The Balliols Read online

  She woke to the sense of an occasion; a breathless eventfulness in the air: a premonition that the drama of a day had already started; that she was not beginning the day fresh; that something that had happened overnight had left its legacy.

  She lay back upon her pillow staring at the ceiling, uncertain if she were waking to trouble or to pleasure. She was excited. But she was troubled. It was not that she was frightened, but that she was lonely. She wished that there were somebody she could confide in: someone to share the exploit with. It was not going to be easy; going there, alone.

  She was more excited than she was lonely. At breakfast she looked round the table; at Francis bolting his food so as to get a last five minutes at the repetition he had imperfectly mastered the night before: at her father methodically folding The Times as he took the first cursory impression of the day’s events that he would supplement during the half hour’s journey in the tube: at her mother cutting her toast into long slim fingers, glancing now and again at the pile of letters that she always left unopened by her side till the rest of the family had gone—her post was her day’s chief interest; she hated waiting for it, but she would have hated even more to have her reading of it disturbed. What, thought Lucy, would they say if they were to be told the truth? If she were to say, “At six o’clock this evening I am going to break the window of the Charing Cross post office.” She wondered when she would next sit at this table.

  It was with a similar feeling that she presented herself with her pad and pencil at Stella’s desk. You think I’m weak, that I can’t stand what these others can. You’ll be surprised when you read your paper to-morrow morning.

  More than anything she looked forward to the welcome that she would receive when she came out of prison. She would be justified at last. Stella would recognize her as an equal: would be proud of her. Because she knew me when I was a child, she thinks that I’m one still. She won’t realize that I’m grown up.

  She was proud to think how proud her aunt would be of her.

  It was, however, an extremely timid girl who stood eight hours later at the corner of the Strand opposite the Charing Cross Hotel. It was five minutes to six. She had promised Miss Draft that she would wait till the first stroke of the clock. Miss Draft’s journalistic sense appreciated the news value of thirteen post office windows smashing simultaneously. Lucy had read about minutes that seemed like hours. She knew now what novelists meant. She glanced towards the church clock opposite: four minutes. A man who was passing took a long steady look at her, he checked his stride, hesitated, looked round over his shoulder, turned. He’s coming to speak to me. What’ll I do? I couldn’t give him in charge. In five minutes I’m going to be in charge myself. Do I look that kind of girl? I suppose any girl who stands about at street corners looks that kind of girl. Do I look conspicuous? Perhaps I do. I’d better move. I’ve got to get out of his way. I’ll walk up Adelaide Street. It should take me a minute to reach the top. That’ll be two minutes before I’m back. If I dawdle I could make it three. Then it’ll be the time.

  As she turned back from the corner of Chandos Street, it was like the slow climb of the ladder to the highest diving platform on a cold day. In the same way that the swimmer, his toes working for their grip upon the matting, looks down on the steely inhospitable water into which in another second he must plunge, so Lucy saw at the end of the quiet little side street the thronged pavements of the Strand; the buses clattering by; the hansoms and the four-wheelers; an occasional taxi; all that stir of people; each one intent upon his own business; not one aware of her; not one noticing her. Yet in another minute that stir would have been stopped; every wandering attention would have been focussed upon her. A hundred people who at this instant would not have bothered to think twice about her would be saying as they opened their morning papers: “Do you see this about the girl smashing the window at Charing Cross? I was there when that happened.” Actresses must feel like this, when they stand shivering in the wings on their first night. I’ve got everything, haven’t I? I must be careful to open my attaché case the right way. It would be awful if I opened it the wrong way up, and the axe fell out. It would be very easy. I must hold it against my side, with the fastening towards me. She lifted it up, tucking it under her arm in preparation, half practising how she would press back the catch and lift the lid with her left hand, while she kept her right hand free to pull out the axe. So busy was she over her rehearsal that she lost count of time. When the church clock began to strike she was twenty yards away from the turning of the Strand.

  Heavens, I must hurry! She quickened her pace; half-opened her bag; felt for the handle of the axe; swung into the Strand; pulled out the axe; dropped her case; rushed up to the post office, swung back the axe above her head, with the clock striking its last peal, shouted “Votes for Women!” Crashed the axe into the pane.

  There was a clatter of glass. Jubilantly she swung round to face the street. “Votes for Women!” she shouted with the full power of her lungs.

  Picturing the scene in her imagination she had fancied that the window once broken all would be easy going; she would have made her start: that the rest of the caste would carry on the scene. She was quite unprepared for the blank silence that followed. The English never interfere if they can help it. At the sound of the crash a full twenty people wheeled round in their stride to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. When one person stops to look, another twenty will stop to see what he is looking at. In thirty seconds a large crowd had gathered, but not one of them did more than stare; it was not their window. A couple of men nudged each other. “Suffragettes,” they whispered, then laughed. But the remainder stared up at her with a blank, stupid, but interested look upon their faces. Most of their mouths were agape. Lucy looked desperately about her. Was no one going to do anything? Did the second as well as the first move lie with her? The pick-axe was still in her hand. Desperate and wrought up, she waved it above her head and, turning, crashed it into the second pane. “Votes for Women!” she yelled again.

  This second assault did slightly galvanize the crowd. A voice was raised in protest. “Look, you can’t go on like this!” But no one thought of making any active protest. Have I got to go on breaking windows for ever? Unless something happens, I shall have to. Never had she welcomed any sound so much as the sudden bulky interruption of a policeman. “Now, what’s all this about?” She was so relieved to see him that she entirely forgot that it was part of a suffragette’s duty to resist capture.

  The news of Lucy’s arrest was telephoned through to Stella from the Police Station. As Edward Balliol still refused to have a telephone in his house, there was no means of getting the news through to Ilex. “I suppose I shall have to go out and see them,” Stella thought.

  She first rang up Miss Draft to get the exact details of the business.

  “Oh, yes,” Miss Draft told her. “Your niece was one of thirteen girls who broke post office windows simultaneously at six this evening.”

  “I never knew my niece was militant to that extent.”

  “I prefer to keep the names of my girls secret.”

  “Of course; you’re very right. Were all these windows broken in the same district?”

  “Within a mile of one another.”

  “Then they’ll be brought before the same magistrate. It’ll be quite clear it was a conspiracy. They’ll all get the same punishment. Who else was with them? Anyone that’s been in prison before?”

  “No.”

  “That means a stiffer sentence. The magistrate can’t pretend that they’ve been influenced by a leader. He can’t make a scapegoat of anyone. I suppose it’ll be a month; at least.”

  And now for Edward.

  It was not a meeting to which she in the least looked forward. It was less than a fortnight since she had promised to keep Lucy out of militant demonstrations. He would never believe that she had kept her promise. He exaggerated her influence over Lucy. He might even believe that she had encouraged Lucy.
He would not believe that Lucy cared enough for the Cause to sacrifice her safety for it: that she regarded as soldiers regard a non-combatant, the woman who did not take her full share in the struggle.

  She glanced at her watch. It was after eight. What an infernal nuisance Edward not being on the telephone. He would be worrying because Lucy was not back. At any rate, I shall get some welcome for telling him that she’s not in danger.

  The journey to Ilex was much quicker than it had been when Balliol first built his house. In those days there were so few houses at Golders Green that only one train in every three went through. You had to take your choice of waiting or walking over the Heath from Hampstead. That was over now. They were talking about extending the Tube to Hendon. The row of shops at the cross roads was stretching towards the Brent. It was into a bright blaze of light that Stella stepped at the foot of the Tube steps, and in place of the muddy lane separating the Broadway from the open country across which Bill Sykes had taken his last walk, there was a fine pavement lined by villas, with neatly tended gardens, and well-stocked flower beds. It did not look the same place.

  The Balliols dined at seven-thirty. They had left the dining-room by the time Stella arrived. She could tell they had been fretting from the eager, “Yes, yes?” with which Edward received her announcement that she had come to him about Lucy.

  “It’s all right. You needn’t worry. She’s quite well. But there’s been a demonstration this evening. They’ve arrested her.”

  His worried expression yielded to relief; then became worried again. He had risen to his feet at Stella’s entrance and was standing with his back to the large, high-banked fire. He was wearing a velvet smoking-coat, over a stiff-cuffed, stiff-collared evening shirt. The sartorial mixture of formality and comfort typified what should have been the atmosphere of the room and moment: ease, security, the freedom to relax; with a regard for appearance, for the necessity of uniform. You felt that trouble had no right to disturb this placid confidence.

  “What’s happened: is it serious? Where is she? Is there anything we can do? Can’t we bail her out? She’d better be represented in the court to-morrow. Let me see now, who had I better get in touch with?”

  He asked question after question, rapidly, without any of his customary impersonality. He’s really worried, Stella thought. And for Lucy’s sake, not his own. He’s not thinking, as so many parents in his position would. “This is going to look bad for us. What are people going to say to us and about us? How shall we explain it away?”

  She remembered how Beccles had behaved to her: all that talk about the firm’s dignity and honour. Most parents would talk that way in a position of this kind; family honour, family name. Which would be selfishness, would show that they thought only about themselves; that they regarded their children as embellishments of their own prestige. Her brother wasn’t like that. He really cared about Lucy. It was about her that he was worrying, not about himself. And because it was not about himself but about Lucy that he was worrying, she gave him the advice that she knew Lucy would wish for.

  “We’ll go down to the court to-morrow. But it would be better for you to do nothing; let Lucy take her place with the others. Most of them are poor. They can’t afford expensive counsel. They’d resent it if one of them took privileges they couldn’t. Or anyhow, Lucy would feel they were resenting it. She’d much prefer to be left alone.”

  Balliol nodded his head.

  “I expect you’re right. You know how these girls feel. But I do beg of you to prevent anything like this happening again.”

  “You needn’t worry about that. She’ll feel she’s done enough when she’s been in prison. That’s what they all want: to be able to say they’ve been.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  They went down next morning to the Police Court. As Miss Draft had prophesied, the halfpenny Press had splashed the news of the fresh outrage over their front page headlines. The steps and passages of the court were crowded. Extra policemen had been summoned to see that there was no further disturbance. Half of the clamouring women were suffragettes. They were shouting, they were demanding their rights, they were claiming to be witnesses. It was clear to Balliol that he stood little chance of getting inside the court. To Stella for whom such a spectacle was no new experience it was clear that the magistrate would decide that the quickest way of dispersing the crowd was the speedy sentencing of the offenders. Her prophecy was correct. Long before she had managed to elbow a way to the entrance a voice had shouted:

  “You might just as well go home. You can’t do any good here. Your friends have been sent to the cells.”

  Balliol turned to Stella.

  “Do you think that’s true?”

  “Probably.”

  “Can we do any good by staying?”

  “I don’t see that we can.”

  “They wouldn’t let us see her, would they?”

  “No.”

  They turned away. The brief spectacle of the Police Court, the crowds, the pushing women, the hostility of the police, had shown him life from another angle. Until now he had seen the Law upon his side. He supported the Law out of his Income Tax. A policeman was his servant: to protect him. But here was a world where the Law was an opponent, where the police were on the offensive, not the defensive. And it was of that world that his daughter was a part. What she would have to endure during the next month simply did not bear thinking of.

  IV

  Of what she would have to endure he had small idea. Few persons in his position had. He had not been inside a prison. He had never read an account of one. He was inclined to believe that prisoners were pampered; that the majority were better off in gaol than they were out; they were fed and clothed; they were warm, they had a roof above their heads. Though Lucy had listened to the recitals of other prisoners, she had a very similar picture to her father’s. She knew that she would wear rough clothes, wash in cold water, sleep on hard boards, be woken early to long hours. For that she was prepared.

  In respect of actual detail she was not surprised. She was not surprised at being locked for hours into an airless, lightless cubicle, while wardress after wardress took particulars of her age, religion, occupation, sentences; at being herded with loosened bodice, one of a long file like so many animals before a doctor who did not even bother to place his ear to the stethoscope that he rested on her chest. She had expected to be hustled into a large room, made to undress four at a time before the other prisoners; to be harried bare-footed down stone cold corridors to the bathroom; to dress, under the wardress’ bullying command of “Hurry up there, hurry up!”, into the prison uniform; its black and red ringed stockings; its vast petticoats; the red striped cotton drawers, the third-class chocolate-brown broad arrow jackets; the white cap like a Dutch bonnet, the heavy-soled stiff-leathered shoes; had expected at the end of it all to be housed in a small oblong cell, stone-floored, with a small barred window near the ceiling, a flickering gas jet, two small shelves, one of which was called the table, the other a receptacle for the wooden bowl and spoon of prison fare; the yellow cake of soap, the minute comb and brush, the prayer and rule cards. She had expected the plank bed to look like that.

  Had she written out in detail all that had happened, she would not have found matter for surprise in any one single detail. It was for the manner in which things happened that she was unprepared. She had not expected to feel humiliated by the way in which the wardresses ordered her about; in which she had been shoved and bullied from one place to another. She had been treated as something verminous, outside the pale. It was not so much that she had been actually hurt, as that she had been made to feel that she was of a lower order of creation: that she had put herself outside the range of manners and courtliness.

  It was a relief to be alone at last.

  She was tired, desperately tired: but she did not expect to sleep. It was not simply the hardness of the bed, or the shortness of the sheets and blankets. At her age when she was tired she coul
d sleep upon bare stone. But though she was worn out physically, mentally she was alert and wrought up; thinking of the battle that was going to start on the next day. For it was going to be a battle. During the hours of waiting in cold corridors she had sworn with the other twelve that their rebellion was not going to end with the smashing of a window: that they were going upon hunger strike: that they would force the authorities to release them before their month was up. “We’ll have our next meal in freedom,” they had vowed. They would have that meal together. They would form a Club; the Thirteen Club; once a month they would meet for lunch in memory of that first meal in freedom.

  Next morning when the pint measure was filled with its thin oatmeal and water gruel, she pushed it away into a corner. It looked such an unappetizing dish that she felt even if she were not on hunger strike she would not have touched it. If only all the food were going to be like that, perhaps the strike might not be so difficult.

  Long before twelve o’clock came, however, she knew she had been deceived. It was a bitterly cold morning. For the first two hours, while she had cleaned her cell, made the bed, scrubbed the floor, she had managed to keep herself reasonably warm. But she had shivered as she had stood through the Chapel Parade inspection, under the constant fire of the wardress’ criticism in the Chapel draughts which seemed to blow from every corner. Afterwards, back in her bleak cell, sewing, it had been even worse. She was cold; she was weak. When the midday clatter of tins began, she looked enviously at the pint of gruel, the plate of pocket potatoes. It needed considerable courage to pour the food away into the slop pail.

  All through the long afternoon she thought of that wasted meal. Three hours of sewing, then the short trip to fetch the next day’s supplies; another two hours of sewing; another pint of gruel, another slice of bread to be flung away. Then three hours of rest before the lights went out. Those last three hours were the worst. It was too dark to read the small print of the Bible which was the only literature available. She sat shivering, her body aching for food. She thought back over the last meals that she had eaten, that last lunch at the A.B.C. She had ordered a poached egg, a cup of chocolate and a macaroon. A long menu had been on the table. She had ten shillings’ worth of silver. She could have ordered lamb cutlets, or roast chicken, or mixed grill; sausages and mashed potatoes. Her mouth watered at the thought. It seemed incredible that with all that variety at her disposal she should have ordered one poached egg. I won’t be as silly as that when I get out. First of all I’ll have a plate of tomato soup. That’ll make me feel nice and warm. Then I’ll have a grilled sole, with some butter sauce. After that I’ll have a chicken patty, with mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts. I’ll finish up with a Pêche Melba; or perhaps a tart. What fruit will be in then? Too early for raspberries. Apples, I suppose. Perhaps I won’t have chicken patty. I’ll have creamed chicken. How I shall love it! How soon will I be able to have it? I wonder when they’ll let me out? They kept Jane Carter in ten days, but then she was very strong. They wouldn’t keep me more than eight. Surely they wouldn’t? I’m told they try and make you eat, that they force food on you. But they wouldn’t do that; not to me, surely they wouldn’t? They couldn’t, could they? No, of course, they couldn’t.