A Woman's Place (27 page)

Having finally got her way after a bit of strained atmosphere, she had hurried over this Wednesday morning to tell Connie her good news only to find George had practically urged Connie to attend. She felt that if Gran had not consented to look after Rebecca, he’d even have taken it on. But Rebecca was his baby whereas Helena was nothing to Albert and despite seeming to dote on her no one could be certain what went through his mind sometimes.

She sipped her tea and glanced about Connie’s bright and tidy flat. There was no incentive to keep hers as nice. She’d tried but it never looked any better for it, everything being so shabby. But one day when Albert finally got the engineering job he was hoping so much to achieve, they’d have a nice large place and she would take great pleasure showing it off to Connie. That was if George hadn’t become an assistant bank manager by then with an even larger house to show for it.

Still, she had to be glad of small mercies. What if Albert had flatly said no? How could she have faced Connie? But it had still been touch and go.

‘I do know what women are trying to do,’ he’d said negatively. ‘But you’re a married woman now and we’ve got a baby to think of.’

‘But what we’re doing is so very important,’ she’d argued. ‘It’s what nearly every woman in the country is striving for and one day we
will
achieve our goal. Everyone is needed. I can’t just drop it all because I’m married.’

There had been a look on Albert’s face that made her realise what she’d said. But for him she would not be married, condemned as a slut, her child born without a father.

Filled with contrition she’d rushed into his arms saying she didn’t mean it the way it had sounded and could he ever forgive her, her rush crumpling the paper he’d been reading.

‘Nothing to forgive,’ he’d said, enfolding her in his arms. ‘I married you ’cos I love you, Ev. But I just ’ope you know what you’re doing with this suffragette thing, that’s all.’

She did know what she was doing. So did Connie. They had come to believe that nothing would stop them in their fight, not marriage, not children, although they shouldn’t ever be neglected because of it. What they were doing was for those who came after them. It was what she believed, believed to the core of her being,

She said all this to Connie who replied, ‘I know what you’re trying to say, and it is true, all of it. But did he actually agree to your going on the procession?’

Eveline nodded uncertainly. ‘I think he did. At least he didn’t say no. He just cuddled me and said he hoped I knew what I was doing.’

It had been his way of consenting; on the day he wished her good luck before going off to work. Dressed in her summer best, it was hard to express how happy she felt, the sun shining, the air warm, but not too warm, Gran in charge of both children, bless her, youthful eyes sparkling in that elderly face, not a bit apprehensive at having two babies in her care for the next few hours.

‘I ain’t that past it yet as I can’t look after two tiny tots,’ she’d said. ‘Different if they was running about. I’m not as young as I can get up any speed to run after ’em, but no, they’ll be fine with me at the age they are.’

Overwhelmed with gratitude, Eveline gave her a huge, affectionate hug, at the same time aware of a surge of bitterness. It should be her mother she was hugging in gratitude.

Eveline looked apologetically at Connie as they assembled ready for the procession. ‘I’m sorry. They expect it. I can’t get out of it,’

She had practically been commanded to be in the prisoners’ pageant. Refusal would have been seen as a slight to what the women had gone through for their beliefs. She couldn’t say no.

Closely watching Connie’s reaction, she still regretted that business with her in court, allowing her father get her off going to prison. If she hadn’t submitted so meekly to his paying her fine, they’d both be marching side by side in a place of honour today.

‘I’m sorry, Connie, I have to. You don’t mind, do you?’

She was surprised to see Connie smile at her, apparently not at all put out. But why should she be when her George was coming to see her pass?

Eveline had hoped Albert might come along after work too, but he’d said he had some studying to do if he hoped ever to be an engineer earning a decent wage. Although he was right, of course, it still irked.

Connie’s husband had said he would try to get off work and watch out for her despite the procession being well on its way by then. Eveline couldn’t help taking comfort that he’d have to find her among forty thousand women, which didn’t seem likely; this was to be the biggest demonstration yet, with all the display and colour of earlier processions.

Connie did look splendid though. She’d splashed out, spending her own money on a new outfit, this time with George’s blessings, his wages at the bank having improved with a small promotion. Beside her in her one and only Sunday best white dress, Eveline felt old-fashioned.

In a way she was glad not to be with her in the procession where she would feel a little dowdy beside her. With the 1911 summer fashions changing almost too fast to keep up with, dresses and skirts had become suddenly tube-like although there were still plenty of last year’s wide skirts and flared hemlines to be seen. Hair was lower than last year, more puffed out about the ears, swept softly back to a loose roll at the nape of the neck. This she could achieve at no expense, her abundance of brown hair lending itself to the style, but the rest …

She could do nothing about shoes either. Toes were becoming more pointed; while those with money could keep up with changing fashions, she must carry on wearing the old rounded-toed sort.

She felt guilty at feeling somewhat glad when Connie said that her savings weren’t stretching all that well towards new clothes. Disowned by her family, with no father to put his hand in his pocket for her, the girl who’d once had everything was now having to watch the pennies despite George’s promotion. Wrong perhaps to think this way and Eveline wasn’t crowing; in fact she had to admire Connie’s resourcefulness in turning her hand to making her own skirts.

She’d bought a little second-hand sewing machine, and with dress patterns from the haberdasher’s had started to make the simple skirts and blouses as near to the new style as best she could, saving herself quite a bit. She said she’d make a skirt for Eveline so long as she provided the material, stitched the hems and sewed on the buttons or hooks and eyes.

‘Pity I can’t make hats,’ she said, even though huge, hard-to-balance millinery was giving way to flatter styles with upswept brims, plainer toques in white, cream or beige straw, decorated with a dark feather or two, or black straw with white feathers. Eveline had bought one cheap in beige straw from Petticoat Lane Market, which she’d decorated herself with a darker band and a fan of brown feathers. But it couldn’t compare with the fine hat Connie had bought from a departmental store in Oxford Street – still risking her dwindling savings trying to keep up with fashion.

Leaving Connie in order to take her position in the prisoners’ pageant, her white arrow badge proclaiming her right, she followed the marshal who’d come to conduct her to her place. How any marshal or steward could find anyone in this milling throng and get them into their positions, with the pavement already clogged with spectators even though the procession would not start until five-thirty, was nothing short of remarkable.

‘Look out for me when we get to the Albert Hall,’ called Eveline as she left and saw Connie’s half-nod; Connie was already craning her neck to see if she could catch sight of her George.

There would be no such prospect of Albert turning up to watch her in her place of honour. The prisoners’ pageant was the best yet, seven hundred women, one hundred and forty rows, each row five abreast, all of them in white, holding lances from whose spears pennons fluttered. At their centre there was a huge tableau of women in loose white gowns and haloes of flowers. Drawn by two white horses, the platform towered above the onlookers, women also clad in white standing with their lances about an even taller platform on which sat other women, and crowning it all on yet another platform a single, young woman sitting beneath a canopy of white roses and green garlands, a young girl at her feet.

Once they moved off, people would gasp to see it, realising that every one in those hundred and forty lines had at one time or another endured a harsh and humiliating incarceration for her cause.

There were dozens of other floats just as impressive, women from all over the Empire, even from the United States, all carrying colourful national emblems, many in national dress and as many tableaux as in previous marches. Eveline had never felt so proud of having once been a prisoner, having shared what every one of these seven hundred had endured.

With sunshine pouring down from a brilliant blue sky, the air warm and balmy as though bestowing blessings on the whole affair, it could have been even more wonderful if Albert had been here to see her. He’d obviously considered his studies far more important than watching her pass in this five-mile-long column of women with one thought in mind – to gain the right to vote alongside men who saw them as inferior. And yet, though men made up seventy-five per cent of the crowds watching today, not one had so far lifted voice or fist against this demonstration. By the look of them they seemed overwhelmed by it.

Eveline felt proud, but it was mixed with feelings of bitterness that Connie’s husband would keep his promise and even if he were unable to find her in this forty-thousand-strong demonstration, he’d have at least bothered to come.

She knew she shouldn’t begrudge Albert studying. He so wanted to improve his life and it was all for his little family, seeing that he included Helena as his own. She tried hard to think of all he’d done for her, marrying her and giving little Helena his name, and knew that she should be grateful. But if only, just for this one day, he’d said he’d be here. Just this one day. If only she could now see his broad face smiling at her from the crowd.

Waiting for the signal to begin as the sun moved across the sky, her eyes searched and searched those who’d clambered on to the parapet along the length of the Embankment or clung to the arms of lamp-posts for a better view. Thousands had thronged to London for the King’s Coronation and were in holiday mood ready to enjoy this spectacular procession too, prior to the other one five days from now with its royal golden coach and its colourful troops and its massed bands. But today Eveline’s eyes sought only one face in this sea of faces.

Five-thirty came, the procession began to move and still no sign of him. Nor did she expect any now. With an effort she resigned herself that he wouldn’t be coming, but it didn’t help the heavy weight in her chest.

Going through Trafalgar Square she saw a wondrous sight – people had clambered up on to the four stone lions guarding Nelson’s column; they stood on the verges of the fountains, on tops of drays and taxicabs and motor cars.

Hordes filled the stands built especially for the Coronation. Energetic young men clung to the top of signposts or perched precariously along the top of billboards. With the endless procession snaking slowly out of sight along Northumberland Street, the tail end still waited to move off along the Embankment whilst its head with ‘General’ Drummond leading, Charlotte Marsh as colour-bearer just behind her, and Joan Annan-Bryce, niece of the British Ambassador in Washington, as Joan of Arc in armour and riding a white horse, was well down Piccadilly.

Giving up on Albert, Eveline concentrated her mind on the long walk ahead. Only once did she glance sideways, to her left, not knowing what precisely had prompted her to look in that direction. Afterwards she thought it had to be some sort of sixth sense or that he had willed her. Years later she would call it uncanny. But there he was. She saw him instantly, as plain as if he stood entirely alone. Clinging to a lamp-post, his foot on its tall plinth to steady himself, one arm about the iron post, he was leaning out like some cherub from a frieze and he was waving his boater fit to break an arm.

She could see his mouth opening and closing as he yelled, though over all the cheering he would never have been heard. Eveline’s heart leaped from the iron band that had enclosed it and, without thinking, she threw up a hand and waved back with all her might.

‘Have a care as to where you are!’ the older women walking beside her admonished sharply, but Eveline was so happy that she gave another, this time tentative, wave, amazed that he had actually picked her out. But then he must have known where to look, because on the odd occasion she had talked about the honoured prisoners’ pageant. Had she been with Connie he’d never have found her. So prominent was this section of the parade that he couldn’t have missed it. Even from here he looked so proud of her.

The girl on her other side switched her eyes briefly in the direction where Eveline had waved, then back to her and grinned. ‘Lovely,’ was all she said, but it spoke volumes of what Eveline’s heart was feeling.

From then on the entire evening went as though in a haze. She didn’t see him again. Nigh on fifty thousand women filing into the Albert Hall didn’t allow finding anyone and if she hadn’t known roughly where Connie would be, she wouldn’t ever have found her either.

Connie looked despondent as they came away at the end of it all, thoroughly worn out by all the excitement and the speeches, the colour and the pageantry.

‘I didn’t catch the tiniest glimpse of George,’ she moaned. ‘I know he was there. He promised he would be.’ There was a tiny ring of doubt in her voice but Eveline hardly noticed.

‘I saw my Albert!’ she blurted out excitedly.

This time she saw a startled, disbelieving look. ‘You were probably mistaken. You said he had to study. It couldn’t have been him.’

‘It was. He was hanging on to a lamp-post as we turned into Piccadilly. I saw him over the heads of everyone lining the route. He looked straight at me. He waved and I waved back.’

‘It was probably someone waving to someone else.’

‘I know what I saw.’