Primrose Square (2 page)

‘Aye, we'd best get downstairs,' Elinor replied, peeping over the banisters into the hall. ‘Miss Denny's at reception and the front door's open. Come on, time to go.'

‘Just hope Mrs Petrie's in a good mood,' Mattie murmured, as they clattered down the back stairs, for of course they only rarely used the little passenger lift or the front stairs.

‘Talk about wishful thinking,' said Elinor.

And then they were greeting Gerda and Ada, down with their trays from the dining room, all keeping a weather eye on Mrs Petrie, as Vera, her assistant, made the mid-morning tea.

While the Primrose maids gathered in the kitchen, city members of the club were arriving in the front vestibule where, after signing in at Reception, supervised by Miss Denny, the slim young assistant manageress, they drifted off to occupy themselves. Some to the Quiet Room, for the reading and writing that so impressed Mattie; some to the square, to sit in the garden, (they all had keys); some to the Drawing Room, to chat, or read the morning papers, before the coffee already brewing in the kitchen would be served.

The house in the square, opened as a ladies' club some years before by an enterprising company, was ideal for its purpose. A joining of two grand houses, once owned by families, as so many of its neighbours still were, it had lent itself well to conversion, with the new electric lighting already fitted, vast and elegant public rooms and good upstairs bedrooms for the country members, as well as attics for the maids and, in the double basement, store rooms, sculleries and Mrs Petrie's kitchen.

And then, of course, it had its access to a garden and a fine position for all that the members might want to visit – galleries, concert rooms, shops of every kind. It was little wonder that the Primrose was very popular with the ladies of Edinburgh and its outlying districts, who had no access to professional clubs and wanted somewhere to meet and talk away from their homes – just as gentlemen did.

Husbands might laugh at the idea of their wives going out ‘to their club', but then many of the Primrose members were not married, the younger ones only having to persuade their fathers to pay the subscription, the older ones with financial independence gladly doing as they liked. The true test of success for the club was that there was always a waiting list for those who wanted to join, and no shortage of young women who wanted to work there.

Oh, yes, as a place to work, the Primrose was a good one. They just had to put up with Mrs Petrie, and even she was not always in a bad mood. Though on that June morning, when Gerda and Ada laid down their trays filled with uneaten breakfast dishes – oh, heavens, wasn't her face like a thunder cloud then?

‘Take cover, girls,' Elinor whispered.

Three

Mrs Petrie, less than five feet tall and thin as a stick, was red in the face and practically fizzing with displeasure over those terrible trays. ‘Like a firework about to go up,' as ginger-haired, unruffled Gerda had once said of her – and everyone always hoped that they wouldn't be around if she ever did.

Today she was bemoaning the waste – of her food, of her time – as she wrung her bony hands over the handsome plated dishes of unwanted food.

‘Would you credit it? All that good bacon left, and best kidneys, ma lovely kedgeree and all? When you think about the poor bairns that'd give the world for food, could you no' burst into tears? Och, I could cry like a babby, so I could!'

She didn't, though, only ordered anxious Vera and her kitchen maid, young Sal, to start transferring the uneaten breakfasts to the larder, while pouring herself another cup of tea and fanning herself with an oven cloth.

‘Aye, and you lassies'd better hurry up and drink your tea now,' she told the maids sitting round the kitchen table. ‘Time's getting on, and there's the morning coffee to do. Vera, just check the pots on the stove, eh? And put some shortbread out and soda scones. See if the folk up the stair will eat my baking!'

Still simmering, but a little calmer, she sat at the head of the table, directing operations. An efficient little woman, long a widow for, unlike many cooks of the day who were given the courtesy title of ‘Mrs', Sarah Petrie had once had a husband. It was only after his death that she'd taken up cooking again, and had come to rule over the Primrose kitchen after being appointed by Miss Ainslie, who was said to regard her as a treasure. Well, it was true, she was a very good cook, and if Miss Ainslie knew she had a temper, she never let on. Good cooks were hard to find.

‘It isn't the first time the ladies have left stuff when it's hot weather,' Elinor ventured, after a moment. ‘Maybe they'd do better with just toast?'

‘Toast?' cried Mrs Petrie, her pale green eyes bulging. ‘Just give 'em toast? With my reputation to think of? Everybody knows this club's got the best food in the city. It's what Miss Ainslie wants and what I want and all. Where'd you get such a daft idea, Elinor?'

Elinor shrugged. ‘Just thought, if it was hot, it'd save the waste.'

‘Aye, well that food's no' going to be wasted. You lassies can have it for your dinner. I'll heat up the kedgeree and chop up the bacon, do some more eggs and it'll be fine.'

‘Porridge and all?' Gerda asked cheekily, at which Mrs Petrie's cheeks flamed again.

‘Any more lip from you, my girl, and that's just what you'll get! No, I'll have to let the porridge go this time, but you just watch your step, eh? I've enough to do without putting up with impertinence!'

‘Mrs Petrie,' came a cool, clear voice as a light tap sounded on the kitchen door. ‘Sorry to disturb you and the girls – just wanted a word.'

‘With me, Miss Ainslie?' asked the cook, as she and the maids scrambled to their feet, but the manageress of the Primrose was shaking her neat dark head.

‘With the maids, really. No hurry. Finish your tea, by all means.' She looked around the watching faces. ‘Just come to my office before you return to your duties, if you please.'

With a quick smile, she withdrew, leaving the maids to set down their cups with a nervous clatter, while exchanging anxious looks.

‘No' means the sack, does it?' Mattie whispered.

‘Oh, no!' cried plump Ada, as Gerda's jaw dropped and Elinor's dark eyes flashed.

‘Miss Ainslie's hardly going to sack us all, Mattie,' Elinor said quickly. ‘We're needed.'

‘Everybody can be done without,' Mrs Petrie said cheerfully, then relented. ‘Of course Miss Ainslie's no' going to give you the sack, Mattie! She'll just be wanting to ask you to do something. She's always got something she wants folk to do.'

‘Does she want you to do something, Mrs Petrie?' Gerda asked.

‘That's between her and me,' the cook answered loftily. ‘But she knows I've too much to do to get involved with anything outside this kitchen. Now you lassies had better get off to her office, and Sal, you get the cups washed. Vera, you can do the coffee, so's Ada and Gerda can take it up when they've seen Miss Ainslie. I've the soup to start.'

Still looking apprehensive, the maids filed out of the kitchen, some shaking their heads.

‘Think Miss Ainslie will want us to do something?' Mattie whispered to Elinor. ‘How will we find the time?'

‘Couldn't say, but I have the feeling Mrs Petrie knows what's going on.'

‘What is? What's going on?'

‘Have to wait and see.'

Four

Miss Ainslie's office was at the back of the house with no view of the square, only the rear garden where the maids pegged out clothes not destined for the laundry. For this reason it had no great appeal for Elinor, but she had to agree that it was a fine room all the same. Perhaps once the study of the man of the house when it had been privately owned, it was now furnished with a mahogany desk, bookshelves, filing cupboards and a table for Miss Denny's typewriter. The flowers at the window had probably been provided by Miss Ainslie, and she herself, standing to greet the girls as they trooped nervously in, was pleasantly smiling.

Almost forty years of age, she was slightly built and short, not much taller than Mrs Petrie, and had, some thought, the look of a bird, with a slightly beaked nose and darting brown eyes. She wore a pale blue shirtwaist blouse, on which was pinned a gold watch, and a family signet ring on her right hand, but there was no ring on her left hand for she was neither engaged nor married. Past it now, poor thing, thought some of the maids, though Elinor would have said that Miss Ainslie probably didn't want to marry. Independence would be what she wanted, and what, in fact, she seemed to have.

‘Now, girls,' she was saying, closing the door on Ada, the last one in, ‘don't look so worried. I'm sure there's no need to be worried about anything I have to say to you.'

A little ripple of sighs ran round the maids as Miss Ainslie returned to stand behind her desk, though whether the sighs were truly of relief was doubtful. The manageress might have very different ideas on what was worrying and what was not, and everyone wanted to hear first just what she had to say before they could relax. Even Elinor, in spite of her confidence, was somewhat apprehensive, and glanced at Gerda to see how she was feeling. A waste of time of course, for Gerda never gave much away.

What happened next came as a surprise, for Miss Ainslie, turning to her desk, took up a large poster and held it high for everyone to see. ‘Votes for Women' it read, in uneven capitals, and they all stared.

‘You'll have seen posters like this around?' Miss Ainslie asked.

‘Aye,' Gerda replied, after a short silence. ‘We've seen 'em.'

And of course they had. Unless you'd been living underground for the past few years, you couldn't have missed them. Suffragettes posters – they were everywhere, together with reports of women smashing windows, setting fire to post boxes, going to gaol. But why was Miss Ainslie showing this poster to her maids? Was she a suffragette, then? If so, she'd kept it pretty dark. But she must know that that cause could be of no interest to them. Even if some women ever did get the vote, lassies like them never would.

Her keen gaze travelling from face to face, Miss Ainslie laid the poster down.

‘I expect some of you, when you see such notices, think the campaign is nothing to do with you? But I've called you together to tell you that you couldn't be more wrong.' She smiled a little. ‘So, you see, what I have to say is not about work, or duties, which is why there's no need for any of you to worry.'

Certainly no sack for anyone, then, but an idea was forming of where this could all be leading. Impossible, of course, if true, but they'd have to hear her out. As they looked at her expectantly, Miss Ainslie, clearing her throat, began to speak again.

‘What I want to ask you today is to think about coming to join me – and others – in the struggle for justice. We need you, you see. We need girls like you, who can bring youth and enthusiasm and make men understand we're not just a bunch of older women with bees in our bonnets. What we're striving for is something of fundamental importance to everyone – to choose the people who will decide how this country is governed, to have a say in what should be done. At present, only men have that right, yet there are as many women as men, and it's been proved that women can be just as clever. Think about all the women teachers! The women who are now accepted for training as doctors! Yet they have no vote.'

So, thought the listening girls, they'd been right in their guess of what Miss Ainslie might want them to do. She spoke well, she was convincing, but could she really believe they'd join her? Elinor raised her hand.

‘Mind if I ask, Miss Ainslie, but is it true you're a suffragette yourself? We never knew.'

The manageress hesitated a moment. ‘I am,' she said at last, her voice firm and strong. ‘I may not talk about my interests at the Primrose, but they are very important to me. Some people here might have the wrong idea of what we stand for, and I prefer not to be involved in discussion with club members. I could not be keener, though, to see women get the vote, and I want you girls to be keen, too.'

She leaned forward a little, holding them still with her bright, bird-like gaze.

‘Will you consider it, then? Helping us in our fight? It would mean so much.'

A silence fell, the girls shifting uneasily, managing to look away.

‘I don't think it's for us,' Elinor said at last.

‘Apart from anything else, we're too young,' Gerda added.

‘Aye, too young,' voices chimed.

‘No, no!' cried Miss Ainslie. ‘I have said, it's young people we need. And by the time we get the vote, you will be of age, I promise you, so don't let your youth stop you coming forward. Come to one of our meetings. I have cards with details which I'll pass round. Take one and at least think about hearing what we have to say. Will you all do that?'

‘Yes, Miss Ainslie,' they answered readily, accepting the cards she was beginning to hand out. Oh, thank the Lord, they could agree to that and not upset her. Then if she asked them later what they'd decided, they could make up some excuse for not going. Whatever happened, no one had any intention of giving up precious time off for the sake of attending a suffragette meeting. Miss Ainslie was a wonderful lady and a very kind boss, but she really didn't have the faintest idea how much their time off meant to girls in service, or how they liked to spend it. Only Elinor was still studying the card when she and the other maids left Miss Ainslie's office, and it was Elinor she called back.

‘I won't keep you, Elinor, but if you don't mind, I'd just like another quick word.'

Of course I don't mind, Elinor thought, but it wouldn't matter if she did, would it? She had to admire Miss Ainslie's manners, though. It was what her staff liked about her, that she was as polite to them as to the club members. Made them feel they'd like to please her, only Elinor knew that that wouldn't include attending her meetings.