Park Lane (20 page)

‘We have to fight back now.’ The gangly woman, perspiring a little more, is standing again, this time to a chorus of ‘hear, hear’.

‘Something big. They take us, we hit them. Something that stands out, won’t be forgotten.’ Bea can’t see where this voice comes
from. The gathering has turned into a free-for-all, with whoever feels like it giving their penny’s worth. The chairwoman is just sitting there behind her table in front of the window, letting comments fly, and the temperature rises. Bea’s is rising with it.

‘Like Lloyd George’s last year.’

‘Yes.’

‘Arson.’

‘We can’t do his house again.’

‘Whose house then?’

‘McKenna,’ say half a dozen voices together.

‘Bloody Home Secretary.’

‘The bugger.’

‘We’ve a right to petition the Throne.’

‘He can’t turn us down like that.’

‘We’re not fully fledged citizens, remember.’

‘Not fully fledged humans. Can’t think for ourselves.’

‘And so, no vote.’

‘Bastards.’

At last the chairwoman stands up. ‘Ladies, are we all in agreement?’ She is speaking as though she is introducing a guest at a church fete.

‘That they’re bastards?’

This is met with guffaws.

‘That we need to take action as soon as possible.’

‘Against whom?’ This is Celeste’s voice. Bea turns to find her aunt’s eyes transfixed by the chairwoman as she speaks.

‘McKenna,’ says the chairwoman, and the heads around Bea are nodding, a few voices murmuring aye, aye, and Bea finds herself nodding, too.

‘But,’ the dissenter speaks again, ‘what if somebody is hurt?’

‘This is a war,’ replies the chair. ‘People get hurt. Think what are they doing to those of us in jail? What will they be doing to Emmeline, tonight?’

The thought curdles in Bea’s stomach. Twelve men and women,
Mrs Pankhurst’s arms strapped into a chair: Bea can almost feel the gagging reflex of having a tube stuck down her throat.

‘As soon as we can, then. Tomorrow?’

‘No, too rushed. We’ll plan it today, get the kit in tomorrow. We go on Thursday. Who’s in? We need a driver. With her own car.’

Bea can certainly drive. Faster than anyone here, she’ll bet.

Her hand is the first to shoot up.

13

MARY WOKE GRACE UP AGAIN THIS MORNING WHEN
rushing off to the lavatory. Green, she looks, though she won’t say a word to Mrs W. She’s begged Grace not to. Not with the dance and all, she says.

And it is the dance tonight. Mrs Wainwright is taking no prisoners in the morning’s cleaning. As Grace stands to attention, all floral frock and mop, Mrs Wainwright’s finger only leaves the surface she is walking alongside in order to examine it for dust. Grace thinks Mrs Wainwright barely needs to look, she can just feel the soft grains slow her down. They near spring-cleaned these rooms yesterday, and the day before and for as many days before that as Grace cares to think. But the furniture’s been moved now. The men from Rumpelmayer’s came in yesterday and pushed the chairs and sofas in the library and yellow drawing room to where they thought best. Of course there was dust underneath. They can’t move every piece every day, and it gathers so fast, even in the rooms barely used. This morning Lady Masters is redirecting the furniture to where she thinks fit, and Mrs Wainwright has them at the spaces it occupied last night. Even Susan, though it’s not strictly her job. We all have one job today, Mrs Wainwright tells them. Susan murmurs that she’ll be blowed if Rumpelmayer’s men don’t move it all again when they put up the supper tables. And don’t, she whispers,
do anything more than tiptoe into the ballroom. The polisher’s been frogging it up and down there for two days and it’s an ice-pond so the dancers’ feet can slide. But if one of us goes down, it’s more work for the rest.

They’re packing up the ornaments now. Nobody will admit to being at the end of their list today, and they’re not, for the tasks are backing up: the snuffboxes, the china dishes, the photographs, all the silver. Even what’s in those glass cabinets. It’s for the pilfering, Grace is told, and she’s shocked by this. What sorts is Lady Masters inviting? You’d’ve thought that with all they’ve got … ‘Oh, they never have enough,’ says James, ‘and not when they see these pretty little things.’ As Grace goes on wrapping, turning each piece as she lifts it, a flickering of relief, after all these weeks, begins to creep up on her. They’re not going to wrap all the books, are they? And if they don’t, then how’re they to know when the book went, if they think one of the guests might take something. Grace is in the clear, isn’t she, if they’re expecting a room full of light fingers. But when, ten minutes later, Mrs Wainwright asks Grace to follow her into the library, the fear comes straight back at her in a big salty wave.

But she doesn’t point anything out, Mrs Wainwright doesn’t, and Grace doesn’t dare look at that shelf. Then she asks Grace to run a duster along every bookshelf, again, and it’s Grace’s turn to feel tight in her belly; it’ll be her running to the back of the house next like Mary. She reaches her fingers out to steady herself on the shelves, and Mrs Wainwright’s eyes follow them, shaking her head. Then she glances upwards. ‘This is your room, Grace, isn’t it?’ When Grace nods her head so as you can barely see it, it feels as though it’ll wobble off.

She starts at A. She can glide the ladder with barely a sound, and it’s easier than the steps. And she’s quick. The books are as tight as a miser and none slips out of place as Grace runs the duster along. She’s still sick with fear, eyes in a blur and head behind bars, so she doesn’t see where she’s at until the books fall to the side as
she brushes along them. It’s E. Top row. That row. But she’s only taken one book. There’s more gone from here.

Lord have mercy, thinks Grace. Then it occurs to her that whoever took the books might think that the gap is all theirs.

There’s a clattering outside. It’s Rumpelmayer’s men coming in with the tables. They’re putting the trestles around the room in pairs. They’ve done this so many times that they don’t need to put the boards on top to know the space between each. When they reach the sofa and chairs they start to push them again. Grace hears the feet of the furniture squeak across the boards and watches dark lines appear on the floor. She hasn’t spoken out since she’s been in the house; she’s held back every urge to throw a brush down on to the floor and say What Do You Take Me For, and that’s been often. Or was; it’s grown easier, the urges fewer recently, but now she’s feeling sharp and the dark lines are spreading further and further across the floor she’s polished clean not half an hour ago. Rumpelmayer’s men look left, look right, up, down – down! They see the lines, but still go on, and at this, she cracks.

‘You should lift that.’ The two men stop, but don’t turn. And then they continue.

‘Excuse me!’ They must think she’s talking to herself. Now she’s spoken she just wants to make them listen. The cheek of it, ignoring her. She walks around in front of the men and the sofa they’re about to slide, and blocks their way.

‘You need to lift it.’ She points to the trails on the floor. ‘Marks the boards.’

‘It would need four of us.’

Grace doesn’t move. Who’s going to do the work? These men or Grace, when she’s on her hands and knees, polishing the floor later.

‘If I leave, it’s to find Lady Masters.’

The three of them hold still, like the statues in the room at the back of the ballroom. She wants to get out of this library as soon as possible. Not to spend all afternoon here, scrubbing the floor. She’s other rooms to do today. She turns to face them head on, moves her
feet apart and folds her arms. The men look back at her, at each other, and then one leaves the room. And as she’s still standing there, arms folded but glowing with victory, the florists come in with bushes of flowers, leaving a trail of leaves and petals across the boards.

‘You can pick those up, too,’ she says.

As they do so, Grace senses somebody behind her, standing very still. She looks round. There is Joseph, pinkening. He quickly turns away from her and leaves the room.

Grace’s eyes are beginning to blur. Even though it’s seven in the evening, she’s again grinding the Ewbank sweeper across the carpet in the red drawing room, for according to Mrs Wainwright the day’s traffic of men, flowers, caterers, even a team to arrange the candles, has left or may have left, a further, invisible layer of dirt. But there’s the boot boy, running up to her, he’s panting, speaking quickly. She’s wanted, he says, by Miss Beatrice, and right away. Susan was to do it. She laid out the clothes earlier, but she couldn’t help but imagine herself one of them ladies in the ballroom and she went right over. It’s her ankle. Poor Susan, says Grace, and she might even mean it, but what she’s thinking is why am I so pleased that I’ve been asked to help another woman dress?

Miss Beatrice’s dress, tunic and sash are laid out on the bed and the pale satin and sky-blue chiffon leap out from the dark colours of the room. Miss Beatrice is sitting at her dressing table in a pale pink negligée. She stands up when Grace comes in, and it floats around her. Silk, Grace thinks it is. Like the sails on the Round Pond.

‘Thank you for coming. How is Susan?’

Grace bobs. ‘She’s sprained her ankle, miss. Happy birthday, miss.’

‘Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Can you help me get into all this without destroying my hair. Though it’s so damn tight that I’m not sure I’d be distraught.’

‘Would you like me to have a look at it?’ Grace surprises herself. She wasn’t asked to speak. It had just come out. But Miss Beatrice chats back.

‘Oh God, yes,’ she replies, and asks whether Grace can make any sense of it – it’s a new French Twist. Lady Masters sent Miss Suthers down to do it and Miss Beatrice felt as though she was being scalped as it was done. She’s been in it since five this afternoon and it’s killing her. Will Grace have a go at loosening it a little?

‘But you want to look your best, miss.’ Grace looks down at Beatrice’s dressing table. Half a dozen silver-topped pots of powders and creams have been opened. A little rouge has been spilled to one side.

‘I suppose so,’ replies Miss Beatrice. ‘But I’m not sure who for.’

‘It’s hard to choose, I imagine.’ As Grace says this, she wonders whether it is as hard for Miss Beatrice to choose between what might lie ahead of her as it is for Grace.

14

BEA IS HOOKED, LACED AND PINNED, WITH A SATIN
puddle train trailing behind her. As she twists to look in the glass, the beaded tassels on the long end of her tunic knock against her ankles. She pins on the diamond lace brooch Mother has given her for her unmentionable twenty-first birthday today. At tea there was a cake with only a vague half a dozen candles allowed, and barely enough time to blow them out before everyone dashed upstairs to start changing.

I look all right, she thinks, the pale blue is a little cool, but pretty enough. She doesn’t mind looking coolish tonight. Rather fits the mood she wants to display, even if she is already in knots over what she is to do tomorrow. She tries to focus on the evening immediately ahead of her rather than the day that will follow it, but her head simply fills with the worry of how many conversations she will have to have without letting on that there is anything the slightest bit interesting in her life. Thank God nobody would dream of asking her what she is up to. In their eyes it is a pointless question. Unmarried girls are looking for husbands.

And no doubt they’ve heard about John. Mrs Vinnicks has probably taken out a half-page notice in the papers.

The dinner before the dance is at eight sharp. Officially a cosy, close family meal, the table is bending with silver and numbers have
stretched to eighteen. Bea looks down the length of the table. Seated alongside each side, the party is a chequerboard of monochrome men and silk dresses that deepen in colour with the age of the wearer. Clemmie is in a green just darker than pastel, and Mother in a near-blinding mauve. It is not, however, the deepest colour there as, for the most part, the guests are not young. Bea is next to a member of the Cabinet so heavily moustachioed that she wonders whether its tips will leap the gap between them during the meal. On the other side she has a florid newspaper baron overflowing his seat. She has a friend, she tells him, writing this extraordinary essay, captures a political mood we cannot ignore. Food still in his mouth, he invites her to tea to discuss it further, with a look that makes her feel more than a little uncomfortable. Bea automatically smiles and nods in that way of saying yes to an invitation one has no intention of ever taking up, but as she does so she realises that maybe she should go, if she is serious about helping Mr Campbell. And of course she is: the idea of not doing so, not throwing herself behind someone who was speaking with such passion, that’s the word, passion, is surely absurd.

It’s ten o’clock, and the more elderly of the dance guests start to arrive. Bea is in a receiving line at the top of the stairs, sandwiched between Edward and Clemmie, who has joined them – even though she is married and has in theory left home – on the grounds that she has invited ‘significant numbers’. ‘I hope,’ replies Mother, ‘that we have enough to feed and water them with.’

‘Don’t worry, Mother,’ says Edward, ‘Tom can keep an eye out for the wrong sort of chap.’

‘Is that a reference to my guests?’ bites Clemmie.

‘Well, quite honestly, none of you will have a clue whether he’s the Duke of Bavaria or a law clerk,’ he retorts. Bea flinches at this, and Edward turns towards her, eyebrows raised.

‘What’s up, Bea-Bea?’ Edward can read her like a book, and her mind is filling with images of Mr Campbell and his mackintosh in midwinter.

‘The wrong sort of chap,’ she blusters out to cover her tracks, ‘doesn’t have the clothes.’

‘Oh, Bea, they can be hired on Bond Street in half an hour. You know that. Look what happened at the Devonports’. The fellow danced with Lady D., and even the dowager, who’d hardly been off her chair for a decade.’

‘Quiet, please. I am almost tempted to call you children again. You behave as such whenever you are together …’