Authors: Janet MacLeod Trotter
What was happening to Maggie Beaton at this moment? Alice wondered. She had exhausted her anger over the girl’s actions and admitted, in the quiet of the evening, to a stirring of shame. That unsophisticated working girl had done something astonishing; she had risked everything to protest for a few moments today, in front of a crowd that would have gladly lynched her. Maggie Beaton had shown a courage that Alice could never have summoned. The girl would probably be imprisoned and certainly lose her job at Pearson’s, while she, privileged and powerful, had turned from the cause in fright of losing her independence and privileges.
Alice covered her face with her hands. Her guilt overwhelmed her. She had betrayed her fellow suffragettes. Was it any wonder that they had stopped calling at Hebron House since Emily’s funeral? She had not encouraged them and they in turn had not invited her to their homes or soirées. It had been easy to put her name to the women’s cause when it was just a matter of lending money and prestige. She had been happy to attend their fund-raising events, revelling in shocking her mother and brother with her radical show of independence. But never in a thousand years, Alice told herself brutally, would she have the courage to throw herself under the King’s horse or disrupt a launch for an
ideal
. That kind of moral fortitude took her breath away.
Alice saw again, behind her closed eyelids, the spectre of Maggie Beaton being hauled through the crowd, kicked and spat upon like a traitor.
‘My God,’ Alice whispered. ‘I’m the traitor!’
And then the tears came.
***
Maggie spent the night in a stifling cell at the police station. She lay for an eternity on a plank bed with a stained straw pallet and listened to the maudlin cries of a drunk in the next cell. For some reason the stranger’s erratic, tearful singing reminded her of Uncle Barny and she yearned suddenly for the crowded security of Gun Street and her family. What would they be thinking of her now? she wondered. Would they have seen or heard anything of her protest or would John Heslop have gone as promised to explain her absence?
Her mother and Susan would probably be distressed and furious. Helen would be unconcerned and already arguing for her clothes, while Jimmy would most likely boast of his part in the plan and be walloped. Only Granny Beaton would understand why she had done it and Maggie knew the old woman would be missing her companionship.
Maggie curled up tighter and tried to shut out the drunk’s singing. On Monday morning she would appear before the magistrates and be sentenced. She longed to see her friend Rose and hear what the other suffragettes thought of the surprise protest, frightened now that she would be cast out of the movement for acting on her own. And what of the Dobsons? Maggie fretted, hoping that they had not been caught up in the scuffles.
Her fears and doubts raced around her mind as the hours dragged by and the daylight never seemed to come.
***
Richard Turvey woke with a thumping head. It took him several minutes to work out where he was and when he remembered, he groaned and closed his eyes again. He had a vague recollection of the last bar he had been drinking in and the game of cards in which he had lost the last of his money - or rather Aunt Violet’s money. There had been a lot of hard drinking after the launch of the battleship, to which he had not gone, but he had entered into the spirit of the day.
Too much so, Richard thought, wincing at his hangover. Somehow he had got involved in someone else’s brawl, over someone else’s girl, and the last thing he recalled was being bundled inside a van and brought to the police station.
‘Well, that’s curtains to my job at the Olympia,’ Richard groaned. He should have been there last night calling for customers outside the doors and he was on his final warning from the long-suffering manager. He would have to think up a good story for Aunt Violet too, for his indulgent aunt would not turn a blind eye to his waywardness for ever, Richard was sure. As for Susan ... Richard sighed when he thought of the plump-faced, fussing, affectionate young woman who seemed determined to have him. He was far more partial to her saucy younger sister Helen, but Susan was a better home-maker and more likely to provide him with a comfortable life than pretty, moody Helen. After all, there would be the mother’s business to inherit, Richard mused, and judging by the way the old lady drank and wheezed with ill health, it might be sooner rather than later.
A key rattled in the lock and the duty sergeant brought in a mug of tea.
‘Looks like you could do with this, lad,
’
he grunted.
Richard nodded and took the mug. To his dismay the policeman seemed in a mood to chat.
‘You’ll be going up after they’ve dealt with that suffragette lass on Monday,’ the constable told him.
‘Oh no,’ Richard murmured, his head thumping with the effort of sitting up. How would he explain his prolonged absence to Aunt Violet?
‘Doesn’t look the type to say boo to a goose, if you ask me,’ the portly sergeant continued. ‘Makes you wonder what gets into them.’
Richard became aware of a young voice singing robustly from a cell down the corridor.
‘That’s her making a racket,
’
the sergeant nodded. ‘She’ll not be so happy when they put her away for a spell.’
Something about the singer’s voice made Richard ask, ‘What’s the girl called?’
‘Margaret Beaton, from down Elswick.’
Richard spluttered over his tea.
‘Do you know her or summat?’ the policeman asked.
‘Me? No, don’t recognise the name.’ Richard’s denial was too quick. The sergeant gave him a speculative look.
‘Might do you some good if you did,’ he said quietly.
‘What do you mean?’ Richard asked, his mind like a fog.
‘She’s caused a right stir that one - upsetting the Pearsons and the Prime Minister. Now if someone was able to give a bit of information on the lass - keep an eye on her once she’s out, that sort of thing - then there might be something in it for that someone. We can’t have these militant women terrorising our town, now can we?’
‘You mean spy on her?’ Richard asked slowly.
The sergeant said nothing, but continued to watch him.
‘Who would pay for such information?’ Richard whispered.
The policeman shrugged. ‘The Pearsons are wealthy folk. Now it doesn’t look to me like you’ve got much to rub together, lad. And there’ll be a hefty fine for your brawling.’
He was right, Richard thought desperately. He had no money of his own, only debts. He pretended to his relations that he had a good job at the Olympia, but he was merely the caller who tried to entice customers off the street. If he did not get some money from somewhere quickly, he would have to disappear from Newcastle in a hurry. But could he deliberately betray Susan’s sister Maggie? After all, she had saved him from a beating on that earlier night of trouble in which he had denied all involvement.
For a moment he fought with his weakening conscience, then gave up. Maggie had brought this upon herself with her high self-opinion and desire to be infamous. She brought nothing but trouble to the Beaton household anyway, Richard decided. It would be better for Susan and her mother and Aunt Violet if Maggie was kept under control. Easier for him too, for Maggie’s lack of interest in him had been infuriating and it disturbed him that she was the only one who seemed to see through his play-acting and suspected him for the lazy opportunist that he was.
‘Come to think of it, perhaps I do know something about the girl,’ Richard answered, feeling himself reviving with the tea.
‘Thought you might,’ the sergeant grunted and glanced out of the cell. ‘I’ll see what I can do for you.’
***
The court appearance passed in a bewildering rush. Maggie stood pale in the dock, surrounded by a sea of curious faces while two policemen gave evidence against her. She felt paralysed and unable to speak. When the time came to defend herself, Maggie could not think of a single thing to say. Then she heard the magistrate sentence her to six months’ imprisonment and her head began to spin. It stretched ahead in her mind like a lifetime of captivity and she felt real fear - fear of unknown horrors awaiting her in prison, fear of loneliness and isolation, fear that her old life would never be recaptured.
As she was led away, Maggie thought she caught a glimpse of Rose in the gallery. For a few seconds the sighting of a friendly, supportive presence lifted her spirits. She turned and shouted at the magistrates, ‘Votes for Women!’
Her escorts grabbed her and ushered her roughly from the court.
Later, inside Newcastle prison, Maggie found herself among a motley group of petty criminals waiting to be dealt with by the wardresses. Still dazed, Maggie was astonished to hear one of the women call her name. It was the toothless pea-seller, Mrs Surtees, from the Bigg Market.
‘Got you at last did they, hinny?’ Mrs Surtees tutted.
‘Six months,’ Maggie whispered, still unable to believe her own words.
‘Eeh, never! A young lass like you - it’s a scandal!’
Mrs Surtees, it appeared, was in for stealing a purse from another stallholder.
‘I just needed a lend of some money till I got down the pawnshop,’ Mrs Surtees said with a baffled shrug, ‘but he didn’t see it that way.’
Then a tired-looking head wardress came in with two helpers and demanded silence. The prisoners were unceremoniously stripped and searched and weighed, then forced to take a tepid bath, while their paltry possessions were bundled up and removed. A couple of the women laughed and put on a show of bravado until the wardress upbraided them, but Maggie was sunk in a dispirited numbness.
Without protest, she put on a scratchy prison uniform, a starched cap and voluminous apron and was led away to a dismal cell. She stood in the middle of the stone floor for a long time, staring at the barred window and the patch of blue sky beyond as if it was a distant unattainable paradise.
What had she done? Maggie asked herself miserably. What had she achieved by her reckless protest? She had lost her liberty and her family had lost her precious wages, for which she would probably never be forgiven. Worst of all, women were no nearer to winning the vote than they had been two days ago. She had imagined herself as a romantic martyr to the cause, just like Emily Davison, but no one would remember the working-class Maggie Beaton, she told herself harshly. Heroines did not come from mean dwellings in Gun Street and common widows’ daughters did not get themselves into history books, Maggie thought with self-mockery.
Sometime towards evening, her cell was unlocked and food brought in. Maggie’s depression lifted to see the steaming mug of tea and her mouth began to water at the aroma of suet dumpling wafting from the tin. The wardress dumped the meal on the floor.
Maggie hurried over, her stomach hollow with hunger. She realised she had eaten little more than bread and tea since breakfast with the Dobsons two days ago. She grabbed the mug and the wardress cackled.
‘Didn’t take you long to give in to temptation, did it?’
Maggie gave her a suspicious look. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Thought proper suffragettes went on hunger strike,’ the woman mocked. ‘Still, you don’t look tough enough for that carry-on. You’ll last the six months, you will. Probably looking forward to it, I bet. Better food in here than at home, eh? That why you done it?’ She let out another belly laugh.
The woman’s scorn was like a slap in the face. Maggie gasped with indignation. How dare this wardress treat her like common muck? she fumed. She was just as dedicated as any of the others in the movement and she would show this ignorant, sour-faced gaoler how tough she could be.
‘I’m just as strong as any posh suffragettes you’ve had in here,’ Maggie answered sharply. ‘Take your bloody suet dumplings and stick them up your backside! I’ll not be eating them!’
Maggie kicked the tin violently towards the door and the astonished prison warder. The woman retreated hastily and slammed the door, shouting, ‘You’ll have to clear up your own mess, you filthy bitch.’
Maggie hurled the mug of tea at the metal door and watched the brown liquid splatter onto the walls and floor.
‘I’m a political prisoner!’ she cried ‘I demand to have me own clothes back. I’ll not clear up my mess or any other bugger’s! I’m no criminal. The criminals are the coppers who put me here, aye, and that fat magistrate! And the male politicians who won’t give us the vote. Let them clear up the filth!’
Maggie carried on ranting, long after the wardress was out of earshot. But she did not care, her words gave her courage and shook her out of her former despair. It did matter what insignificant Maggie Beaton did, she told herself. For it was only by the acts and sacrifices of scores of individuals like herself that their cause would be advanced. They could starve her and humiliate her, but she would not be broken, Maggie vowed. They would never break her!
***
George Gordon paced around the streets of Newcastle wondering what to do. He entered a public house, but left before ordering a pint. Eventually he retraced his steps to Carliol Square and looked up at the grim walls of the prison. Where was Maggie being held? he wondered. Was she here at all or had she been taken to another gaol? How would her delicate young body stand up to six months of prison life? he fretted. Worse still, would she refuse food and starve herself to death?
He ground his teeth in the agony of not knowing. It was nearly a week now since her sentencing and that depressing morning in court, which he had skipped work to witness. She had seemed so alone and vulnerable, George had wanted to shout at the censorious well-to-do magistrates for being so vindictive. And yet he had gone there himself to see Maggie brought to justice, to make sure she got her comeuppance for spoiling their launch. He had wanted her punished.
It should have been a special day of celebration for all the workers, a moment of pride when the ship broke its shackles and took to the water, proving their craftsmanship. But Maggie’s unseemly protest had belittled the occasion as if it were of no importance whatsoever. He had been astounded to see her appear in the centre of the launch party, brandishing her banner in their horrified faces. She seemed to be telling the world they had missed the point, that their day of celebration was nothing more than a silly child’s party compared to the long vital struggle for justice to which she was vainly drawing attention.