A Woman's Place (2 page)

‘I do so enjoy these meetings,’ said the young woman, her arm still tucked through hers. ‘I’m sure you will too. They’re wonderfully interesting. I try not to miss any if possible.’

Eveline couldn’t help but smile as she was led inside. This girl had never had to sit at a desk from eight in the morning until six at night, five days a week and half day on Saturday, adding up figures on a comptometer behind a glass partition above where the factory workers stood packing biscuits on a moving belt. They were allowed a half-hour midday break and five minutes mid-morning and mid-afternoon to visit the toilet. At least she as office staff could visit whenever she had to, though she still had to ask permission from Mr Prentice, the office manager. She could bet her Sunday best that this girl had no idea how the other half lived.

Entering with the crowds, Eveline wondered how this girl filled her days other than by attending her precious Women’s Social and Political Union meetings and going on marches and rallies. It didn’t matter. What mattered was to stay close to her and not to lose her or she would really feel like a fish out of water, not having intended to come here in the first place.

The meeting hall was large and windowless though it was well lit. It smelled of dust, musty books and mildew and the stage curtains had aged to a streaked, nondescript brown and hung limp and uneven. The backdrop meant to depict some sort of garden scene was so faded as to be hardly distinguishable as such. On the stage were three chairs and a table. Two ladies still with their large hats balanced on their piled-up coiffures were arranging carafes of water and sheets of paper, giving the impression of lengthy speeches to come – lengthy and boring, suspected Eveline. She chewed her lip. Why hadn’t she pulled away from the girl at the very first, made her excuses and hurried away? Too late now.

The place, already three-quarters full, hummed with animated voices, news being swapped, recognition of acquaintances from other meetings. It made her feel isolated, her earlier enthusiasm dissipating. Her temporary companion was conducting her towards two vacant seats several rows from the front. She began exchanging greetings with a woman already seated next to them, whom she obviously knew. Feeling oddly neglected and forgotten, Eveline sat down, quietly preparing to keep herself to herself and suffer it until the blessed end gave her a chance of escape.

Her fair-haired companion turned to her, her voice animated. ‘By the way, I’m Constance Mornington. I’m usually called Connie. Only my parents use my full name. They’re awfully strait-laced.’

‘My name’s Eveline Fenton,’ Eveline offered, relieved to be included in things again as Connie indicated the woman on her left.

‘This is Martha Strickland. We often come up against each other at meetings.’ So the woman, who looked to be in her thirties, wasn’t a close friend after all.

Martha nodded politely, but no more than that, and it seemed to Eveline appropriate to at least help the introduction along in the hope of enticing a smile from those narrow, somewhat fierce features.

‘I’ve never been to one of these meetings before,’ she said in her best voice. ‘So I don’t know what to expect.’

‘Oh, you’ll enjoy it!’ Connie broke in. ‘Won’t she, Mrs Strickland? It’s so very uplifting and inspiring. When you hear what they have to say, you’ll want to listen again and again. You might even want to become a member.’

That was probably why she’d befriended her, came the unbidden and vaguely uncharitable assumption as they stood up to let three more women move past them to several empty seats further along, before settling again.

‘Some of these people are so courageous,’ Connie went on, unpinning her hat, taking it off and reinserting the hatpins to lay it in her lap. Now that the fashion was for hats so huge as to obstruct the view of those behind, a lady was expected to remove hers in places like this. Those who didn’t, especially in music halls, could bring a growl from any man behind her to ‘take orf yer blooming ’at, lady – I can’t see a blooming fing!’ Not here, of course, where everyone was polite and orderly.

With others removing theirs Eveline followed suit even though hers wasn’t that big. There were quite a few plain hats, she was glad to notice, the owners what she would consider ordinary, like her. The knowledge instantly gave her a good feeling. Perhaps she would enjoy this after all.

‘How long will it go on for?’ she asked Connie. She didn’t want to be too late home and have them asking questions.

‘Oh, about an hour, perhaps just a little over,’ Connie said quickly, her pretty face showing deep concern that her guest might get up and leave if she thought it was any longer.

‘We have wonderful speakers,’ she hurried on. ‘And courageous. They have my greatest admiration. We are so lucky to have Mrs Kenney speaking to us today. Even the government has to admire women like her, despite condemning them, and despite what many politicians say about us – though there are some who are for us – and despite the way a lot of people sneer and call us sour spinsters and frustrated females.’

Again Eveline had to smile. No one could call this girl a frustrated female. Eveline guessed her to be a year or two older than herself, twenty perhaps. The large hazel eyes, glowing with a zest for life, the softly rounded features framed by an abundance of beautifully dressed hair were hardly those of a soured woman. Used to genteel living, she had the confident look of money, but she seemed happy to do battle for her lesser sisters.

There were other young people here, but the older women were no doubt those of means with husbands who indulged them to go off to their clubs and social meetings, including the suffragette movement. The older ones who didn’t look quite so well off
were
probably spinsters or widows – difficult, if not out of the question, for a married working-class woman to have any pastime outside the home except for the pub with her man, who saw it as his wife’s place to look after the home and him and his children.

Connie was still chatting away. ‘It’s been going for more than fifty years, you know, but the actual organised suffragette movement only really started this century. We’re in the right. How can it be fair for any drunken labourer to have the franchise when respectable and upright women of property are left outside the polling booth?’

‘I don’t think it’s fair, either,’ Eveline obliged, but Connie hardly stopped for breath.

‘There are lots of women compelled to pay taxes to the country yet still forbidden any opinion on how that tax is to be managed. You will hear in a moment how very wrong it truly is and how we must and will continue to fight by whatever means for the right of women to be given the vote.’

She sounded so fervent, as though quoting words drilled into her by an endless succession of speakers, that Eveline was almost tempted to ask if she had any opinion of her own. But it was best not to antagonise someone who had just befriended you so generously, so she contented herself nodding or shaking her head where appropriate while surreptitiously taking stock of those around her. Everyone seemed to have the same intense expression as they talked among themselves or watched the goings-on on the stage.

People were still coming in. As the hall filled rapidly, more chairs were being found and set up along the back. Connie had turned back to Mrs Strickland, leaving Eveline free to look about her, and she amused herself by picking out working women, factory girls taking advantage of half-day Saturdays; shop girls were not so lucky, having to work until eight or nine this evening.

She was surprised to see more men than she had expected. It was good to know that not all were against the effort of women to gain a say in their own country, an effort that had so far brought them only hardship and suffering.

Suddenly her roving gaze was brought up sharply by a young man seated two rows behind and three seats to her right, staring straight back at her quite openly, his eyes brilliant blue.

Her cheeks grown suddenly hot, Eveline looked quickly away, returning her attention to Connie.

‘Next week,’ Connie was saying, quite unaware Eveline’s attention had strayed, ‘there is a big demonstration planned outside Number Ten Downing Street. You might like to be there. You’re not expected to be one of those who will chain them selves to the railings, of course, but we need all the support we can get.’

She seemed to take it that her companion would be only too eager to attend. ‘It could become rough, my dear, and some are not up to that. But you’ll be quite safe if you stay on the perimeter.’

With no wish to be hustled into joining without giving it any thought, Eveline said she’d need to think about it.

‘On Saturday afternoons,’ Connie continued, ‘a group of us meet for a social gathering with tea and scones. We chat about this and that, not all politics, just general small talk. Perhaps you’d like to come along. It’s in George Street, near Marble Arch. I’ll give you the address as we leave.’

Eveline nodded obligingly, still sensing the young man’s eyes upon her. She just had to make sure it wasn’t merely imagination and under the pretext of patting her hair in place she stole a quick peek.

He seemed to be with a woman, at least that was what it looked like from here, the woman talking away to him although he appeared not to be paying much attention. Instead, to her intense alarm he was still regarding her as if his eyes had never left her and, as he met her glance, the corners of those wide, sensitive lips beneath a small moustache lifted in a faint smile of amusement. Confusion rippling through her, Eveline turned hastily back to face the front and concentrate on what was happening on the stage. How could she have been such a fool, turning round that second time? And to have him smile at her, so obviously aware of her subterfuge.

Now she felt angry. How dare he smile at her? She didn’t know him. Who did he think he was? More to the point, who did he think she was to be looked at with such familiarity?

The answer to that made her feel all hot and cold. Had he taken her for a cutie, a bit of all right? Their eyes meeting not once but twice, she must have struck him as a bold hussy?

She turned quickly to her new companion and for something better to say, asked, ‘What if there’s not enough chairs – people are still coming in?’

‘They will stand, my dear,’ returned Connie. ‘Mrs Kenney is such a popular speaker.’

Eveline had to force herself not to turn again to see whether
he
was still staring at her or had lost interest. It was hard to relinquish the image of that audacious invader of her peace of mind. All through the speeches she could almost feel those blue eyes penetrating the nape of her neck and she hardly heard a thing that was being said.

There were two speakers before the main one, each getting a huge round of applause, but Mrs Kenney’s stirring, rallying speech that had included the announcement of a great pageant to be held in April had the audience rising to its feet as she came down from the stage and along the aisle, acknowledging this one and that as she left.

‘Wasn’t she rousing?’ Connie said as they joined the crush slowly making its way out of the hall. ‘I’ve every intention of going to that pageant next month. What about you?’

Eveline nodded absently. The young man with the brilliant blue eyes, the well-groomed dark hair and the trim moustache had joined those filing out, the woman she’d seen with him having threaded her arm through his.

‘It’s to be the Pageant of Women’s Trades and Professions for the International Suffrage Alliance,’ Connie quoted, laughing. ‘I’m sure they could have chosen a shorter title but I suppose it encompasses everything. Mrs Kenney said it is to start at dusk. I think that’s very clever because working women as well as trade and professional ladies will be able to be there. It can’t be easy for working women.’

In the growing crush around the exit Connie said, ‘I hope you can come. Mrs Kenney says the procession will be lit by hundreds of lanterns and there’ll be at least ninety different occupations gathered at Eaton Square. It should be marvellous. I forgot to ask, what is your occupation?’

The direct question dragged Eveline’s mind from the back view of a man’s head that might have been that of the young man who’d smiled at her and with an effort of will she focused on Connie. ‘I work in a biscuit factory.’

‘Oh, you have a trade.’

‘Not exactly.’ Eveline experienced a strange fancy to shock this gently brought up young woman out of her high-minded if well-meaning vision of working women. ‘It’s where workers put biscuits in packets on a moving belt, hour after hour, day after day. It’s not a trade. It’s boring, mind-sapping work!’

She hadn’t meant to be so curt and the look on Connie’s face made her immediately regret her words. She relaxed her expression a little.

‘I don’t do that though I can see the factory people through a glass partition of what I suppose you can call an office. There are five of us, two typists, a secretary, the office manager and me – I do the adding up and things on a calculating machine. There’s other offices but that’s where I work – overlooking the factory.’

Connie beamed, the correction quickly dismissed. ‘Then you’re an office worker. Your banner will probably show that. Mrs Kenney said there are to be banners depicting every trade.’

A thought stopped her and she regarded Eveline dubiously, realising she had been overlooking something. ‘Do you think you’ll join, then?’

‘I don’t know.’ She hadn’t really thought about it. The back of the head on which she’d been trying to keep her gaze was now almost lost in the crowd converging on the main exit. Soon he would put on his hat and become just another figure merging with all the others.

‘My dear! After all you’ve heard?’ There was accusation in Connie’s tone. ‘And you don’t know?’

The hurt tone made Eveline turn back to her, full of contrition. ‘I do want to, but I have to work. It makes it difficult to attend lots of meetings.’

‘You don’t have to attend every meeting. No one expects to give up her entire life for the cause – only those who have dedicated themselves to it and they are special, women like Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters, and Annie Kenney and Mrs Pethwick-Lawrence, and … oh, the list is endless!’