Crooked Pieces (8 page)

I raced to the entrance hall. If I had not seen it…

Outside the great glass doors, all across the road for as far as I could see and right round the corner, came women, red flags swirling, singing for all their hearts. Beside them on horses rode bobbies, some laughing, others looking quite brain-lashed with bewilderment. Up the stairs the women came, into the hall, like a great brown wave, for their clothes
were poor and shoddy and hardly a strip of colour in their hats. Some had babies squawling and blabbing, others were grimed and oily from work. Old, young, and every shade between. Up the steps and into the hall. I had to press myself against the wall for fear of being trampled, then ran as quick as I could, back the way I had come.

I burst through the door. ‘Oh, Miss Annie,’ I cried, not daring to address Mrs Pankhurst. ‘They have come.’ Miss Annie came hurrying across to me.

‘Who, Maggie? Who has come? Is it the police?’

‘No, miss. Well, only a few on horses. But the women… Hundreds, miss. And babies and all. They are…like the lilies of the field.’ I was not sure that this was quite right, but Miss Sylvia seemed to understand, for she leapt up and ran to a little side door that gave on to the stage. Opening it a crack, she beckoned wildly with her hand. All rushed to look, even Mrs Pankhurst, though she is very little and could scarce see past Mrs Montefiore and her hat.

Miss Sylvia shut the door. ‘Perhaps we shall need those buns after all, Mother.’

Mrs Pankhurst nodded gaily. ‘I think we may, my dear. Well done. And well done, Annie and Mrs Drummond. Your efforts have borne fruit. Now it is up to us to ripen it on the bough.’ I thought this very beautiful and made a grand effort to put it to memory.

‘Maggie, what are you doing here? I thought you were to show latecomers in. You’ll not find many round here.’

I blushed purple and back again. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Christabel, ma’am… I only came to…’

Miss Sylvia stepped in. ‘It was Maggie brought us the
news.’ Miss Christabel gave me a lovely smile. ‘Thank you, Maggie. You are a clever, useful girl. Now hurry back to your post.’

It was on my way back that I saw Ma. She was leaning against a wall, eyes closed, the baby riding so high in her she could scarce find space for breathing. Mrs Grant was with her and looking more than anxious. I fought my way across to them. ‘Ma.’

She opened her eyes and tried to smile. ‘I thought I might see you, Maggie. Miss Annie said you would be here.’ She took a great gasp of air.

‘Ma, you must sit down. Have you been walking all the way from home?’ I did not see how she could.

‘Miss Annie arranged that we would come on the Underground,’ Mrs Grant told me. ‘But it is a perilous long way up from it and your ma so near her time.’

Wrong though it was, I felt a stab of envy that Ma should have been on the Underground train when I had not.

‘There’s tea,’ I said. ‘And buns. Miss Sylvia bought five hundred.’

‘Enough to feed an army,’ Mrs Grant declared.

‘An army is what we are.’ It was Miss Sylvia. ‘But an army that needs a chair.’

‘Please, Miss Sylvia, this is my ma,’ I said, wishing Ma had not looked so done in.

Miss Sylvia held out her hand. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you, Mrs Robins. Annie cannot sing your praises high enough for all the help you’ve given her.’

Ma straightened up. ‘I thank you, ma’am, but I’ve done little enough.’

‘I’m sure that’s not so. And Maggie here has been quite excellent. You must be very proud of her.’

Ma made a snitching sound as she does when praise is offered. ‘I hope she will always do her best.’

‘That and more. Now will you come and take a cup of tea and something to eat before the meeting begins? You must be weary from the journey.’

Ma began to say that she required nothing, thank you, but I knew why. ‘Ma, you must. It’s free and if you don’t eat a bun, and Mrs Grant, too, and everyone here, we shall be living off them till Christmas.’ Even Ma laughed.

I cannot mind when I have seen so many people all in one place, jam-packed together, munching on those buns like their lives depended on it. At last someone rang a bell and everyone made their way into the grand hall.

I sat with Ma and Mrs Grant near the back. Ma looked so tired I could tell she would rather not be there. I wondered who was minding Evelyn and Will. Not Lucy, I hoped, or they would both end up drowned or worse.

After a few minutes Miss Billington and Mrs Montefiore and some other ladies I did not know came on to the stage and everyone fell silent. Miss Billington thanked the women for coming so far and at such trouble to themselves. She then called upon Miss Annie to address the meeting. As she stood up there was a great roar from all the women she had talked into coming, as though she was one of their own.

She told how we must await the end of the King’s Speech in Parliament. On that depended our next action. I was not sure what this meant, but everyone clapped and cheered, so I did too, and Miss Annie went on to say how more than half the
people of Britain were women and it was monstrous that they should have no say in how they were ruled. More cheers. She told how where she came from in the north, women would work a ten-hour day, six days a week, for half what the men alongside them were earning. And was this right? Was this just? Was this Christian?

‘No,’ we all cried, even Ma, who looked much sparkier than before.

Was it right that married women should depend on their men to vote for them, and unmarried girls have no one at all to champion their cause?

‘No.
No. NO.’

Were women too stupid to know what they wanted? Were they too lazy to walk to the polling station? Did they not care what happened to their children? Was not this great nation founded on the toil of men
and
women?

‘Yes.
Yes. YES.’

I think if the old grey man from the Albert Hall had stepped on to the stage at that moment, he would have been torn to pieces before our eyes.

Miss Annie made to continue when, suddenly, came a sound from the side of the stage and Miss Christabel fair leapt on to the platform. Those who knew her raised a mighty cheer, but she held up a hand to silence them. ‘Ladies, we all know why we are here today. It is to see if the Government has at last come to its senses. Today is the opening of Parliament.’ She paused, dipped her head, then solemnly raised it again. ‘It is with great regret I must inform you that no mention whatsoever was made in the King’s Speech today regarding a bill for women’s suffrage.’

There was a silence. More than a silence. A sort of damp despair curling over us. Then, quick as a flash, Mrs Drummond jumped up on her seat and cried, ‘For shame! Shame on this government of weaklings and bullies.’ The cry was taken up like a great chorus and rang round the hall till, had it been trumpets, the walls would surely have fallen. And into all this wildness stepped Mrs Pankhurst. Still, tiny, but like a flame in the darkness.

‘My dear friends, this is a disappointment indeed. More than a disappointment. A blow to the heart of our frail bodies. But let us remember that it is but a blow. One blow. A harsh one. But not a murdering blow. It has hurt us. It has wounded us. It has not killed us. Nor will it
ever.
For while there are women such as you – true, loyal, honourable, brave, deserving – prepared to fight for what should be theirs by right, we shall
never
be beaten. We shall fight on. Till we win the glorious day.’

Such cheers as rose would have lifted the roof and carried all the way to the King himself if there was any justice in the world.

Mrs Pankhurst then proposed that all those willing should make their way to the House of Commons and demand to speak with the Members of Parliament. The hall emptied. When we got outside a wicked cold drizzle was falling. I told Mrs Grant to take Ma home. Ma started to protest but Mrs Grant would have none of it. ‘You’ve children at home need their mother, Mrs Robins. Your man’s done well by you to let you come. Don’t give him cause to rue it, for this will be a long hard struggle, to my reckoning.’

I had to ask. ‘Is Pa looking after the littl’uns?’

Ma nodded.

‘But what about his work?’

‘He has a free day.’

‘How? It’s not Christmas.’

Mrs Grant looked at Ma. ‘Shall I tell your Maggie?’

Ma shook her head. She took a deep breath, as deep as she could with the baby squeezing her like an accordion. ‘Your nan’s gone, Maggie. We buried her today. Mr Bailey gave your pa the day off, else I could not have come.’

I stared at her. ‘You came here, today? With my nan dead?’

‘I did, yes.’

‘But…she was your ma.’

Ma turned her head away. The baby kicked her, you could see, right through her smock, then she looked at me. ‘I can’t help her no more, Maggie. You and Lucy and Evelyn, maybe I can. And this little blighter inside.’

‘If it’s a girl.’

‘It’s a girl, all right.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Girls kick harder.’

I walked with Ma and Mrs Grant to the Underground. It seemed strange to watch them disappearing down into its black gob. It struck me then, perhaps I should not like to try it after all.

The crowd was marching up the street and I was carried along with it, not knowing where we were bound except for ‘Parliament’. The rain was lashing at us and I wished I had worn my workaday shoes, for my boots, though smart to the extreme, were leaking water like muslin.

I asked a woman how far it was to go. She shook her head.

‘Bloody miles, my love, but worth it to see their faces.’

I could have told her it was not, for I had seen the Prime Minister’s before, and very dull it was. I took to thinking about men’s faces as we trudged, and it seemed to me that they are mainly plain. Mr Roe, though jolly, has a very red nose and a big pot belly on him. I have heard my Pa called handsome, but I cannot see it, for his nose is bent and his skin worn brown like a saddle. Frank is handsome, with his dark eyes and gleaming teeth and soft fine skin. Frank is not like an ordinary man, though, for no one can refuse him anything he asks. He is too winning in his ways. Of ordinary men, the only one I minded that was tolerable was the bobby who found me the night of the Albert Hall. He was tall and strong with greeny brown eyes and a brave warm smile.
He
had gleaming teeth. I do like fine teeth in a man. Mine are good. Many have remarked on them. They are the best thing about me, but what good is that, except for gnawing beef bones? I cannot spend my whole life smiling or I will be sent to the madhouse, I suppose.

As we turned down by the river there, ahead of us, suddenly rose up a palace. I thought the plan must be changed and we were to visit the King himself, for so marvellous was the building, all swirling stone and windows and towers. My stomach fair curdled with fear, in case His Majesty should come forth and ask me to explain myself. I hung back as best I could but with such a crowd it was not possible for long. We moved forward like a great tide, and well nigh wet as one.

As we came to the great gates, cries of ‘The Strangers’ Entrance. Round to the Strangers’ Entrance’ reached us, so we all swooped about like a flight of starlings and headed off
down a side street. I did not think it likely the King would come to a side door and felt much the happier for it. Nor would it have mattered if he had, for when we got there the place was quite barred with bobbies, two or three deep and looking very stern with their feet spread like ducks, hands clamped behind their backs, and every one of them frowning.

Mrs Pankhurst marched right up to them. ‘We wish to speak with our representatives in Parliament.’

A sergeant stepped forward. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. We are ordered to admit no one.’

‘How so?’

‘Those are my orders.’

‘Who has delivered such an order?’

‘That I can’t say, ma’am.’

‘You do not know who issued it?’

‘Not as such.’

‘But still you obey it?’

‘I do, ma’am.’

Mrs Pankhurst smiled. ‘Well then, officer, suppose I give you an order rescinding that order? What will you do then?’

The sergeant looked very hot and unsettled. ‘There is to be no admittance.’

‘On what grounds? It is our right to speak with Members of Parliament on matters concerning us.’

‘Not today, it isn’t.’

‘Today or any day. It is enshrined in the constitution, as you will be well aware.’

The sergeant became quite sticky. ‘I will refer the matter to my superior, ma’am. I must ask you to wait here while I do so.’

He marched away, coming back minutes later. ‘I have been informed the Honourable Gentlemen are prepared to receive a deputation, ma’am.’

‘Thank you, officer. We are that deputation.’

‘Of twenty women.’

‘Twenty?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see. Did the Honourable Gentlemen by any chance say which twenty they would like to receive?’

Everyone screeched with laughter and even some of the bobbies grinned. The sergeant went redder than boiled beetroot. ‘Twenty, ma’am, and that is it.’

Mrs Pankhurst nodded. ‘So be it.’

After some discussion, it was decided that the Wednesday ladies would serve the matter best and in they went, fine hats dripping. We stood on in the rain, half-frozen but somehow cheery. A woman near me said it was good to see someone so young making a stand, and the others around agreed and said I was a fine girl and an example. If my boots had not been leaking so I would have felt quite warmed by their praise.

After about fifteen minutes the ladies returned, looking mighty cross. It seems the Honourable Gentlemen had behaved as mean as unhonourable ones and quite refused to keep their promises. Mrs Pankhurst, however, had obliged them to receive another twenty ladies. There being some hundreds of women in the square and all of us very wet, I hoped the choosing might be quick.

It was, for immediately Miss Sylvia took over, saying, ‘Now it is the turn of the workers. Let the Honourable Gentlemen
take note, our movement touches every corner of the realm,’ and instantly began to select who should go, from fishwives to shop girls. Miss Christabel was unhappy and declared someone of knowledge must go with them for fear they would stumble on their words, to which Mrs Pankhurst replied, ‘Let Sylvia take them in then, my dear.’ So Miss Christabel agreed, although she did not look truly persuaded.