The Lorimer Legacy (41 page)

As they emerged together from the woodlands, Alexa straightened her shoulders and held her head high. With one hand resting lightly on her host's arm she allowed herself to be taken into the house as a lady of fashion, calm and elegant, without a care in the world. A guest at Blaize – and nothing more.

Political opinions can be altered by argument, but a man's conception of what constitutes good manners is less susceptible to change. In the course of Lord Glanville's campaign to remove the constitutional inequalities between men and women, he had grown to respect the intelligence of his allies in the battle. Even when his disagreements with the Pankhursts were at their most acute on questions of timing and tactics, he acknowledged the brilliance of Christabel's intellect. The fact that -although her sex disqualified her from practising as a lawyer – her name had headed the honours list in the Bar Examination, confirmed his belief that if educational opportunities were to be made equal from childhood, the intellectual differences between men and women would also disappear.

But in his social life he found it less easy to treat women in the same manner as men. He was courteous by nature, and had been brought up to behave chivalrously to what he still regarded as the weaker sex, even when he saw its representatives beating policemen over the head with their banners. The most ill-favoured of his female colleagues in the suffragist movement could expect to receive his most polished compliments.

Alexa was further from being ill-favoured than any other woman he had ever known, but to her Lord Glanville paid no compliments. Although he had adored her for many years, he no longer made the mistake of telling her so. Instead, he worked hard to develop a friendship between them which owed nothing to the fact that he was a man and she a woman. It was not always
easy – in fact, if he were to be honest with himself, it was never easy – and the strain which it imposed was hardly diminished by the knowledge that society gossip assumed the relationship to be what he would have liked. He was forced to snatch his rewards where he could: when she kissed him with the same spontaneous affection which she would have offered to a female friend; or when he advised her on her financial affairs and could enjoy her intelligent concentration as he explained the intricacies of investment policy to her as though she were the orphaned son of a friend, acknowledging ignorance but determined to understand. Her visits to Blaize were always a pleasure to him, but there was pain at the heart of them.

For this reason he found it difficult at first to think of a safe subject with which to open the conversation when Alexa appeared later that evening, dressed for dinner. She had been correct in guessing that his other guests for the weekend house party had been invited to arrive a day later than herself. He wanted her to himself, and now that she was here he wanted to tell her how lovely she looked. But he knew that he would be unable to phrase the compliment lightly enough to be acceptable.

‘How is Kate the firebrand?' he asked instead.

Alexa looked startled, either by the abruptness of the question or at his description of her niece. ‘I didn't realize that you'd met her,' she said.

‘She was at home when I called on Margaret one day just before Christmas. Within half an hour of being introduced, she was expounding her theory that all privilege must be paid for, that the aristocracy has no right to continue in the possession of wealth and property if they evade their responsibilities to their dependants.'

Alexa tutted angrily. ‘The girl has no tact.'

‘Her heart is in the right place, even if her tongue is undisciplined. And as a matter of fact, she was trying to
pay me a compliment. Margaret had taken her to see the model housing estate I've had built on some land I own in Whitechapel. Kate approved in particular of the sanitary arrangements there, but what really drew her praise was the discovery that because the rents are low, my income has been reduced by building the new houses. For that sacrifice, I gather, I may be allowed to enjoy the possession of Blaize and Glanville House for a little longer without a guilty conscience.'

‘We must hope, then, that Kate never goes to Russia,' said Alexa. ‘I've never seen so many jewels as those on display every night at the Mariinsky in Petersburg. The men, with all their Orders, gleam just as brightly as their wives and daughters do in tiaras and necklaces. It may be that the hundreds of grand-dukes and princes and counts and all the rest of them are benevolent enough to the people who work their estates and provide their huge incomes, but it would take a good many model housing estates, I should think, to justify a single one of those diamond necklaces in Kate's eyes.'

‘She must naturally have been influenced by the conditions in which she was brought up. I understand it was a community organized to be self-supporting on a basis of mutual help, with her father as a kind of benevolent despot.'

‘Yes, you're right. She has no quarrel with a paternalist order of society, in which some command and others obey, as long as any benefits are distributed throughout that society. But I suppose that before she came to England she had never seen poverty of the kind which London reveals. It's to her credit that she's shocked by it. Margaret has had to be quite stern with her, though, telling her that for the time being she must concentrate all her energies on studying and passing her examinations.'

‘That must have been why she didn't come to the
suffrage meeting at my house, although she had expressed interest in it. And talking of suffrage, I take it that your friends have told you of the developments which took place while you were abroad, and our hopes of the Conciliation Bill.'

‘I would prefer
not
to talk of suffrage,' said Alexa.

Lord Glanville was disturbed both by the tone of her voice and by the manner in which she turned away so that he could not see her face. ‘Has something happened?' he asked.

‘Yes, something has happened.' Alexa made an attempt to laugh. ‘I've made a promise, and now I regret it. You've often told me how much you disapprove of the more extreme actions of the Franchise League, and how unwise you think me to be involved with them. You are quite right, of course – you have always been quite right. I've allowed myself to become too deeply involved, and now there seems no way to withdraw without humiliation.'

‘But even the League is surely not foolish enough to plan anything this year! Every section of the suffrage movement has agreed to a truce – an end to all forms of militant activity until the Conciliation Bill has been considered in Parliament.'

‘There are different definitions, I suppose, of militancy. Processions and demonstrations are still to continue, are they not? What the League has in mind will not cause any physical harm to anyone. But all the same –' Her voice trailed away. She was frightened, he realized; and the knowledge increased the protective love which he felt for her.

‘Tell me.'

‘It's a secret,' she said. ‘I promised . . .'

‘You surely don't think I'd betray you.'

For a moment longer she hesitated. Then she turned
back to face him, clearly relieved by the opportunity to discuss her anxieties.

‘There's to be an unusual kind of demonstration,' she said. ‘Not a mass meeting. No speeches. Just one person singing a very special song.'

‘The one person is yourself, I take it. Well, that certainly doesn't sound too militant. Where are you proposing to sing this song?'

‘In Westminster Abbey,' said Alexa. ‘In the middle of the Coronation service.' Lord Glanville's incredulity must have shown clearly on his face, for she hurried to defend herself. ‘There will be nothing subversive about the song, nothing at all. It's a kind of hymn, in fact, and sung to a hymn tune. But the words are intended to remind King George, as he takes the oath, that half his subjects are women and that he has responsibilities towards them as well as to the men.'

‘My dear Alexa, you cannot possibly –' Lord Glanville was horrified, and saw no reason to pretend otherwise. ‘For a start, you would never be allowed inside the abbey on Coronation Day. And even if you were to gain admittance, you would be arrested as soon as you began to sing.'

‘There's a peeress who is sympathetic to the cause,' said Alexa. ‘I mustn't tell you her name. But it was her idea in the first place. She wished to make the gesture herself, in fact, but she has no voice; she wouldn't be heard. So instead, she is prepared to make her invitation and her robes available to me. And I shall be in the middle of a block of peeresses. It will be a little while before anyone realizes what is happening, and a little longer before anyone will be able to force a way through to me. Outside the abbey, other women will be distributing leaflets bearing the full text. It will be printed in the newspapers the next day. Even if King George doesn't
receive the whole message at once, it will reach him eventually.'

‘Have you considered what the penalties are likely to be, Alexa?' Lord Glanville was aghast.

‘There's no law that I know of which makes it a crime to sing a hymn in a place of worship.'

‘I doubt whether that will prevent the Home Secretary from drawing up charges. Women are being sent to prison merely for trying to push their way into the House of Commons. But this – I'm no lawyer, but I'm sure that if the authorities can find no simple offence, they will invent a complicated one. Sacrilege, for example, or blasphemy if the words of the hymn in any way justify it. For all I know, it may even rank as treason or sedition to create a disturbance in His Majesty's presence. You will certainly be sent to prison.'

‘Yes, I know,' said Alexa. ‘I realized that when I agreed to do it. Obviously I couldn't expect a prison sentence to be a pleasant experience, but when so many of my friends have accepted the risk, I didn't think I ought to shirk it. I still don't think so.'

‘But a few moments ago you mentioned that you had come to regret what you promised. Why is that, if nothing has changed?'

‘Something
has
changed.' Alexa began to walk up and down the room in an agitated manner. ‘It changed some time ago, but because I've been abroad I was slow to discover it. When I promised to sing, I was prepared to endure a spell as an ordinary prisoner. What I didn't know was that it has now become a point of honour for all imprisoned suffragists to go on hunger strike. If I were to refuse to do so, I should earn the contempt of all my friends in the movement. Well, I wouldn't even mind starving if it could be of any help. But then I learned something else – that every hunger-striker is forcibly fed.
And do you know how that is done, Piers? I've had it described to me, and I can tell you. They put a steel gag into your mouth and open it until your jaws are wide apart. Then they force a large rubber tube down your throat. It chokes you until you retch and vomit: they hold your head and wait and then push the tube down even further before at last the food is poured down. You struggle, I'm told, you can't help but struggle because the choking robs you of breath; and the result is to leave your chest aching and your throat raw.' She had worked herself up into tears, and now buried her head in her hands, trembling with the effects of her own imagination. ‘I can't do it, Piers. My voice is the only asset I have in the world. If I lose it, I have nothing. I'm thirty-three years old. I can't expect to be beautiful for very much longer, but there's no reason why my career shouldn't continue for a long time yet. I can't take the risk of having that tube forced down my throat, but I shall be mocked for a coward if I withdraw altogether from what I've promised.'

‘Is that so important to you?' he asked.

‘Yes. What respect would you, or any other man, have for a soldier who deserted in the middle of a battle? I shall be ashamed for the rest of my life. But I can see no way out.'

‘Calm yourself, Alexa.' He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders, drawing her towards him so that her head was pressed against his chest. He could feel her panting, almost sobbing, and for a moment his grip tightened. But caution warned him not to frighten her still further by embracing her with the passion which he longed to show. He stood for a long time without moving, until her breath gradually steadied itself and she was able to raise her head.

It was not the first time, he remembered, that they had
held each other for comfort in just such a manner. On the very first day of their acquaintance Alexa had clung to him for protection against his own brother. And later, in Heidelberg, he in turn had sought consolation in his grief for his dying wife. On neither of those two occasions had he expected Alexa to appreciate his emotions. But now she was older, an experience and sophisticated woman. As soon as she had emerged from the tangle of her own feelings, she would become conscious of his.

She knew them already, in fact. More than four years had passed since the moment on the ballroom terrace at Blaize when he had asked her to marry him. On that occasion he had misjudged her mood completely. From the proud stiffness with which she held her head, the sparkle in her eyes, the vivacious gaiety with which she held the attention of everyone in the room, he had recognized her excitement as that of a woman demanding to be loved. Perhaps he had been right in that, but quite wrong when he hoped that his was the love she wanted to attract. Now, if he was very careful, he might be able to make a second chance for himself.

This time his hopes were more rational. He could not pretend that Alexa loved him. It would be enough, he told himself, if she would agree to marry him. But to approach without frightening her required a delicacy difficult to achieve when his emotions were in such a state of turmoil. He held his breath, approaching in silence what seemed to be the most important moment of his life.

Behind him, the door opened. The butler had come to announce the serving of dinner. Lord Glanville took one hand away from Alexa's shoulders and flicked his fingers in a gesture of dismissal. The butler hesitated, interpreted the instructions rightly and withdrew without speaking. As the door closed behind him, Alexa lifted her head and
forced herself to smile. Glad after all of the interruption which had lowered the emotional temperature, Lord Glanville smiled back.