Miss Sylvia made a face. ‘Not until you are strong and well again.’

‘I am. Much stronger than yesterday and tomorrow I am sure I shall be fine.’

‘Well, fine or not, you are to go to Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence’s country house to convalesce. One of our women will drive you down. It’s all arranged.’

I was quite dazed. I know that some of the ladies have been taken there after prison, but
me
! My heart started jumping. ‘I cannot go, Miss Sylvia. Really, I cannot.’

‘Why ever not, Maggie?’

‘Because…because I must go home to Ma. I have not seen her for so long.’

‘She knows all about it. She thinks it a wonderful idea.’

‘But… I do not know what to do in the country. I shall not know how to behave. And I have no clothes for country living.’

‘Maggie, calm down. It’s not a shooting party. It’s to give you time to get your strength back, that’s all. Nothing will be required of you. You may read and walk in the gardens – anything you like.’

‘But I am fine, truly I am.’

Miss Sylvia became serious. ‘Maggie, you are not. You could hardly walk when we brought you back yesterday. Mrs Garrud was in tears after she put you to bed. Now is that what you want? Do you want your ma, who has made so many sacrifices for you, to see you like this?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like this.’ She went over to the table and picked up a hand mirror. She held it in front of me.

I should not have known myself. My eyes looked twice as big as normal, staring out at me from hollow treacly circles. My skin was dry and flaking, my hair like wire, splitting and coarse…

Miss Sylvia put her arm round me till I had done crying. ‘You will soon be well again. Believe me, Maggie. One week from now and you will be good as new, I promise you.’

I could not think it would be so.

She got up. ‘I will leave you to rest now.’ At the door she turned. ‘Maggie, it is not just for your sake we are sending you to convalesce. The Cause needs you, and needs you to be strong. It is a long hard struggle we have before us still. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’

I nodded. When she had gone I cried some more, because I knew she meant we would have to go through it all again.

In the evening Mrs Garrud brought me some broth and when I had drunk it she bathed my face with a cloth and brushed my hair and tied it back with a purple ribbon. ‘You have a visitor.’

‘Who?’

‘Who do you think?’

I shook my head. ‘No. I cannot see him. Please… Tell him I am unwell, anything… Please.’

‘Maggie, why? He has been beside himself with worry. You must let him speak to you at least.’

‘No. No. No. Another time. I am too tired. Oh, please, Mrs Garrud…’

‘But why not?’

‘I cannot bear for him to see me like this. I cannot bear it.’

Mrs Garrud nodded. ‘What if I light some candles and turn down the lamp? He will not stay long. He knows you are very tired. He loves you, Maggie.’

‘He will not if he sees me now.’

Mrs Garrud sat down by the bed. ‘I have been married to Mr Garrud for twenty-two years. Do you think in all that time he has never seen me sick or ill or worse? Once, when I was starting out my classes I turned wrong and fell and hit my head on the wall. I was senseless for ten days. When I came to he was there, sitting by my bed, his face all stained with tears. He grasped hold of my hand and said, “Edith, I feared I had lost you. I am the happiest man alive.” It was a week before I found out I was entirely yellow with the jaundice. I asked him about it after and he said, “Oh, yes, I suppose you were. I never noticed”.’

Fred came tiptoeing into the room in his great bobby’s boots, for he had come straight from being on duty. Halfway across the room he tripped over the jug that Mrs Garrud had used to wash my hair and it went clanging away like a church bell. This made me laugh.

‘I was trying not to wake you. I cannot see a thing in here. Has Mrs Garrud got no oil?’

‘I preferred the candles.’

‘Oh. Well…’ He sat down. I looked at him. He was gazing at me as though he had never seen me before. I thought, so much for candles! Slowly he leant across and, taking my face in his hands, kissed me, oh so gently, on my cheeks and then my forehead. ‘Oh, Maggie, I have missed you so much.’

‘Yes, I missed you.’

‘The ladies told me what was happening. I did not know how to bear it. I almost went to church to say a prayer.’

‘Don’t talk to me about church. Or chaplains. Not prison ones, anyway.’

‘No. They say you are to go to the country for a few days. Till you are recovered.’

‘Yes. I have got a bit thin.’

‘I’ve brought you some cake, and chocolate, and flowers. Mrs Garrud said I should leave them downstairs for now in case you were…Oh, God, Maggie, you look so…’

I felt my hopes go crashing down like the prison windows. ‘So…?’ All those words – ‘ill, old, vile, ugly’, the lot.

He reached across for my ice-cold hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘Beautiful. So beautiful. I am the luckiest man on earth.’

The country is all I could have dreamt and more. I was driven down here by a very funny lady, Miss Holmes, who kept quipping all the way. She told me she had nearly landed Mrs Pankhurst in a ditch on her first outing, she was so nervous. ‘I’d taken a wrong turning and it was nearly dark and we were running late. Mrs P tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Vera dear, if we are not there in five and half minutes you will have two thousand women to answer to”, so I slammed my foot down just as we were going round a corner and skidded and if there had been anything coming the other way, we should both have been in paradise by now. Or whatever the alternative is.’

‘Holloway,’ I said and we just fell about laughing. I should so like to learn to drive a car.

I cannot begin to describe my treatment here. If Holloway is hell, then The Mascot is paradise.

I was greeted on my arrival by Mrs Cliffe, the housekeeper, Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence being still in town. ‘Welcome, Miss Robins. We are so looking forward to having you here.’

She led us through to the parlour where we had a cup of tea and then a real maid came and showed us up to our rooms. Mine is decorated with wallpaper, yellow and white stripes. It is like something out of a palace. I have a great china bowl with a jug, patterned in yellow and blue flowers. My sheets are softer than velvet. I have my own dressing-table with a mirror, though this is a fright for I can see how freakish I am become, though my hair is shinier now and not falling out so much, so I have hope that I may yet improve.

For our supper Mrs Cliffe brought us soup, then venison with peas and carrots and then cheese and afterwards, strawberries picked that very day, she said. To drink, we had
wine
. It was dark red like blood and I did not think I liked it much, but after a little while I started to feel properly warm again – the first time for weeks.

I slept that night like I had never slept before. When I woke the sun was pouring through the curtains. For a good minute I could not remember where I was and then there was a knock on the door and the maid brought in a great jug of hot water for me to wash in. She poured it right into the bowl without spilling a drop and I thought, that might have been me if I had stayed with the Roes.

I would have liked to talk to her but she moved so quickly and never once raised her eyes to me. I wondered if it was because she thought I was a nob, but then I caught sight of me in the mirror again and I knew it must be because I looked so awful.

Miss Holmes had to drive back to London after breakfast but first she showed me all around the garden which is huge – nearly as big as a park, I would say, and with pathways overhung with roses, and lawns and trees and a special wooden house called a summer-house with cushions and chairs and bats and balls and skittles and all sorts. And a swing! I wonder if I shall dare to try it.

There is even a sort of cage with a net strung across the middle which Miss Holmes says is for a game called tennis. You have to hit a ball backwards and forwards across the net. She says it is very jolly and if she comes down again before I go she will teach me how to play it.

Inside the house is almost as beautiful as out. There is a great drawing-room with a piano. I tried a few notes when I thought there was no one about. After a while I could do a whole verse of
Fight on, Women, for the fight is hard and long
so I thought it would be a fine idea to sing it, too. I had just got to the third line when, like an echo, I heard another voice joining in. I never had such a fright. I spun round and there, standing in the doorway, was Miss Christabel, no less. I fairly leapt out of my seat.

‘Don’t stop, Maggie. You’re doing a grand job. How are you? You’re looking much better. We shall soon have you back on the road, shall we not? I trust you’ve read your newspapers this morning? Of course you have. I’m only joking. Where’s Mrs Cliffe, do you know? I need to bring some women down from Aylesbury. The hunger strikes are working a treat. Questions in the House. Do you know, there was a whole column in
The Times
yesterday? Saying how it can render a woman infertile if carried to excess. That should
raise an eyebrow or two, wouldn’t you say?’ Fortunately I did not have to say, because she was gone.

There is a library here. I have spent the whole afternoon examining the books and it seems to me that there is all the knowledge known to mankind contained among those shelves. I asked if I might borrow one and Mrs Cliffe looked most surprised. ‘Of course you may. You are a guest. You may do whatever you like.’ Well, I knew that could not be true but I thanked her all the same.

It is very strange being here all by myself. I should be frightened in such a great house but it has such a warm, good feeling to it, as though it wants me to be here.

After my supper Mrs Cliffe brought me some photographs to look at. They were of Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence when they were younger, in the garden of the house, surrounded by children – scrappy toothy little mites that might have come from Stepney.

Seeing my surprise, Mrs Cliffe explained that they had first met when working in the East End and that, after their marriage, they would often bring whole charabanc loads of children down so that they could have a real holiday and feel some sunshine on their faces. I understood then why she found nothing odd about me.

Before I went to bed she gave me a tiny thimbleful of a golden brown liquid. ‘To help you sleep, dear.’ I thought it must be medicine so screwed up my eyes and swallowed it in one. Lord, did it make me cough! When I was right again Mrs Cliffe said, ‘It’s probably better to sip it next time, Maggie. Besides, the master would be very put out if he saw his best brandy disappearing so fast, I can assure you.’

So now I have had brandy. It is a very good drink and makes you glow like a furnace all through. Perhaps I should ask the prison doctor next time if he will prescribe some for me, just to stop the cold.

Next morning after breakfast (hot rolls, jam, butter, cold ham, a boiled egg) I went back to the library. There were three or four newspapers laid out so I thought I should read at least one or Miss Christabel might not be so generous about it next time. I picked the smallest.

I found a book of poetry by a man called Byron and after dinner (soup, a whole trout, potatoes and a strawberry jelly) took it down to the summer-house. I sat the whole afternoon with my feet on a little stool just reading and reading, with the sun dripping down on me like honey and a cool soft breeze whispering in the trees.

Poetry is surely the finest thing in the world. There was one about a man locked up alone in prison for fourteen years. What could be more awful? And yet, when they finally came to let him out, he did not want it. ‘
Even I, Regained my freedom with a sigh
’. I shall learn it by heart so that next time I am Close Confined I can repeat it to myself and maybe be a bit braver.

At five o’clock the maid brought me out a pot of tea and some cream sponge cake on a tray. She asked if I would like a bath before dinner. I am sure she can be no older than I am but she was so respectful I hardly knew how to reply.

‘The Master and Mistress will be down about seven, I am to tell you, miss, and you will all dine together this evening.’

‘Oh no…’ I said, which was not at all what I intended. ‘Then I should like a bath very much, please.’