A Death for a Cause (3 page)

Once the bell hops had deposited our luggage and promised that maids would attend us shortly to see to our unpacking, the door closed behind us, Richenda threw herself, still hatted, down into a chair. ‘Oh good heavens, Euphemia,' she said, ‘you're going to have to tell me how to go on. This is all much more difficult than I imagined. And it is only a wretched hotel.'

I saw her eyes were shining with unshed tears. ‘Let me order us some tea, while you take off your hat and change,' I suggested.

‘To think I almost took the chauffeur's arm,' sighed Richenda, in the manner of a Duchess who has almost inadvertently mistaken Indian for China tea. ‘But tomorrow, you'll see, Euphemia, it will all be different. It is going to be a great day.'

‘What's tomorrow?' I asked, but Richenda would only answer with a sly smile. My imagination conjured up the most disturbing of possibilities, but nothing could have prepared me for what was to happen.

Chapter Four

Unsightly apparel and brisk exercise lead us into danger

Breakfast the next morning was a splendid affair. I could almost imagine myself on one of my adventures with Bertram and Rory. Although both of them were thoroughly versed in the ways of the metropolis. ‘It seems inconsistent,' I remarked to Richenda, ‘that men are expected to be well-versed in the ways of the world from their first entry into manhood, while young women are kept at home and allowed no such worldly education.' As I'd hoped, my comment was greeted with a broad smile. Richenda had kept to our private suite for the rest of day on our arrival, even having our dinner sent up. She had seemed preoccupied and even forlorn, so I was glad to see her brightening. We were only in London for three days, and lovely though the hotel was, it seemed a great shame to spend all our time in it. We had no society invitations with which to fill our time, despite Richenda ringing down to the desk on the hour, every hour, yesterday. However, I did believe that it was possible to do some genteel sightseeing in this modern age. Certainly we could not join the ranks of the penny-spending day trippers, but a word with the concierge had brought me quickly up to speed with expeditions that would not be considered overly vulgar.

I had read about the reorganisation of London Zoological Gardens and Dr Mitchell's radical new concept that the animals could survive outside buildings and in open enclosures. It sounded much nicer for the animals and I was keen to see several exotic species that the Zoological Gardens maintained. I thought that in our less expensive dresses it might pass as a suitable entertainment. And of course, there were many, many theatres, some of which were visited by the cream of society. All this along with indulging in some shopping at the very best shops and taking tea in London's exquisitely elegant tearooms promised to make this a most jolly visit.
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‘Thank you for wearing the clothes I had made up for you,' said Richenda through a mouthful of hot smoked salmon. ‘I know you are not completely convinced these are your colours, but they are much better than that awful dress you wore at Hans's ball. (The dress had been a gift and, though I say so myself, had brought out the very best of my features.)

‘I quite see that,' I said equitably. Richenda has been convinced for some time now I should dress in green and purple and often buys me clothing in these colours. They make me resemble a mouldy cabbage, but I know that to some people's eyes I am the prettier of the two of us and it is natural for a married woman to take steps to prevent her husband noticing the charms of any of the women in her household.
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I had been a little surprised to see that Richenda had again set her heart on my wearing this outfit in London, but looking like decaying vegetation, I told myself, was a small price to pay for the generosity of Richenda allowing me to accompany her to the capital. After all, I was paid an excellent wage and yet the Mullers seemed determined that I should never have cause to spend a penny of it.

‘I have had some thoughts of what we might do today,' I began cautiously.

‘No need,' said Richenda, ‘we are going to meet up with some friends of mine this morning. All arranged.'

‘How nice!' I said a little bewildered. ‘Have I had the honour of meeting them before?'

Richenda, her mouth full of egg, shook her head. ‘No,' she said thickly, ‘but you should like them. They are like you. Intelligent.' She swallowed her mouthful and looked down at her plate. ‘You'll need good walking boots,' she murmured.

‘Walking boots?' I repeated.

Richenda nodded again and rose quickly from the table, leaving her toast and marmalade untouched. ‘Be ready in half an hour,' she commanded. I regarded the untouched food with astonishment. Richenda most obviously had a plan and equally obviously it was something she felt I might disapprove of. I swallowed the last of my morning tea and tried to push down my concern at the same time. I went to put on my boots, but I felt decidedly queasy.

Richenda gave me no time for questions when we met, but ushered me quickly into the elevator where I could hardly speak before the bellboy. Once we were in the lobby she set a cracking pace out through the doors and along the road. For a woman who as far as I knew had never visited the metropolis before (except on her charity work which would have been in quite a different district), and who abhorred exercise, her actions were inexplicable. My foreboding grew. I knew Hans trusted me to keep Richenda out of trouble. I was about to catch her elbow and demand what was going on, when a most unusual sight caught my eye. As we rounded the corner into the next street, a woman in her middle years was just disappearing around the edge of the next junction. She was suitably dressed for a mature matron, in a gown whose creator had nodded to modern fashions, but had toned them down in a way that suggested both wealth and class. What was startling about the dress was that it was fashioned in purple and green with a white trim. By now I was used to Richenda's unorthodox
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colour scheme, but that someone else should share her dubious fashion sense seemed remarkable. I shook my head. The sun was dim this morning and I decided I must have been mistaken.

As we too took the street the matron had taken I caught sight of yet another woman dressed in similar colours, then another wearing a sash of the same. ‘Goodness me!' I cried to Richenda, ‘we positively cannot …'

And then on the wind snatches of a song of hope awakening, sung in the high cadence of unified female voices, reached me.

‘Richenda,' I blurted out, ‘we cannot possibly join a suffragette march!'

‘Just watch me!' answered my infuriating employer, and turned a final corner. In front of us the street was filled with a column of women, five wide, some holding banners, all of them marking time and singing. If I had not been so fearful of what would happen next I would have been impressed.

Then Richenda did what I had feared the most and disappeared into the throng. My heart began to race. I agreed with much of what the suffragettes stood for, but unlike Richenda I read the daily papers. I was only too aware that, desperate and frustrated when Prime Minister Asquith had yet again torpedoed the bill for the enfranchisement of women in November 1911, some suffragettes had begun a co-ordinated series of violent attacks. It had begun with a window-smashing campaign and moved on to the destruction of telephone boxes, telephone exchanges, railway carriages, and even churches. The acknowledged head of the movement, Emmeline Pankhurst, had spoken out against such violence, but her daughters, in particular Christabel, appeared to be embracing it.

And the establishment had responded. The papers had carried pictures of women being manhandled by police, of women being attacked by police, and stories of the harm done by force-feeding in prisons abounded. Women of all ranks had joined the suffragette movement, and the police had shown no regard for status when capturing and imprisoning campaigners.

This might be the most peaceful of protest marches, but there was no guarantee that there were not more violent suffragettes waiting within the ranks of women, willing to do violence to make their voices heard. In fact Richenda was hardly the most peaceable of souls herself. I searched my memory to recall if Richenda had taken with her a reticule large enough to conceal a brick.

I was rather afraid she had.

I looked at the throng of women before me, cursing my stupidity at not realising why Richenda had dressed me this way. A woman bustled towards me smiling. She took me for a sister in arms. I did not protest as she took my arm to show me where I could walk in line. I had no choice. If I was to find Richenda and take her away from this, as Hans would expect, I would have to join the procession. Once we were moving I could only hope I would manage to catch sight of her and extricate her from the march before anything unfortunate occurred. I had this horrible feeling that Richenda herself would resist me with violence when I tried to remove her, but I knew the constabulary would respond in force to this protest and that when they did this march could become the most dangerous of situations.

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I doubt my mother would have attended any of these, but Richenda's mother was not an Earl's daughter and Richenda would have to grow accustomed to that fact. Besides, I thought we might have no little amusement from our trip.

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Hans's maids follow the fashion of turning their faces to the wall if they ever encounter a male visitor. A custom and position I fear makes them most vulnerable.

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Early in our acquaintance I had entertained the idea she was colour-blind. Sadly, the truth was she had little taste.

Chapter Five

In which I am not very ladylike

If I had not felt so endangered I believe I might have found the march uplifting. There was something stirring about seeing women of all ranks marching side by side united in their belief that women should have a say in how our country is governed and that we are more than the playthings of men. I confess I do yearn for the day that womankind will be recognised for our intelligence, allowed to take control of our own lives, and become more than creatures who are thought only to find their reason for being through marriage. As the song swelled around me I knew that my unusual upbringing, with my education from my learned father and my association with men such as Bertram Stapleford and even Fitzroy, had placed me among men who valued me, not as an equal
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but as that ‘unusual' thing, a woman with a brain.

Estranged as we were from my grandfather, there was always a slight chance my brother might inherit some of the family property through the machinations of the law, but for me, as a woman, and for my mother, a widow, we had had no choice but to forge our own way in the world. When I left my home after my father's demise, there had been but two options open to me, to enter service or to become a fallen woman. Richard Stapleford, when I was offered employment in his house, had assumed that because I was well-spoken, I was a high-class woman of the night who for her own reasons had chosen to enter service. Even Bertram had assumed that at the best I was the illegitimate child of a man of position. (Bertram's assumption placed no blame on the man in question, though; such things happened. It meant rather that it was somehow my fault if I had indeed proved to be illegitimate.)

I shook my head. The cries of the Sisterhood were affecting me. The world might be run unfairly (and in my opinion, unwisely) by men, but the random violent actions by some suffragettes made it foolish and dangerous for any woman to join a public march.

I knew it was unfair, but I also knew we were in danger.

I glanced at the pretty young woman to my left, who was singing her heart out. I judged her to be about eighteen years of age. Her face had the pinched look of one who does not always manage to eat three meals a day, but she took pride in her appearance. Her face was scrubbed clean and her light brown hair tightly braided. Her eyes shone with, I thought, hope rather than fanaticism. She was simply dressed and obviously of the lower working classes. I surmised she was a woman who had always had to work hard and who life had no doubt treated less than fairly. She believed in this cause in the way a child of an orphanage might cling to the idea that one day their real parents might come to rescue them.

I ventured a whisper. ‘Do you know how long we will be marching?'

Immediately her expression turned to concern and even, I thought, fear. ‘No, m'um,' she replied, and after that sang a little quieter. The flame-haired young woman on my other side nudged me none to gently in the ribs and stopped singing for a moment. ‘Emily Davidson,' she said, ‘we will march for as long as it takes!' Then she turned away from me returned to her song, inflating her thin chest with effort, but not before I had caught the glint in her eye.

I did my best to calm myself. Who was I to think I saw the evidence of fanaticism in her face? Being part of this large throng, for the crowd snaked away into distance both before and after me, was affecting. There might well be hundreds of women here, singing. I did not have the knack of estimating a crowd like Fitzroy. It was hard to resist both the feelings of sisterhood and righteous indignation that were coming in emotional waves from the women around me. Deep breaths, I told myself, do not become hysterical. I knew this was the phrase most commonly banded about by the newspapers. I sneaked a glance at the faces on either side of me. Both were flushed with excitement? With the exercise or with fervour? I twisted my head round to look to for Richenda. The lady who had placed me so carefully in line must also have indicated a place to Richenda. Sense dictated that it could not be that far away, but it is difficult to look around when around when marching in formation. We were not unlike a moving version of one of my little brother's toys, dominoes. There was a sense that I struggle to describe of each of us buoying the others up, that we were more than ourselves and had become part of a greater whole. Should I stumble I feared I would disappear underneath this body of women as they marched on over me. Perhaps others too would fall, but like the ants I had seen as a child in the country, I could not shake the fantasy that the march would carry on, bodies beaten under the unison of marching boots. Perhaps I had indeed become infected by the ways of Madam Arcana, when she had first told me, that I had preternatural capabilities.
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But whatever it was I could not shake my feeling of dread.