A Woman's Place (25 page)

For Connie those words were glaringly significant – as good as stating that her stay would be short and certainly unwelcome. She stood very still. She had banked on finding her mother alone, her father at his Harley Street practice, and perhaps her mother a little more sympathetic towards her. But it wasn’t to be.

Her mother had not once taken her eyes off her and Connie found her own eyes wavering as if she were the guilty one. At that moment, Rebecca gave a little mewl. She saw the woman’s eyes flick towards the child and then return back to her. Connie raised a hand to lift the child’s bonnet a little.

‘Mother, this is Rebecca, your granddaughter, your first grandchild. I wrote to you after her birth, but I don’t know if you got my—’

‘Why have you come here?’

The question, sharp and toneless, was like a blow between the eyes.

‘Your grandchild. I wanted you to see …’

‘You left this house without a word to me.’

‘What did you expect me to say to you when you just stood by and said nothing as you watched my father turn me out?’

‘Your father gave you a choice. You made that choice. You. No one made it for you.’

‘But you didn’t even
try
to stop me,’ Connie said, biting back sudden tears at the recollection. ‘You watched me go and did nothing.’

‘I trust your father’s decisions in all things.’

‘Then you are equally to blame.’ She was trying hard not to raise her voice but she wanted to leap at her mother and shake some freedom of choice into her. ‘You took his side. You made me feel that you had never loved me. I wrote to you telling you where I was, and later about Rebecca. You never answered – not even a note.’

There was a flicker of uncertainty in her mother’s eyes. ‘A wife has to stand by her husband’s decision in all things.’

‘Why? Why can’t you have some opinion of your own for once? What’s the good of us trying to gain women their freedom to vote when there are women like you who think every man’s word is law? You just stood there and watched me leave. What was I supposed to do? Give up the man I loved to marry someone my father picked out for me?’

‘
Love!
’ Her mother came suddenly to life, spat the word at her. ‘What sort of love is it that breaks a mother’s heart with no thought for those who raised you in comfort and security?’

Her tone hadn’t risen at all and that made it all the more painful to hear, all the more conclusive. ‘I think you had best leave.’

Connie was about to challenge her when the figure of her father appeared in the hall, having been summoned from his surgery by the maid who now crept past everyone towards the main door.

Tall and commanding, Willoughby Mornington came slowly towards the two women, his eyes trained on Connie. He hadn’t spoken and it was almost a sense of self-preservation that made her speak first.

‘I’ve come to introduce you to your granddaughter,’ she said firmly, but he totally ignored the child, his stare not leaving Connie’s face.

Laying a hand on his wife’s arm, he gently but authoritatively eased her to one side. His deep voice, though quiet and controlled, seemed to fill the hall as he held Connie’s gaze.

‘And what did you expect to achieve? Forgiveness for the pain you caused your mother and me? I do not forgive and I think you had better go.’

‘Is that all you have to say to me?’ she asked, hating the entreaty in her tone.

‘What else would I have to say to you?’

‘But this is your grandchild!’

‘She is the child of a person I no longer know and a man I have no wish to know,’ he said slowly.

Connie searched for a retort. There was so much she wanted to say: what a good man George was and how dare he belittle him; that this baby was an innocent in this family rift; that the father she had once loved now declared himself her enemy. But she could only draw herself up with as much dignity as she could muster and, with a small bow of her head, meant as an insult, retrieve her umbrella and, holding Rebecca tightly, turn to go. He wasn’t going to have the satisfaction of ordering her from the house.

She saw him flick his hand towards the hovering maid who, skirting the puddle from the wet umbrella, obediently opened the door as if being controlled by machinery.

Without another glance at the two people she had once called her parents, Connie went out into the gloomy afternoon with its cold, fine drizzle, the door closing behind her with a soft click as soon as she reached the last of the few steps to the drive.

No one had asked how she had arrived or what transport would be taking her to the station. It seemed they didn’t care, yet a child was a child and as a doctor her father should surely have some thought to its welfare in such miserable weather. Apparently he didn’t. But he could have at least asked his chauffeur William to drive her to the station, especially with Rebecca in her arms, and if not in his motor at least in her Mother’s brougham.

She felt eaten up with fury, her eyes so blocked with tears of anger refusing to be shed that it seemed they would overflow into her lungs. She hurried down the drive without looking back. If they were watching from the window, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of a backward glance. The sound of running footsteps, however, did make her turn as she reached the low iron gates out of sight of the house.

Verity, slightly out of breath, a coat over her shoulders, was hurrying towards her. Seeing her sister glance fearfully towards the house, Connie stepped back behind the tall hedge that separated the house from the road and waited.

‘I had to talk to you,’ Verity burst out. ‘I couldn’t let you go like that.’

She glanced towards the baby. ‘She’s so beautiful.’ When Connie did not acknowledge the compliment, she added almost vehemently, ‘It’s unkind of them allowing you to walk to the station in this weather. They could at least have telephoned for a taxicab to come and collect you.’

Connie didn’t reply. Taxicabs cost money. She wasn’t hard up but she and George needed to go carefully with money, with rent to pay and a baby to bring up. Her last frivolity had been the hat she’d bought for that suffragette demonstration last June. Since then, she was beginning to learn that money spent doesn’t replenish itself as easily as once she had imagined, nor did she want to see that look on George’s face again when she had shown him the hat. True, it had been her money, but once gone, it could not so easily be replaced.

‘I’ll keep you company to the station,’ Verity was saying. ‘Let me carry the baby.’

‘Her name is Rebecca,’ Connie reminded her a little stiffly, conscious that she was unfairly taking out her spite on Verity, but neither of her parents had spoken the child’s name. Her father hadn’t even glanced at her. That wasn’t Verity’s fault and she had no cause to be spiteful towards her sister.

In a rush of contrition she handed Rebecca over to her; Rebecca’s aunt fumbled with the shawl, not being used to holding babies.

‘Can you handle her?’ she asked. Verity smiled brightly. She had a pretty smile. No wonder she’d landed a likely young man so quickly. Father would have made sure she did. Had she possessed a face like an old boot, he’d have made sure she would have been found a good match.

‘I could carry this one for miles, she is so light,’ Verity said in a tone somewhat broody and wistful, making Connie smile for the first time today.

‘What is this young man of yours like?’ asked Connie as they walked. She saw Verity’s face fill with serene happiness.

‘He’s wonderful,’ she sighed, her blue eyes so like her mother’s taking on a faraway glow. ‘I was so fortunate. Father had no idea I already had a crush on Douglas even before we were introduced.’

She’d first seen Douglas Brent-Harrison, she went on, at a coming-out party and her heart had gone pit-a-pat. She’d hardly been able to speak on being formally introduced, later hardly able to believe it when he had asked if he could have her permission for him to see her again. A few months later when both sets of parents began discussing engagement details for the two young people, her joy had been absolute.

‘We are very much in love with each other,’ she ended as they entered the station booking hall, her tale having taken up the entire ten-minute walk.

Connie wondered if Verity would have behaved as she herself had if her father had tried to marry her to someone she hadn’t cared for. Would she too have gone against his wishes? Not in the way Connie had. She could imagine Verity’s tears melting her father’s heart and him placating her. Of course the matter had not arisen – Verity was in love with a man her father approved of, very much so; she was a good, obliging daughter.

Connie couldn’t completely condemn him. He had always had his daughters’ happiness at heart and would never have forced them to marry men whom they couldn’t love. It was just that she had fallen in love with someone he could never approve of. It must have been a blow to him for her go off with a man who was virtually penniless – in his eyes, a fortune hunter. It was today’s attitude that she could not forgive; he had averted his gaze, not just from her, but from his own granddaughter. He had no right to blame an innocent child for what he assumed were her mother’s shortcomings. For that she could not, would not forgive him, and at this moment she didn’t care if he never forgave her. She would never come here again.

‘I wish you all the luck in your coming marriage, Verity,’ she said as Verity handed back the baby. ‘You still seem a little too young to marry.’

Verity took on a look of mild indignation ‘I’m old enough!’

‘Of course you are,’ she relented, too drained by today’s events to argue. Verity was happy. That was all that should matter. She turned as she passed through the ticket barrier. Her sister was still standing there.

Seeing her wave, Verity waved back, then turned and went out of the ticket office and out of sight.

Verity had said she’d try and invite her to her wedding though it all depended on their father, but Connie knew that if he objected, Verity would not persist. A good, obedient daughter, she thought for the second time. She didn’t set much store by an invitation and she’d have to pardon Verity.

Hoisting Rebecca to a more comfortable position in her arms, she walked along the short platform to the ladies’ waiting room to pass the time there until her train came.

Connie’s mind had been on Verity’s marriage as she emerged from Bethnal Green Station around one o’clock. Seconds later her thoughts were diverted by the distant clanging of police car bells and a faint whiff of burning hanging in the air. She found herself wondering if it might have anything to do with suffragette activity. Lately some had begun to resort to arson.

She was glad to find it had nothing to do with them. That evening, the third of January 1911, George’s newspaper reported that a house in Sidney Street, a quarter of a mile from where she and George lived, in which three suspected anarchists had been under siege in a gun battle with a thousand troops and armed police, had been set ablaze; deliberately or not wasn’t clear, but the fire was said to have been caused by the criminals themselves.

Even so, thoughts of suffragette activity worried Connie. If police were resorting to gun battles with suspected criminals, would they begin reacting the same way towards stone-throwing and property-wrecking suffragettes?

She spoke of it to Eveline on the Sunday. Her friend had popped over while George had his after-dinner nap, while Albert was occupied in his bedroom studying to be an engineer.

‘Engineer?’ she’d queried when Eveline had told her. ‘I thought he was going to be a surveyor.’

‘He found it a bit beyond him,’ Eveline had said. ‘He feels engineering might suit him better.’

‘That siege in Sidney Street,’ she said now, ‘I knew something wasn’t right when I came out of the railway station. But if the police have started to arm themselves who knows what might happen should any suffragettes get out of hand? The newspapers said several bystanders were hurt in the battle and two of the anarchists were found dead – only one escaped. But what if they begin to think it quite in order to threaten us with firearms? Someone could get badly hurt.’

Eveline appeared not to be taking it quite as seriously as she should have as she busied herself feeding eight-month-old Helena with bits of the cake she had put on plates to go with their cup of tea.

‘I don’t think that would happen with us,’ she said. ‘It was on the orders of the Home Secretary and they
were
foreigners. They wouldn’t dare use firearms against women like us.’

‘You remember Black Friday?’ Connie warned darkly. ‘Who’s to say they won’t come at us armed next time?’ But Eveline wasn’t at all convinced.

‘That’ll never happen, not to women,’ she said.

Connie felt a shudder go through her and glanced down at Rebecca asleep in her pram. ‘I know one thing, we should make sure that we aren’t included in any more militant protests. It was all very well when we were single, but we have children now.’

At last Eveline’s expression deepened, the portent sinking in. She nodded. ‘I expect you’re right. Stick to passive roles in future. Let others do the dangerous work.’

They needn’t have worried. Spring saw little militant activity other than public meetings and peaceful demonstrations, everyone hanging on for the Conciliation Committee to redraft its bill. Though its prospects were far from clear, it was their best chance and people were optimistic. Nothing must mar its chances.

In May the redrafted bill passed its second reading and everyone felt they had been right not to create waves. Even so, over the next seven weeks, with usual government slowness, the tide kept turning, the bill in favour at one point then out of favour days later and so on, keeping everyone on edge and prompting meetings and processions all over the country, but everyone peaceable, no one daring to rock this boat.

As expected, no invitation to her sister’s wedding ever arrived but Verity could have written if only to say that circumstances had prevented it. She’d have understood. Maybe Verity
was
too over the moon with her hundred-and-one arrangements to give much thought to it, but that hurt worse than her parents forbidding any invitation. So much for sisterly love! And if this was the case then she would wash her hands of them all, though she’d said that so many times before. They were still her family and always on her mind.