I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin
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you, like Miss Sutton?’
‘But my aunt isn’t lonely and, what’s more, she does precisely what she wants. Aunt Sutton thinks more of good food and good horseflesh than about husbands. That’s why she’s always taking off for the Camargue – it’s where the men worship horses and the women are all fine cooks, she says. She’d live there all the time if she could.’
‘And does Miss Sutton believe as you do; does she believe women should have the vote and not have babies unless they want them?’
‘I really don’t know. It’s not a subject one discusses with family. But Aunt Sutton is broad-minded and very forward-thinking and I wouldn’t mind betting she agrees with everything I say.
‘And you mustn’t breathe one word at Rowangarth of what I’ve said tonight – not to anyone – nor that we’ve been looking for a meeting, because it would upset my mother and I wouldn’t do that for all the votes in the world. So you promise, Hawthorn, don’t you?’
‘I promise.’ Not one word would she breathe. Ever.
‘Good. And it looks as if we might as well give up and come back another night and – oh – look …’
‘Where?’ Alice frowned uneasily.
‘By the big gate. A woman, and she’s selling something,’ Julia pointed. ‘She’s giving out handbills – or is it newspapers?’ She was off as fast as her skirt would allow in the direction of the gate and the several women who had appeared from nowhere. ‘Come on, Hawthorn. Oh, damn this stupid skirt!’
The woman who sold papers was tall and slim, with hair swept back in waves around a high-cheeked face. She asked one penny for the single sheet of print which was headed, to Julia’s great joy, The Suffragette.
‘Thank you,’ she gasped, handing over a sixpenny piece and waving away the change. ‘And can you tell me where the next meeting will be? Tonight, is it? Will there be any use in waiting?’
‘Sorry, my dear, not yet. Not just yet. Not safe, you see …’ She handed a sheet to the young, pale-faced mother. ‘But soon. Perhaps in Trafalgar Square. Maybe on Wednesday.’
She spoke in short, anxious sentences, her eyes swivelling right and left as they were joined by more women.
‘Not tonight, ladies,’ she called softly. ‘They know. They’re watching …’
They had known and they had watched and waited, and now they marched purposefully across the road; four constables, headed by a police sergeant riding a black horse.
They advanced on the group of women as though they had expected the paper-seller to be there; held their truncheons at the ready as a warning to all who saw them that they meant to use them.
‘Cor! The perlice! Blimey, wouldn’t yer just know it!’
‘Don’t go, ladies!’ called a bespectacled woman. ‘We’re doing nothing wrong. We have every right to buy a news-sheet. Don’t let them frighten you,’ she urged.
‘Miss – let’s go?’ Alice wanted no truck with the police who could arrest any one of them and march her off to the nearest lock-up to cool her heels in a cell for the night. ‘I promised her ladyship I’d look after you and I don’t think we should stay.’
‘You do what you like, Hawthorn, but I’m staying. Like she said, we’ve every right to be here. It isn’t a meeting and I won’t be bullied!’
‘No, miss, but it looks like a meeting.’ Now a score or more women had gathered. ‘But if you’re set on it, then I’ll stay, too.’ Alice closed her eyes and swallowed hard. ‘But don’t say anything, will you, or they’ll have just the excuse they want to lock you up.’
‘I’ll not harass them if they don’t harass me,’ Julia said quietly. ‘But I have every right to be here and so have we all and I’m not going to turn tail and run as if we’re up to something!’
‘But we are up to something – at least we would be, if we could. They know what we’re here for.’
What Miss Julia was here for, she mentally corrected, because she, Alice, would rather have been anywhere than gathering in the defence of a woman who sold news-sheets about votes for women.
‘They can’t prove what we’re here for, and if we don’t make trouble they can do nothing about it. So stay beside me and don’t be afraid, Hawthorn. I won’t let them hurt you.’
And that might have been the end of it, had they all of them listened to what the sergeant on the black horse had to say and quietly gone home.
‘There’ll be no meeting tonight,’ he’d said, ‘so be off to your homes, all of you, and you’ll hear no more about it. And you, Davison – pack up those papers and be off, or I’ll have you inside again, soon as look at you!’
If they had listened and acted on advice that was sound enough, Alice conceded … But they had not. They had stood there, all of them, pretending not to have heard, saying not a word, clutching their news-sheets. It might still have been all right had someone not thrown a cricket ball and knocked off a constable’s helmet; a well-aimed, masterful throw that sent it flying, and the constable’s dignity with it.
It was all the sergeant needed. A cricket ball was a missile and the throwing of a missile at an officer of the law was an arrestable offence.
‘Right! That’ll do!’ He pointed to the law-breaker who stood, chin set defiantly, as if she wanted to be arrested; because why else, Alice reasoned desperately, should a woman carry a cricket ball if she wasn’t set on throwing it at someone?
The sergeant urged forward his horse, scattering the women, followed by truncheon-waving police who grabbed their victim roughly and hurried her off to the horse-drawn cab with windows of darkened glass, ready and waiting but a few yards away, as if they had known – or intended – that there would be arrests.
‘Leave her alone!’ The challenge had been made and taken up by those set on confrontation; those determined that one of their own should not be taken away without at least some protest.
‘Bullies! Take your hands off her!’
‘Pick on someone yer own size!’
‘Like knockin’ women about, do yer?’
The pushing and shoving and shin-kicking began then, and more helmets were sent flying, and such screeching and screaming arose that Alice would have taken to her heels had not Julia been intent upon staying. And not only on staying, but on cat-calling and digging her elbows sharply into any uniform that came her way. Then she really excelled herself. All at once her face went bright pink and she let out a yell of indignation.
‘How dare you! How dare you strike a lady!’ She flung herself in front of the pale-faced young woman who had walked past them only minutes ago. ‘You did it deliberately. I saw you. And a child in her arms, too!’ She kicked out wildly, her skirt pulled shockingly above her knees.
Miss Julia had taken leave of her senses, yet even then, Alice was to think later, she might have got away with it had not she, who should have been looking after her mistress, suddenly taken leave of her own senses and joined in the affray, giving the policeman an almighty shove from behind, knocking him off balance, sending all fourteen stone of him hurtling at Miss Julia, taking her down with him in a flail of arms and legs.
Alice would always remember the thud as that poor head hit the ground, and she would never forget, not if she lived to be a hundred, the sight of that defenceless face with blood already trickling down it.
‘Brute!’ Alice shrieked, on her knees in an instant. ‘I saw what you did, you great bully! Out of my way and let me see to her,’ she flung at a bewildered constable, still sprawled on hands and knees and wondering at the fury directed at him from behind. ‘Get a doctor, before she bleeds to death. Go on! Do as you’re bid!’