Authors: Janet MacLeod Trotter
The name of the grand department store brought Helen rushing out of the parlour where she had been reluctantly sewing on buttons.
‘What’ve you got?’ she demanded, tossing back her fair ringlets to stare at her sister’s purchase.
‘A new hat!’ Susan tore feverishly at the soft paper wrapping inside the box.
‘A new hat in its own box!’ Mabel exclaimed. ‘I’ve never seen one o’ them before.’
Susan discarded her old wide-brimmed hat and lifted the new one carefully from its nest of tissue paper. It was a neat black and white toque with two brilliant feathers of vivid green and china blue. She perched it on the front of her head while the others gazed in awe at her sudden chic appearance. It drew the eye away from the plumpness around her chin and highlighted the curve of her cheeks and brow, whereas her old, all-enveloping hat had accentuated her dumpiness.
‘What a bonny picture you look!’ Mabel gasped at her eldest child. ‘You look a grown woman, our Susan.’
‘Well, that’s what I am,’ Susan preened. ‘Eeh, we went to that new Terrace Tearoom an’ all. Had a real orchestra playing and proper table linen on the tables. And Mam, you should’ve seen the cups and saucers - gold trim.’
Mabel caught the look of speechless envy on Helen’s face and answered swiftly, ‘Well, you better get laying our battered old crockery or there’ll be no party the night. And you just watch your step with that young man - you’re barely engaged.’
Yet she was pleased to see Susan so animated and happy. Hers had been a long, dull growing up, with few treats and too many family burdens and it was time, Mabel thought, that she had a bit of fun.
‘Can I try it on?’ Helen gulped, trying to hide her admiration.
Susan looked unwilling. ‘You might damage the feathers... ‘
‘I won’t,’ Helen insisted. ‘Just for a minute. Haway, Susan.’
‘Oh, all right,’ Susan agreed with reluctance and Helen had it on her head in an instant. She dashed straight into the parlour to admire herself in the mirror.
‘It suits me, don’t you think. Mam?’ Helen demanded through the open door. ‘White and black are all the mode this autumn,’ she added with affectation.
Mabel silently agreed. Above Helen’s large blue eyes with their startlingly dark brows and lashes, the effect of the expensive hat was striking.
‘It suits an older lass like Susan better,’ Mabel lied. ‘Don’t you go thinking we can afford hats like that for you. Now give it back and help your sister set the table.’
Helen’s face turned sulky. ‘Why do I always have to wear my sisters’ cast-offs? Why can’t I have something new for a change?’
‘Just be grateful for what you’ve got,’ Mabel snapped wearily.
‘Well, I’m not!’ Helen shouted. ‘Why should I be grateful for carting a load of smelly old clothes around town while our Susan’s having tea with the posh lot in Fenwick’s?’
‘Don’t you speak to Mam like that!’ Susan scolded, grabbing her hat from Helen. For a moment Helen held on and they tussled with it when suddenly the bright blue feather became detached and fluttered in a crazy zigzag to the scrubbed wooden floor.
They both stopped their struggling and stared in horror at the damaged toque. Helen seemed as aghast at the crime as her sister and immediately released the hat. But it was too late.
‘Look what you’ve done!’ Susan shrieked and instantly burst into tears, running into the bedroom and slamming the door behind her.
Susan so seldom cried that the sudden show of emotion upset her mother. Mabel dropped the wooden spoon and lunged round the table before Helen could escape, raised her hand and slapped her daughter hard across the face.
‘You selfish little madam! Why do you always have to spoil things for our Susan? And after the way she’s brought you up and looked after you!’
Helen glared back, nursing her cheek and trying not to cry. ‘I never wanted her to! You’re me mam - you should’ve been there to look after me, not that bossy cow. But you’ve always put Susan and Maggie before me, ever since me dad died. You’ve never cared about me! None of you ever cared about me!’
Mabel was appalled by this outburst. She had done everything she could to keep her family together after Alec was killed and she was still working herself into an early grave so that they would never again be homeless or hungry. It was not her fault if she had been unable to give the demanding Helen the attention she constantly craved. She had done her best and the effort had wrung her dry of all reserves of energy and love. The injustice of Helen’s words made Mabel’s pulse race furiously.
She seized the girl by her curly hair and propelled her towards the back door which stood open to let in the fresh September breeze.
‘Get out of my sight, you ungrateful little waster!’ she shouted.
‘Ah-ya, Mam! Please don’t,’ Helen wailed.
Pushing Helen down the steps, Mabel hauled the hysterical girl across the moss-covered yard to the coal shed.
‘You can stay in there till you learn some manners.’
‘No, Mam! I’m sorry!’ Helen screamed. ‘Please, Mam. I hate it in there. It’s dirty ...’
Mabel flung her inside and banged the door shut, forcing across the two bolts. She walked away shaking with her own violence, shutting out her daughter’s terrified wails, and wondered how her life had ever come to this.
Once, long ago, she had loved all her daughters with a possessive passion. Now they filled her with worry, disappointment and fatigue that reduced her to locking her youngest in an outhouse to keep order.
As she mounted the back stairs, ignoring the curious stares of the Smiths from their kitchen window, she thought herself no better than the gaolers who kept Maggie imprisoned and wondered again about the fate of her other rebellious child. She had gone once to visit, but they had not let her in and being semi-illiterate she had been too embarrassed to leave a note.
Re-entering the kitchen she found only Granny Beaton sitting staring into the fire, sucking her gums and mumbling to herself in Gaelic. Mabel was suddenly seized with panic that her family was collapsing in on itself like poor baking.
‘It mustn’t happen,’ Mabel said aloud, ‘or all the hard graft has been for nowt!’
Granny Beaton looked up at her in confusion. ‘What was that, Peggi?’
Mabel had no idea who the old woman thought she was. ‘I said it’s time we got that cake in the oven, Mrs Beaton. We’re going to give Susan the celebration she deserves.’
‘Susan?’ Granny asked with childlike interest. ‘What is the lassie celebrating?’
Mabel sighed and went back to her mixing.
***
Maggie had no idea how long she spent in solitary confinement, but it came close to breaking her spirit. There was nothing in her cell; even the bed was removed at the start of the day. In the ordinary cell there was a high window that let in the light and to whose ledge tame birds would come and sit and twitter for food. But the punishment cell was like a tomb which shut out the light and the noise of other prisoners until Maggie lost all sense of what day or hour it was. The force-feeding continued relentlessly and eventually she put up no opposition to the assault.
After what seemed like an eternity, Maggie was returned to the main landing and a degree of liberty to shuffle around the larger cell and talk to the sparrows who darted into view.
One day, young Stevens lingered behind to clear up the spillage and bile from a feeding session.
‘It’s daft, this carry-on,’ she said. ‘Nobody gives a dickybird what happens to you in here. So what you ganin’ on for?’
Maggie just looked at her with silent contempt, too weak to argue, but Stevens persisted, with a nervous glance over her shoulder.
‘You see, everyone outside’s forgotten what you did. If you’d been a posh lady they might have taken more notice and got you out by now, but who gives a toss about ordinary lasses like us, eh? If you died the morra no one would make a fuss, would they? So why don’t you just tell them what they want to hear?’
‘And what’s that?’ Maggie croaked.
‘Say you were wrong to do what you did. Say you’ll give up being a suffragette,’ Stevens urged in a whisper, ‘then they’ll leave you alone and you can gan home. I tell you, me and the other lasses are pig sick of forcing you to drink that muck every day. It’s not right making us do that to another lass. Them doctors aren’t right in the head, they’ve worked too long with people they think are worse than animals.’ Stevens darted to the door to make sure she wasn’t overheard.
Maggie felt her resolve disintegrating with the girl’s concerned words. She had weathered the abuse, the humiliation and the violence and had resisted the temptation to give in, even as her body withered before her sunken eyes. In the dark of the punishment cell, Maggie had clung to the certainty that her cause was just and that her friends outside would be willing her to keep faith. At times she had felt their presence like a comforting pair of arms holding her up and giving her courage.
But now, to be told that the world did not care about her or her sacrifice was shattering. After all, no one had written to her, not even Rose and her mother and she had had no news from any of her family. Maggie felt an overwhelming sense of failure and bitterness at being abandoned.
How pathetic that her only friend appeared to be this solid, anxious wardress who had the humanity to worry over her and wish her ordeal to end. Maggie hung her head and felt painful tears prick her eyes and water her swollen throat. How easy it would be to give up the struggle now, she thought. And why shouldn’t she? She had suffered for over three months and could endure no more. Nobody could demand more of her.
‘Eeh, Maggie,’ Stevens said in concern, ‘are you crying?’
A dry harsh sob wrenched itself from Maggie’s throat. ‘I can’t...’ Maggie tried to voice her despair but could not.
‘Burdon says you’ve never cried,’ Stevens said, putting an arm about her skinny shoulders. ‘Says you’re not human that way.’
‘If I agree to say - what you said,’ Maggie gulped, ‘will that be an end of it? Will they let me go home?’
‘That’s what Miss Holland says, and she’s head wardress.’
Maggie suddenly yearned to be free and at home, she longed to be forgiven and taken back into the heart of her family, made a fuss of by Granny Beaton and hugged by her mother. She felt faint for want of physical contact and loving arms to nurse her back to life.
‘If only someone had written,’ Maggie sniffed, ‘I could have borne it if just someone had written to me.’
‘Aye,’ Stevens nodded, ‘you’ve Burdon to thank for that. Now, can I tell Miss Holland you’ve agreed to sign the papers and you can tell them doctors to go pick their own noses?’
Maggie looked up in confusion. ‘What did you say?’
‘About signing the papers.’
‘No, about Burdon,’ Maggie asked.
Stevens stood up and gave a nervous glance towards the door. ‘I shouldn’t really say.’
Maggie put out a scrawny hand and gripped Stevens with what strength she had left. ‘Tell me!’
‘You did get letters but Burdon threw them out, said they would only encourage you to be difficult. Don’t you dare say I told you, mind,’ Stevens said sharply.
Maggie closed her eyes in relief. How close she had come to betraying her friends.
‘Go away,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll sign nowt!’
Stevens looked vexed. ‘You’re bloody daft.’
‘Gan on,’ Maggie hissed. ‘I’d sooner die a suffragette than give in to them bastard doctors.’
Stevens hurried from the cell.
For the next three days, Maggie clung to the knowledge that she had not been forgotten, that someone had tried to keep her spirits from flagging by writing to her. She adamantly refused to sign any papers renouncing her allegiance to the WSPU. But her physical strength was ebbing rapidly.
Finally, in the fourteenth week, when she was too weak to stand, a third doctor was called in to check her heart.
‘If you carry on with the feeding, you’ll kill her,’ he grimly told the prison governor.
The next day Maggie was unceremoniously told she was to be released on licence until she was strong enough to carry out the rest of her sentence. She knew this was how the infamous ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act kept suffragettes at the mercy of the authorities for months or years as they were shunted in and out of prison. But she felt a lifting of her spirits to think she was about to see the outside world again and smell its vitality after the months of incarceration.
She was given her old clothes to dress in; they hung on her gaunt frame like those on a scarecrow. That afternoon she was bundled into an ambulance and escorted out of the prison. She lay terrified by the speed of the motor vehicle and wincing with pain at the jolts it gave her bony body. She was too exhausted by the journey to notice in which direction she was driven and so it came as a shock to find herself being carried out of the ambulance in front of a large white-bricked house surrounded by trees shedding their coppery leaves. She looked around in panic and confusion.
‘Where am I?’ she whispered in fright to a round-faced woman with a starched cap and apron who leaned over her in the sunlight. ‘This isn’t me home. I want to gan home.’
‘You’re in safe hands,’ the woman assured her with a kind smile. ‘I’m Sister Robinson.’
***
Alice Pearson paced along the edge of the water garden, beneath the golden willows. Autumn had a grip on the trees and the wind blowing up from the Tyne was raw with the smell of oil and cinders and the promise of icy rain.
But Alice hardly felt its coldness as she squelched through the mud in her leather boots, Rosamund snuffling happily behind her among the fallen leaves. There was too much occupying her mind.
Should she go and see Maggie Beaton at the convalescent home in Gosforth or not? she fretted. Sister Robinson had said it was too early for visitors and that her patient was in an extremely weakened state and so Alice had an excuse to stay away. She was partly thankful to do so; she did not want to draw attention to her links with the WSPU at this moment, but part of her longed to see Maggie Beaton and try to make amends for her punishing imprisonment.
Not that she was in a strong position to help the girl, except to give her moral support. Perhaps when this storm with Herbert and Felicity had blown over, she might be able to offer Maggie a job in her household ...