The Crimson Rooms (25 page)

Neither Leah nor I was required to speak. She, of course, was bedazzled by the gloss of the man. To her, the authoritative voice, the tailored clothes, the scent of him must have been unutterably alien, and she behaved as though starstruck, whispering monosyllabic responses and never taking her eyes from his face. Thorne showed a detailed knowledge of the case, including the names and ages of her children, although he’d probably not read my notes until minutes previously. The interview ended in yet another prolonged handshake, and five minutes later I was seated behind him in court, mesmerized by the way the ties of his wig nestled at the back of his neck.

It was immediately obvious that Thorne and the recorder, Hestlethwaite, were more than nodding acquaintances. When introduced by the clerk, they acknowledged each other formally but an underlying familiarity was indicated by a flicker of the judge’s eyelid. In the presence of Thorne and Hestlethwaite, the police prosecutor was apologetic. The events of the last hearing, he inferred, had been an aberration. Even though the police had felt there was considerable mitigation, events in court had persuaded the magistrate, in his wisdom, that only a custodial penalty would do.

Mrs. Marchant, who was again supported by her friend Mrs. Sanders, never took her adoring eyes from Thorne. A tear trickled down her left cheek. When allusion was made to her unfortunate attitude in court during the last hearing, Thorne glanced at her incredulously, as if struggling to understand how any judge could possibly have taken offense at such a sweet-natured woman.

He rose to his feet and it seemed to me that others in the courtroom held their breath at the unfolding of his great height. His delivery was restrained, that of a rational man barely having to exercise his wits in order to steady a minor wobble in the British justice system. “At any point, Your Honor, do stop me if you think I’ve gone far enough. I’m sure you will be as dismayed as I am that this case has come thus far and that the woman before you has now served weeks in prison. Your Honor, in the third decade of the twentieth century, I for one am appalled to find myself representing a mother cut off from her own children not for loving them too little but for loving them too much.”

We emerged from the courtroom ten minutes later, with Leah’s sentence remitted to six months’ conditional discharge and a letter from Hestlethwaite instructing the matron of the Good Samaritan’s Children’s Home in Hammersmith to allow Mrs. Marchant an interview with her two oldest children at the earliest opportunity. In another five minutes, we all met in a private room, together with a
Daily Mail
reporter who made enthusiastic notes as Leah gabbled her gratitude to Thorne.

“Mrs. Marchant,” I interrupted, and received a resentful glare. “I shall write to the home and accompany you there. The
Daily Mail
has very kindly agreed to fund your case until your children have been released to you.”

“Can’t Mr. Breen come with me or Mr. Thorne?”

“I am your legal representative.”

“How does it feel, Mrs. Marchant, to be represented by one of our first lady lawyers?” asked the reporter wolfishly.

Leah chose not to answer but instead vowed that she would henceforth be working twenty hours a day in order to provide a decent home for her children.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” said Mrs. Sanders, who’d been talking to Thorne about landmarks near Toynbee Hall familiar to both. “I’ve only got the promise of ten hours’ work a week for you so far.”

Thorne sat on the table edge, arms folded, apparently enjoying the after-math of the case. Was it fair of me to question his motives? Surely his interest in Mrs. Sanders was genuine rather than to make a point of displaying the egalitarian leanings acquired at Toynbee. When the two women were ready to go, he rose and bade farewell as if this had been a social event rather than an appeal.

Afterward, the empty room seemed strikingly intimate though the door stood ajar. While I packed my papers, he loosened his bands and ran his fingers across his scalp to release hair flattened by his wig. At last, I said stiffly, “Thank you, Mr. Thorne. You made that seem very easy.”

“It’s always easy when there has been an insane judgment such as the one passed on your Mrs. Marchant. I do have some faith that justice, or in this case plain common sense, will assert itself where necessary. You were treated unfairly at the last hearing. Miss Gifford, I have given you much thought since we met and believe me, I do understand the great mountain you have to climb. It’s hard enough to get a toehold in this profession when one is male and has friends.”

“The trouble is I must cut my teeth on real clients. It is they who suffer.”

“Beginnings are always tricky and I cannot think of an institution more entrenched in its own traditions than the law, excepting of course the Roman Catholic Church. After all, both depend on tradition for validity, to some extent. I suspect that what you must come up against all the time is our collective resistance to change. I confess I’m guilty of that sin too, as you did not hesitate to point out when we last met.”

“Why would anyone who loves justice resist change if it is necessary?”

“Ah, but you see my brothers-in-the-law don’t see that change
is
necessary. They believe that we perform perfectly adequately without women. And of course you’re a threat.”

“But they should be interested in justice.” The strain of exchanging ideas with a man whose image had haunted me night and day made me speak more harshly than I should. “Why do they want things to remain the same? Was the past so perfect? Was it fair?”

“Steady on, Miss Gifford. I wasn’t trying to defend the past, merely explain the present.”

“Isn’t it convenient that you are able to dismiss the past instead of admitting that it perhaps doesn’t bear scrutiny?” I said.

“To which particular aspect of the past are you alluding, Miss Gifford? I do feel it’s always safer to deal in specifics.”

“I’m surprised you have to ask. Is there an adult alive who could look back over the last decade with any degree of gratification?”

Too late I saw the conversation hurtle away from me and only afterward did I have time to analyze the real cause of my anger. While the argument was actually taking place, I blamed my loss of bearings on Thorne’s insufferable self-satisfaction. Later, I realized that his reference to our tea together, his acknowledgment of a connection that I had tried to convince myself meant nothing to him, had thrown me entirely off balance.

He was no longer smiling. “It seems to me, Miss Gifford, that you are perfectly right in holding my unfortunate sex largely responsible for the war and all that followed. But surely you weaken your case by seeing us as a collective. By herding us together you remove responsibility from each one of us. I like to consider my sex and yours as comprising individuals, each of whom has free will.”

“Generally, I think you’ll agree, women have not been seen by lawmakers or society as individuals. We women are always banded together as the weaker sex, if we are allowed to have a characteristic at all.”

“So you’re a suffragist, Miss Gifford?”

“Don’t categorize me. I don’t want to be put into a box any more than you do. I too want to be seen as a human being.”

We stood, one on either side of the table, as if the air had developed a viscosity that trapped us. I would not be the one to look away. It seemed to me that his eyes had a different light in them today, a spread light, like a candle behind glass. I think, for a moment, my body actually inclined toward his before I came to my senses. “If you will excuse me, I have a luncheon appointment.”

“Perhaps we are walking the same way.”

“I shall be taking an omnibus.”

“You are still angry with me. I have done nothing to convince you that I am on your side.”

“It ought not to be a question of sides. It ought to be a matter of justice. Good day, Mr. Thorne.”

Then he did something very odd: reached out as if to push the door open wider for me but instead raised his hand to cover his eyes. As I passed him, he said: “Miss Gifford, I wish you well, I really do. But forgive me for saying that I also wish with all my heart I had never clapped eyes on you.”

How I caught the right omnibus
bound for Holborn or found the correct change I have no idea. When the conductor moved away, I sat with closed eyes, all other senses stifled by the stench of diesel while the earth recovered its equilibrium and I my wits. His last words repeated in my mind, over and over.

I met other women lawyers every couple of months or so, at the Law Society, where we ordered lunch, made a point of lingering over coffee, and entered the date of our next rendezvous in our diaries before leaving. There were many cheaper and nicer places to go, but one of our unspoken motives was to assert our right to use the building now that we were members and had forced the issue of
facilities
, so that a ladies’ cloakroom had been installed for us, at vast expense (they said), in what had formerly been a coalhole in the basement. We considered it our duty to make our presence felt where we could (we were not admitted to the reading room), in case anyone forgot us or thought we would fade away.

Usually I anticipated these meetings with a passionate sense of pride that here we were, the groundbreakers, still going strong four years after we first gained access to the society, still full of verve and hope. As I climbed the steps between grandiose white pillars, I thought I knew how Grandmother must have felt when she made her entrance on stage, into the limelight.

When I met with Carrie and the rest, we were so relieved that now, after weeks of maintaining an air of unassailable determination in our daily work amid male colleagues, we could let down our guard and vent our feelings, there was always a little verbal jostling as to who should go first. But on the whole, we listened attentively, rejoiced in each other’s triumphs, and offered advice and commiseration over setbacks. Rivalries that had surfaced in the battle to find work were now suppressed by our joint resolve to overcome the iniquities of the professional world. United, we presented a much more formidable front against the pinstriped brigade, who rustled their newspapers and lowered their voices when we were near.

But that Friday, as I nodded to the porter, I felt apprehensive at the prospect of meeting my friends. There they were, assembled under a portrait of Edward Leigh-Pemberton, president in the mid-nineteenth century and therefore spared the horrors of dealing with women lawyers, four ladies in dark colors and last summer’s hats, their voices light and fluid in that austere setting, full of news and opinions. Last time we had discussed whether our newly formed association of women solicitors had played into the hands of the male establishment by setting us apart, and the debate was scheduled to continue today, but I had such little appetite for the discussion that I almost turned tail. I couldn’t imagine that any of them would understand how I felt and I expected no sympathy, because I thought I had betrayed them by falling in love.

Carrie greeted me with her customary appraising stare, then, before I had time to shake hands or draw up a chair, cried: “Evelyn, I saw you. I
saw
you last week at Toynbee Hall. You came late for the concert and at the end I tried to fight my way over to you but you’d gone.”

To hide the sudden heat in my face, I ducked my head and began unbuttoning my jacket. “I shouldn’t have been at Toynbee in the first place. I was due back in the office, but I was passing that way and couldn’t resist the music. Afterward, I had to dash.”

“It was a wonderful concert, one of the best we’ve put on, I think. But surely you must have known I’d be there. Why didn’t you look out for me?”

“I was so hot. I . . .”

“Well, not to worry. We’ve been talking about Toynbee, actually. They’re giving me more work. I intend to specialize in family law. I don’t mind what comes my way really but it seems a good field to choose because so little is being done to improve the rights of married women. It’s not fashionable or lucrative but it matters.”

I settled deeper into my armchair, pretended to follow the conversation, and even managed to order a bowl of soup. In this company, it was quite acceptable to acknowledge that one was short of money. And then Carrie suddenly embarked on a subject that was entirely pertinent to me and therefore set my nerves jangling again: she too was in love, though, Carrie being Carrie, her love was straightforward. She was engaged to a solicitor, who, according to her, was as radical and ambitious as she. Of course she loved him unequivocally and of course her love was reciprocated. Such was her confidence, none of us dared suggest that marriage may prove detrimental to her career or that engagement to a successful lawyer might be seen as compromising our ideal of achieving success and recognition by our own merits. Her good fortune in finding not only a healthy man but one in sympathy with her ambitions was so extraordinary that we felt awe rather than jealousy.