The Lodger (18 page)

‘Yes, since 1905. Ma'am, I firmly believe that the more aggressive we become, the more the Government will hedge. The present Government knows the people are turning against us.'

‘Boo,' hissed an angry suffragette.

‘It's all very well to boo,' said Emma, ‘but is there anyone in this hall who truly believes we're carrying the people with us?'

Brave girl, thought Nicholas. She's on her own down there and facing the prospect of being torn to pieces.

‘Mrs Carter,' said Mrs Pankhurst, ‘I think the right place for you is among the suffragists of women's rights societies that don't practise militancy.'

‘I don't think that's a fair response, ma'am,' said Emma, and Nicholas smiled at her quiet fortitude. ‘I'm a member of this union because I believe it to be the strongest and most influential – '

‘As a member, Mrs Carter, you are expected to pull with us, not against us. We are at war.'

‘Hear, hear!' The suffragettes were uncompromising in their agreement.

‘We want war and we'll fight a war,' declared Mrs Pankhurst.

‘I believe that to be wrong, ma'am,' said Emma steadfastly, refusing to yield to hissing voices telling her to sit down. ‘We want equality with men, we want them as our partners, not our enemies. Mutual respect is our aim, surely, not mutual hatred.'

Christabel positively glared. ‘Who can respect men? What have they ever done that women, given the chance, could not do far better? We
shall
make war on them!'

‘Are you serious, Miss Pankhurst?' Emma still had the floor, despite opposition. ‘We're to make war on husbands, sons and brothers?'

The tigress burst into fire. ‘Traitress! How dare you! What idiocy! Sit down!'

‘But which men are we to make war against? All of them? Doctors, missionaries and our fathers too?'

Uproar ensued.

‘Treason! Impeach her!'

‘Resign, resign!'

‘Shame on you! Go home!'

‘Please sit down, Mrs Carter,' said Mrs Pankhurst, making herself heard. She looked at her watch and glanced at the chairwoman, who nodded and declared the meeting closed. The leaders left the platform, and the suffragettes gave their leader and her lieutenants a tumultuous ovation before they disappeared.

Nicholas was out of his seat quickly. He made his way down to an exit at the side of the hall. From there he walked round to the front doors and waited. Uniformed policemen were on duty, keeping their eyes on a few demonstrators opposed to votes for women. Out came the first of the highly-charged suffragettes. Their exuberant ranks swallowed up the demonstrators.

‘Ladies, ladies.' A police sergeant put in his plea for law and order. There were no scuffles, however. The opposition was harmlessly swept away by the tide. Nicholas watched for the emergence of Mrs Carter. It was a little while before she appeared, in a rush of other women. Her hat was askew. The stream broke apart. Nicholas stepped forward. Emma felt a hand take hold of her elbow to draw her gently free of the pavement mêlée.

‘Nicely met, Mrs Carter, d'you need any help?'

Emma stared at him in the light of the street lamp. He smiled. She gave him a whimsical look. ‘Sergeant Chamberlain, well, it's you again. Is it by accident or design?'

‘It's a coincidence,' he said. The night temperature was mild, the pavements wet, the lamps of Chelsea glowing and picturesque. The suffragettes, still emerging, swamped the road. A group marched away, a banner-bearer at their head. Two policemen hurried after them. ‘I attended as an observer,' said Nicholas.

‘Really? Where were you?'

‘Up in the gallery. What a performance. Congratulations. I thought you might get eaten, but here you are, still in one piece, except that your hat's crooked.'

‘Is it?' Emma laughed and straightened it. ‘I enjoyed myself, and didn't you think Cristabel magnificent in her way?'

‘She frightens me to death,' said Nicholas. ‘May I see you home now?'

‘There's really no need,' said Emma.

‘I'd like to.'

‘Well, you can at least escort me to the bus stop,' said Emma.

Nicholas, spotting an approaching motor vehicle, stepped into the road and signalled it. Emma watched as the taxi came to a halt. She advanced.

‘Will this do?' asked Nicholas.

‘I can't afford to ride in a motor taxi,' said Emma.

‘Neither can I, usually, but it's my privilege tonight.'

‘How kind,' said Emma. A taxi ride was an event in her life. Nicholas opened the door and she stepped in. He gave the cabbie her address in Walworth.

‘All that way, guv?' complained the cabbie.

‘Yes, enjoy the drive,' said Nicholas, getting in.

‘Well, I dunno – '

‘Get on with it,' said Nicholas, and closed the glass partition. The taxi pulled away.

‘This is really very gracious,' said Emma.

‘You deserve it. I thought you very brave.'

‘Oh, I was simply trying to make a case for more pacific policies. Did my nerves show?'

‘Not a bit.'

‘Well, my knees were knocking, I can tell you,' said Emma. Tucked into a corner of the cab, she was enjoying the relative luxury of the ride as they travelled along the lamp-lit Embankment, the Thames a dark flood on their right. ‘But I really can't go along with violence. Christabel, of course, thinks men are our deadly enemies, but there are men and men, aren't there? Rough diamonds are all around me in Walworth. I know navvies and costermongers I wouldn't trade for King Arthur's knights. Of course, some male bastions have to fall, don't they?'

‘Good thing too,' said Nicholas. The taxi swished through wetness on its way to Lambeth Bridge, overtaking the occasional hansom cab. Hansom cabs were still plying for hire, but in decreasing numbers.

‘If we're going to keep on meeting,' said Emma, ‘perhaps I should know your name.' She meant his Christian name.

‘Chamberlain, Nicholas Chamberlain.'

‘Nicholas?' said Emma, as the taxi crossed Lambeth Bridge. ‘Heavens, a policeman called Nicholas when most of them are Toms, Dicks and Harrys?'

‘It's not my fault, it's something I found on my birth certificate.'

‘Do you have a wife and family?' asked Emma, sure he did not.

‘I had a wife,' said Nicholas, ‘she died in childbirth. The child was lost too.'

Emma sat up. Her hand lightly touched his arm. ‘I'm sorry, truly sorry,' she said, ‘that was very hard on you.'

‘It was far harder on my wife. She was very young.'

‘I was young myself when I lost my husband, but time can be kind, it can heal the hurt. The worst of it, at least.'

‘Yes, that's true.' Nicholas sometimes wondered if his marriage had actually happened, it had been so brief. ‘All the same.'

‘Yes, all the same,' agreed Emma, as the taxi headed for the Elephant and Castle. She glimpsed cockneys walking home through streets shining wet from the evening's rain. One could always pick out cockneys. They had a jaunty walk for the most part, and the women were partial to hats laden with fruit. ‘You haven't caught your man yet?'

‘No.' Nicholas frowned. ‘You read, did you, that a second young woman was attacked last night, in Manor Place, only a few hundred yards from your home?'

‘Yes.' Emma was sober, the taxi taking them along the Walworth Road now. ‘You're worrying about me again?'

‘I should be. The young woman of last night also had very fair hair. Like Miss Shipman's and yours.'

‘Oh, dear, the man really is dangerous, isn't he?' said Emma. ‘Things aren't too good for you, are they?'

‘It's all blank walls, agitated public and critical newspapers,' said Nicholas. ‘Watching your performance tonight made a nice change.' He wanted to say a little more than that, but felt it was wiser to take time with a woman like Emma Carter. The taxi pulled up outside her house in King and Queen Street. A young man and a young woman walked by, both eating fish and chips out of newspaper. Nicholas opened the taxi door and got out. Emma followed. ‘Here we are,' he said, ‘you're all right now.'

‘Fuss, fuss,' smiled Emma.

‘Three-an'-six, guv,' said the cabbie.

‘How much?' asked Emma, shocked.

‘Now now, missus, this ain't a donkey-cart, yer know, it's an 'ighly expensive ‘Ackney motor carriage, and you've been carried in it all the way from Chelsea. Three-an'-six is a bargain.'

‘Fair do's,' said Nicholas, ‘but don't rush off, you can drop me in Kennington.'

‘I'll be cross if he does,' said Emma. ‘You're surely coming in for a little light refreshment, aren't you, after bringing me home?'

‘It's not too late for you?' asked Nicholas.

‘Don't mind me, guv,' said the cabbie. ‘I naturally ain't got any home to go to meself. Me wife and kids live in a shop doorway, and I kip on the pavement. So take yer time to make up yer mind if yer comin' or goin'.'

‘Any more funny stories?' said Nicholas. He handed four shillings and sixpence to the cabbie. ‘Keep the change, buy yourself a shop doorway of your own.'

‘Ta, guv. Nice to be partin' friends. Good luck, lady.'

‘Goodnight,' said Emma. The taxi bowled away and she opened her front door. Nicholas followed her in. He struck a match and applied it to her gas mantle. The room sprang into soft warm light. ‘Thanks,' said Emma. ‘Now, what would you like?'

‘I'll share a pot of tea with you with pleasure.'

‘But aren't you a little hungry? I am.' Emma removed her raincoat. ‘I'll make some tongue sandwiches.'

‘Sounds very welcome,' said Nicholas.

‘I cook and press ox tongues myself. I'm very good at it. Isn't it perverse that although I'd like to write music or books, I've only got domestic talents?'

‘I think you've got a little more than that.'

‘How kind,' said Emma, and Nicholas recognized the teasing note. ‘Throw your hat and coat somewhere, and sit down.' She whisked into her kitchen.

Nicholas mused on surroundings now familiar to him. He supposed that as a policeman he naturally liked tidiness, an essential in the matter of any methodical investigation. But there was more to this room than tidiness. Her touch was in everything. She'd created a quiet and cosy little oasis in the heart of Walworth's boisterous cockney world. She liked the cockneys, she lived very serenely among them. She probably also liked the fact that many Walworth women took a pride in keeping their doorsteps scrubbed and their parlours fit to receive the Queen of England, if necessary.

Emma did not take long to bring in a laden tray. She set it down on the table.

‘That's quick,' said Nicholas.

‘Oh, I can sometimes move at the speed of lightning,' said Emma. ‘Why are you still standing up? Aren't any of my chairs comfortable?'

‘I like them all,' said Nicholas, and sat down. She passed him a plate and offered him sandwiches from a dish. They were quartered. He took a couple. They shared the light repast, the tongue filling palatable and generous, the tea hot and refreshing. He persuaded her to tell him something about her own brief marriage. She spoke easily and affectionately of her late husband, a cheerful cavalryman who had enjoyed conversation and had been a man of very funny Army anecdotes. She said, however, that she would not recommend every woman to marry an Army man. There were too many partings, too many absences, long absences. She thought marriage should most of all be a companionable state. Did Sergeant Chamberlain think that too?

‘Well, if you haven't got that, what have you got?' asked Nicholas.

‘Silent hours,' said Emma. ‘Did your wife like conversation?'

‘Don't all wives?'

‘I talk to myself sometimes,' said Emma.

‘Is that why you always look as if you've just been entertained?'

‘Do I look like that?' asked Emma.

‘Sometimes,' said Nicholas.

‘You said always.'

‘Well, yes, always, then, give or take a moment here and there.'

‘So how do I look now then?'

‘Peaceful,' said Nicholas.

‘Peaceful?' Emma laughed. ‘Tell me what you really thought of our rally tonight.'

‘You'll win.'

‘Do you think so?' Emma looked pleased.

‘If the suffragettes do things cleverly, in the way you want.'

‘Well, I shall work at it,' she said. ‘My word, you've flattered my domestic talents this time, you've wolfed the sandwiches, all of them.'

‘I thought you ate some, didn't you?'

‘I can't remember,' said Emma, ‘it's all this talking.'

‘Yes, it's late,' said Nicholas, ‘time for me to push off.'

Emma did not attempt to detain him, although she silently admitted the time had passed quickly and pleasantly. She rose with him, regarding him with a slight smile as he put his raincoat on and picked up his hat.

‘It really was very kind of you to bring me home in a taxi,' she said.

‘Pleasure,' said Nicholas. He turned his hat in his hands. ‘Do you go out much?'

‘Frequently,' said Emma.

‘To the music hall, say?'

‘Oh, that kind of going out. Yes, occasionally.' Sure of what he was about to come out with next, she added, ‘I do have a friend, sergeant.'

‘I see,' said Nicholas, disappointment taking immediate hold. He covered it with a philosophical smile. ‘Well, it doesn't surprise me. I have to thank you again for being so hospitable. Good luck in your struggle with the Pankhursts. Goodnight, Mrs Carter.'

‘Goodnight, Sergeant Chamberlain.'

She wondered, after he had gone, if she hadn't been rather ungracious. His liking for her was obvious. She told herself she did not really want that kind of social commitment. Her life as it was satisfied her, her involvement with women's suffrage a fulfilling one. Her morning job earned her the little extra money necessary for survival, and was a welcome activity. She had many friends among her neighbours and the East Street stallholders, but she did not have a special friend, as she had implied to Sergeant Chamberlain. That had been an excuse to keep him from intruding too intimately. It was a little deflating to feel she had been silly, and even unfair to him. The next time he called, as he would, of course, she must put matters right with her conscience. To be taken out to a music hall might really be quite nice.