A Woman's Place (6 page)

‘And now, my darling, with your consent, I’ll speak to him now.’

Connie came suddenly to life. ‘No!’

The word seemed to leap from the very pit of her stomach before she could stop it. But it had been said. Now she could repeat it with conviction. ‘No, Simon, I’m sorry.’

He blinked. ‘What d’you mean, darling, no, you’re sorry?’

She couldn’t look at him, staring at the carpet. ‘Exactly what I said, Simon. I’ve thought it over and I don’t feel I can marry you.’

Tense, she waited for his reply but before he could do so, the door was carefully edged open and her mother’s narrow, beaming face appeared around it. ‘Is all going well, Simon dear? Have you asked her yet?’

Connie’s reply was sharp and peevish at this interruption, at the same time relieved. ‘Yes, Mother, he has asked—’

Her words were cut short as her mother hurried across to embrace her. She held up a hand to stop her. ‘You haven’t let me finish, Mother. I was about to say that I have said no to him.’

‘What?’

‘I have told Simon I do not want to marry him.’

There was a totally bewildered look on her mother’s face. ‘Why? What is the matter with you, child? Of course you do.’

‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’

Simon had risen from the sofa. He stood there stiff-backed. ‘I think Constance isn’t ready for marriage yet. I may have taken her by surprise a little. It may be that she didn’t completely understand what I was alluding to last week when I asked her consent to call on her father. I recall she didn’t answer me at the time though I took it to mean …’

He broke off awkwardly. ‘I probably misconstrued the signs.’

‘Of course you didn’t!’ Isabel Mornington retorted, far more sharply than her usual soft-spoken tones, in command of herself for once. ‘She is being silly, that is all. She will come to her senses in a moment. Constance?’

‘I mean what I say,’ Connie returned. ‘I’ve come to the decision that I can’t love Simon. It would be unkind of me to lead him on to thinking that I could.’ She turned to him. ‘I’m so sorry, Simon.’

His face had grown pale. ‘Perhaps under the circumstances I had better leave,’ he said stiffly.

Her mother’s expression became alarmed. ‘My dear, I am sure we can thrash this out. She will come to see sense. Please, Simon, you must stay!’

Connie was aware of him looking at her, his expression now set. ‘I think not.’ He seemed suddenly so strong that Connie almost felt admiration for him. ‘It is best I leave. I would be most grateful, Mrs Mornington, if you would kindly convey my apologies to your husband? Goodbye, Constance.’

Turning on his heel with such dignity that Connie had to stop herself crying out to him, he left the room. She had never seen anyone look so hurt. She heard Bentick let him out to where his motor car stood waiting, Bentick solemnly closing the door on his departure.

Eveline was making her way to her lending library but her mind wasn’t on books. On the twenty-seventh of this month, April, there would be this huge pageant. It was to be a very important affair and she’d be part of it, and to think she’d only been a suffragette for a couple of weeks. So much was happening – it was exciting. She hadn’t dreamed that being a suffragette could be this enjoyable.

The pageant would be held in the evening so there was no need to worry about being absent from work or having her dad find out what she was up to. In time he would, but by then she’d have become so involved that there’d be little he could do. But until then it was best he didn’t know.

Stemming her excitement, she entered the library leaving the last glimmer of daylight still glowing beyond the rooftops. She loved reading, romantic novelettes with amorous young females melting into the arms of smouldering men, usually against the wishes of their fathers and, after a stormy passage, eloping with their handsome and virile lovers to everlasting happiness, love conquering all. But she’d been unable to concentrate on this present book for thinking of the pageant and next Saturday’s meeting.

Handing the book in at the desk, she made her way over to the shelf that held romantic fiction. Scrutinising the rows of well-thumbed books that always smelled of mustiness and other people’s homes, she skimmed over the titles. A fast reader, she’d read most of them. Authors never wrote quickly enough for her. What did they do all day when she could get through so many even with the interruptions from a family of eight and Mum wanting chores to be done?

The library was a haven where a person could be left alone to browse in peace and not have Mum crying out, ‘Wasting time again with yer nose in a book the moment something wants doing round ’ere.’

Mum blamed her for being lazy while her sister May made six of her because she always found some excuse to get out of doing something.

‘As soon as there’s washing-up ter be done, it always seems you’ve got something else ter do, disappearing inter yer room. I know what yer up to there – reading, that’s what, leaving yer sister ter do all the work.’

What was the point of arguing except to say sorry and promise to pull her weight in the house? But with Mum accusing her of laziness should she pick up a book during any spare moment at home, leaving her little time for reading, where else could she escape to?

There wasn’t much here in the library this evening to choose from. Selecting a book at random, she was startled by a voice directly behind her.

‘’Ello there!’

She swung round to see Bert Adams, his broad, good-looking face creased in a wide smile.

‘Ooh, you made me jump!’ she burst out.

He didn’t apologise.

‘I see yer come in. I come ’ere a lot meself. I seen you in ’ere quite a few times. I was over by the reference books.’

He laughed as she wrinkled her nose.

‘I’m ’oping ter be a surveyor one day, that’s what I’m studying this sort of stuff for.’

He held out the tome for her to see. The black cover looked horribly uninteresting and as he thumbed through it for her benefit every page showed endless dull prints and diagrams.

‘Weren’t no chance of study at school,’ he went on. ‘’Ad ter leave before I was due, ’cos we lorst me dad. Me mum needed me ter bring in a bit of money ter keep us – me, me bruvver and ’er. He’s around eighteen months younger than me. He works too now, so it ain’t too bad. We lorst me two sisters when they was kids. I’m a butcher’s lad at the moment, the pork butcher’s in Bethnal Green Road on the corner of Valance Road. I get tips fer delivering stuff so I can save up fer night school fees, ’cos I want ter get on.’

This was the first time he had ever spoken to her and yet it was as if he’d known her for years, hardly coming up for breath, while she stood, book in hand, smiling politely with no real interest in furthering the conversation even if she’d been given an opportunity.

He was, as her friend had said, quite handsome in that rugged way that could be attractive to girls. He wasn’t much taller than her but she would say he was so well-muscled as to be thickset. The grin that wrinkled his face seemed to light up his whole features.

‘Been a butcher’s boy ever since I left school,’ he went on. ‘Ain’t no future in it, but then I’m studying, ain’t I? Six years since I left school. Ain’t even been put be’ind the counter yet. He’s got a son what does that and there ain’t room fer the likes of me. So I still pedals me bike and do the deliveries. But one day, yer won’t see me rear fer dust. Can’t afford no college, so I’m studying off me own bat.’

She’d never seen such determination in a person’s eyes. Admiration flowed through her. ‘I hope you get what you want,’ she ventured.

‘I ’ope so too. I’ve seen you in Bethnal Green Road sometimes.’

Yes, she’d seen him too, glimpsed him in passing when she and Ada or Daisy joined in the evening parade of young hopefuls up and down the main road eyeing the lads similarly parading in twos, threes and fours. Many a couple would team up from these patrols. Daisy had, but only casually as yet. Whether it would develop into something more permanent was another matter. Eveline had never seen any she fancied so far, being a bit too particular. But Daisy going off had left a hole, although her interest in suffragettes had helped to fill it.

‘By the way, I’m Bert Adams, if yer don’t know,’ he supplied.

‘Yes, I do know,’ she said.

‘And you’re Ev Fenton.’

‘Eveline,’ she corrected. She’d always hated hearing it shortened.

He beamed, unperturbed. ‘Eveline, sorry. Your dad’s got that grocer shop in Three Colts Lane. Though I ain’t never seen you in there.’

‘I don’t work there,’ she explained. ‘Only him and my mother, and my sister sometimes. They don’t need any more behind the counter. I work at the biscuit factory.’ Why was she telling him all this? ‘In the office,’ she added quickly in case he thought her a lowly factory worker.

She had run out of words and now noticed a small pimple on one cheek well on its way to erupting. In spite of him being quite good-looking, some of her interest faded. Yet he was nice – and polite, unusual in lads from around these parts. She came to herself with a start.

‘Well, I must be off. It was nice talking to you but I’ve got my book and I need to get home before it gets too dark.’

‘I could walk yer.’

‘No.’ She moved away. ‘It’s all right. You go on with your studying.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes, perfectly.’

‘I’ll see you in ’ere some other time then.’

‘Yes, some other time.’

Hurrying off, she wondered why she’d said that. An open invitation if ever there was one. Now she’d have to avoid him. Fine to fancy someone’s looks from a distance, but he had a pimple. The young man she’d seen at the suffragette meeting hadn’t got pimples.

For Connie it had been a week she would never forget. Seven days starting with argument and threats and ending with brooding silences, her mother in despair, her father refusing to speak to her.

Trying to plead her case had fallen on deaf ears until finally she had retreated to her room where she had remained for the rest of the week, not coming down to breakfast or lunch though good manners demanded she appear at dinner. This though was eaten in deeper silence than usual; poor Verity, her younger sister, visibly ill at ease while her mother toyed with the food on her plate, announcing herself too devastated to eat, her father gazing straight ahead as he ate his meal at an agonising, steady pace, finally rising from the table to stalk from the room without a word to anyone.

At night, determined not to relent, she would lie awake hearing Verity going off to her room, her parents to theirs, Agnes raking out the fires downstairs, Bentick bolting the front door and locking windows, the silence that followed leaving her to continue an imaginary argument with absent parents, her head filled by their counter-arguments, none of it solving anything.

Now and again Verity would steal into her bedroom to give her support, and on Friday had burst out impulsively: ‘I think Simon Whitemore a thorough bore.
I
wouldn’t want him for a husband, well connected or not.’

‘I wouldn’t say he is that bad,’ Connie said, defending the man in his absence. ‘He’s a good person, but I don’t love him enough to marry him.’

Verity had taken the mild reprimand calmly to gaze at her sister in awe. ‘Father is livid. I wish I had your courage to stand up to him.’

Connie had smiled at that. When something was important enough to affect a person’s entire future, some sort of stand had to be made exactly as many a woman was doing for the suffragette cause.

As Verity left, Connie’s thoughts turned to those women, helping her to take her mind off her own troubles. Like Eveline Fenton she too had been only mildly interested at first but what they stood for had quickly taken over. Of course her father would eventually find out and it wouldn’t merely be a matter of refusing a suitor; after all, another could easily be found for his beautiful daughter. Belief in a strong cause wasn’t so easily put aside and she had a horrible premonition that one day it would reap dire consequences.

Now it was Saturday. She’d be going to her suffragette meeting. She awoke strangely lighter of heart and even came down to breakfast to suffer her father’s steely disregard. After lunch, dressed for town, as she adjusted her oversized hat in the hall’s ornate mirror while little Agnes stood with coat and gloves, her father’s study door opened. Next minute he was in the hall, his face with its trim beard reflected behind her in the mirror.

‘Where are you going, Constance?’ It was the first time he’d spoken to her directly in days. She turned to face him.

‘I am meeting my school friend, the girl I saw last week.’

‘I’m afraid you do not leave this house, Constance, until you come to your senses,’ he said as if addressing a child. The words would have been laughable had it not been so serious. ‘You may send your friend a telegram informing her that you will not be meeting her.’

‘I don’t know her address,’ Connie said, the lie stiff on her lips.

‘Nevertheless …’

Sudden anger flooded over her. ‘You can’t stop me, Father!’

For a moment he looked stunned that she could speak to him in this manner but swiftly regained his composure.

‘Leave this house, Constance, and you can take my word that this door will not be opened to you on your return.’

Hardly able to believe her courage, Connie glared back at him. ‘Then so be it!’

He seemed to mellow a little. ‘This
friend
, is it a man?’ he asked, his tone slow and soft. Now she could at least tell a partial truth.

‘No, Father. My friend’s name is Eveline and we have been meeting each Saturday to have lunch together.’

There she left it. Best not to say more before it became too involved for her good. He must never know that this wasn’t an old school chum but a fellow suffragette. She continued to stare him out while Agnes, holding her coat and gloves, gazed uncertainly from one to another.

For a moment longer he returned her steady gaze then, turning on his heel, refusing to be drawn into an undignified squabble in front of a member of his staff, strode back to his study, the door closing softly. But she knew there’d follow weeks of uncomfortable silence and little she could do about it.