No Greater Love (26 page)

‘Ruddy Felicity!’ Alice growled aloud. She knew that her sister-in-law was at the centre of the family battle to curb her independence and bring her to heel. Alice recalled with anger the way her beloved Hebron House had been appropriated by her brother and his pretty, vindictive wife. She despised Herbert all the more for sending their father to do his brutal work for him, but then that was so like Herbert to hide behind the actions of others, Alice thought with disdain.

She had known that something was wrong when her father turned up unannounced and refused to stay for dinner as he was accustomed to do.

‘You’ve disappointed me, Alice,’ Lord Pearson had said curtly, firing his words across the length of the upstairs drawing room. It had been a hot day in August and the room had been flooded with light and warmth that made the air smell of dusty fabric and polished wood.

Alice had stood with her back to the huge marble fireplace and looked at him steadily with her prominent brown eyes.

‘I had nothing to do with that girl’s protest, Papa,’ she told him for the umpteenth time.

‘I may believe you but the Prime Minister does not,’ her father snapped. ‘It’s done untold harm to our reputation. We’re seen as being a potential target for further sabotage. So,’ he said, turning to scrutinise something through the long sash window, ‘I’ve decided we must keep a closer eye on your activities. I’m not going to force you into marriage as your mother wants, but you can no longer live here alone.’

‘You’re going to find me a suitable companion?’ Alice asked mockingly. ‘To keep me in check?’

‘I won’t need to,’ he answered in his most businesslike manner, turning from watching a gardener weeding the beds below. ‘Herbert and Felicity have decided to move back to town where Herbert can pursue his political career. It might even encourage him to take more interest in the business and stop spending the Pearson fortune, so I’ve agreed to the plan. They will take over the running of Hebron House at once.’

Alice had gawped at him in shock. She had expected to be chastised for the affair at the launch and was even prepared to spend more time at Oxford Hall at her mother’s endless social gatherings, but she had been quite unprepared for this intrusion into her private life.

‘You mean Felicity will take over the running of my home?’ Alice spluttered. ‘She’s behind all this, isn’t she? She’s never forgiven me for doing Herbert’s dirty work and getting rid of Poppy Beresford, her lover!’

‘Don’t be so vile,’ her father shouted. ‘Felicity is a charming girl and the mother of my grandson - the heir to my empire. If she finds the country too quiet and wishes to return to town then you’ll not stand in her way. Remember, Alice, this is my house and you live your liberated life here at my discretion. Don’t give me cause to change my mind about that. You’ll welcome Felicity here and curb that tongue of yours.’

They had glared at each other, while Alice choked on words of anger.

‘If,’ her father had continued more evenly, gripping the back of a flowery chintz-covered sofa, ‘you prove that you have no more to do with your militant friends and that you can live here peaceably with your brother, I will see that you have more to do with the business. I might even consider a place on the board - all in due time, of course.’

Alice had almost spat the offer back at him. She was furious at the humiliation and being spoken to like a naughty child. She was thirty-six! How dare he speak to her like that! But as always, she backed down in the face of his opposition, comforting herself with the thought that she would still be living in the house she loved and still able to work in the business, albeit unofficially.

Now, standing looking back at Hebron House, its windows winking in the autumn sun like eyes in the soot-blackened elegant building, she cursed her cowardice. Felicity ran the house with a vigour and style that she had never had and it was she who now arranged the entertaining for Lord Pearson’s clients and business associates. The two women stood at an uneasy truce, with Alice keeping out of Felicity’s way and retreating more and more to her photography and the darkroom she had created out of a former pantry under the servants’ staircase.

Sometimes she caught Felicity watching her with resentful pale eyes and knew that she would never be forgiven for getting rid of Poppy Beresford. Although members of Newcastle society came and went, Felicity did not seem to have any close friends and in that respect, Alice thought, they were alike. Two women adrift in a hostile sea, each trying to cling to the successful Pearson fleet and grab at what rich flotsam came their way.

‘Neither of us has any freedom of choice,’ Alice said bitterly to the panting Rosamund. ‘No matter what our class, we women are ruled and restrained by men.’

It made her think again of the convalescing Maggie Beaton and this time Alice decided she would risk being found out and go and see the invalid.

***

Maggie spent her first two weeks at the discreet Gosforth nursing home in torpor. She could do nothing to shake off her depression after the initial euphoria of being released. The kind and patient Sister Robinson coaxed her to eat, but Maggie had lost all sense of taste and food held no interest for her.

‘Try and remember what it tasted like before,’ the nurse suggested as she presented Maggie with a small plate of poached fish.

‘Never had fish this good,’ Maggie smiled wanly, pushing it away and closing her eyes.

‘Drink the tea then,’ Sister Robinson said patiently. ‘You must try and regain your strength.’

‘Who’s paying for all this?’ Maggie asked, waving a bony hand at the large airy bedroom with its view out over a rambling garden secluded by large beech hedges. Maggie’s one pleasure was to sit in the bay window and gaze out over the trees as the autumn wind tore off red and gold leaves and scattered them across the lawn like confetti. It was her only activity and it occupied her for hours at a time.

‘The Movement,’ the nurse answered after a moment’s hesitation, ‘so you mustn’t worry about how long you stay here.’

‘They shouldn’t spend their money on the likes of me,’ Maggie said forlornly. ‘I’m not worth it.’

‘Of course you are!’ Sister Robinson was brisk. ‘The Movement values you highly, and we want you to get better so you can go on fighting.’

‘I can’t fight any more,’ Maggie whimpered. She had never felt so listless. Despite the brightness of her surroundings, it was like living in shadow where everything she saw or touched was a deep dull grey. ‘I just want to go home.’

Sister Robinson removed the tray of food and came to sit beside her, taking Maggie’s hand gently in her own warm grasp.

‘Dear girl,’ she said softly, ‘you can’t go home. You’re still, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner. You’ve seen the constable standing at the front entrance every day - they’re watching you in case you try to escape. As soon as they see you walking around again, you’ll be re-arrested. If you run home, that’s the first place they’re going to look for you.’

‘Oh God!’ Maggie moaned and covered her gaunt face with her hands. ‘I’m so alone! If I can’t go home, why does no one come to see me here?’

‘They won’t allow it. And it wouldn’t be safe for your militant friends to visit - they would only be followed and questioned and harassed and watched to see if they tried to help you leave.’

‘So - I’m a fugitive?’ Maggie asked in bewilderment. ‘I’m never going to be allowed to lead a normal life again, am I?’

Sister Robinson shook her head slowly. ‘You stepped over the line when you stood up to the Prime Minister. Until we women get the vote, they will carry on hunting you and locking you up and treating you like a pariah.’

Maggie crumpled as she covered her head with her arms and buried her face in her lap. Then, for the first time since prison, she cried aloud, deep racking sobs that rose up from her guts and filled the room with her misery. How could she carry on living, she thought desperately, if she was never to see her family or friends again? For the bleak choice appeared to be to submit to further torture in prison until her sentence petered out, or go on the run and attempt to hide from the police, always looking over her shoulder in fear.

She became aware of the nurse’s arms about her, trying to comfort.

‘You do have friends, Maggie,’ she insisted, ‘and they’re not going to desert you. We’ll think of a way to get you out of here to a safe house where you can recover your spirits. It’s perfectly normal to feel depressed after what you’ve been through. But you must believe that what you did was worthwhile to the movement and worth all the sacrifice.’

Maggie had little recollection of the following days, except that the nurse’s staunch words kept on coming back to her, until a week or so later she found her interest in small things returning. Tea began to taste pleasant and she started to comb and pin up her dark hair. She dared to look in the mirror and instead of staring at the garden from her bedroom window, she ventured across its dank lawns for her first walk, leaning heavily on a stick.

She nearly fainted from the heady scents of newly turned earth, heavy dew and the sweet acrid smell of burning leaves. As nature began to droop and turn in on itself for the winter, Maggie found herself emerging from her depression and rediscovering a will to live.

She ate. Her appetite returned and she finally began to regain weight. Sister Robinson observed that it was time to act.

One frosty morning, Maggie was completing her circular walk round the garden and contemplating joining the other elderly residents in the sitting room when Sister Robinson beckoned her inside.

‘You have a visitor,’ she told her, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. ‘She’s waiting for you upstairs.’

Maggie hurried for the stairs, but the watchful nurse took her arm and helped her up. At the top, Maggie was breathless but carried on in a fever of anticipation. Surely it would be Rose come to see her at last with news of the outside world. Or maybe even her mother had sought her out...

‘Good morning, Maggie,’ a cultured voice spoke as she pushed open the door with her walking stick.

There before her stood Alice Pearson.

Maggie stood in disbelief. Alice Pearson was the last person on earth she wished to see.

‘How are you?
^’
the tall aristocrat asked. She was dressed in expensive day clothes: a green velvet cape with a black Medici collar and a belted lilac dress. Maggie wondered bitterly if the suffragette colours were deliberately chosen.

‘Why are you here?’ Maggie asked stonily.

‘Maggie,’ Sister Robinson interrupted from behind, ‘Miss Alice has come at great personal risk. There’s no need to be uncivil.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Maggie answered with disdain, ‘and me thinking she’d come to spy on me for the Pearsons.’

Sister Robinson was about to protest again when Alice asked for them to be left alone.

‘Please let’s sit down,’ she said when the nurse had gone. Maggie stayed leaning on her stick, her anger ready to boil. Alice hesitated, unsure, and then lowered herself onto a straight-backed chair by the window.

‘I can’t say how sorry I am for what you’ve been through. My life has changed too. I’m constantly watched by my family and no longer free to associate with the movement,’ Alice told her hostile listener.

‘I got the impression you’d turned your back on us anyways,’ Maggie said, her whole body tense. ‘The last I saw of you, you were hobnobbing with Asquith.’

Alice’s powdered face flushed at the accusation. She was about to deliver a stinging rebuke to the young woman before her for daring to speak so insolently, when she checked herself. Maggie was so thin and vulnerable, her wasted face and body like that of a child and it made Alice ashamed of her robust size and health. This woman had started with so little in life and yet had been prepared to sacrifice what freedom and security she had for the millions of women better off than her, even for those women who despised her for trying.

‘You’re right,’ Alice answered with a meekness that cost her greatly, turning to stare out of the window, unable to face the girl’s huge, haunted grey eyes. ‘I pretended to myself that I, the great Alice Pearson, could reason with the Prime Minister, that I alone could persuade him to change his mind about women’s suffrage. Others had tried and failed, but
I
would cause his Damascus, a blinding conversion. What vanity!’ Alice mocked herself.

She caught sight of a rabbit running across the frosted lawn and disappearing under the root of an oak. It would be so easy to run away now without telling the whole truth, Alice thought, but somehow she felt compelled to confess to this working-class woman. She was startled to realise that she wished to win Maggie’s approval.

‘So I went along with police plans to keep the local militants quiet,’ Alice continued in a low shaky voice. ‘I played into their hands. I did what my father wanted. I told myself it was for the good of the movement, but deep down I knew that it was a lie. I did it for myself, for my own self-aggrandisement and that of all Pearsons. But then you evaded and defied us all,’ Alice said, turning round to look at Maggie. She saw that the young woman had moved quietly to sit in the armchair opposite.

‘I wondered why the police had bothered to search for me,’ Maggie said, as realisation dawned. ‘You put them on to me, didn’t you?’

Alice nodded bleakly.

‘Was I that much of a threat to you?
^’
Maggie asked in bewilderment.

‘Oh, yes, Maggie. I could tell the first time we met that you were dangerous - outspoken, unafraid, subversive. Emily saw it too. She said you had the makings of a fearless militant. Deeds not words, she used to say to me and, by God, she was right.’

Maggie smiled weakly. ‘Miss Davison put me up to it - disrupting the launch. She approached me before she went to Epsom. After she died - well, I had to carry it out, didn’t I?’

‘Oh, Emily!
^’
Alice cried, ‘I suspected as much.
^’
She looked at the remarkable girl before her but could not bring herself to confess how she was burdened by the death of Emily Davison, weighed down by guilt at despatching her to the Derby so that she would think no more of the launch. Dear Emily, how she had wrought her revenge, Alice thought with regret as she remembered her friend.