Bring Out the Banners Read online

  For Linda and Mike and Sophie

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Postscript

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The young man intrigued her from the moment he slipped aboard, just as the bearded fisherman was casting off. In his town overcoat and hat he could scarcely be one of the crew.

  He stood close to her as they chugged away from the quay. ‘Will it be rough?’ she asked.

  ‘Bit choppy, maybe, in the outer harbour.’ He did not speak like a Plymouth man. ‘You’re not worried?’

  ‘Oh, no, I’m a good sailor.’ She could only hope she was. She could not afford to be queasy today. She had been brought on this adventure only because no one else knew shorthand. It could be vital to have an exact record of anything said. A thrilling responsibility.

  The young man made no effort to continue the conversation. He seemed preoccupied, glancing round at the older women with an observant look.

  Mrs Blake beckoned her aft. ‘Who is he, Fiona?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Mrs Blake. I supposed he had something to do with the boat – ’

  ‘So did I. But the skipper thought he was with us.’

  Fiona turned to look back at the stranger. His manner had impressed her, but she guessed now that he was hardly older than herself. ‘With us?’ she echoed in surprise. There were of course no men in their little party from London. The Women’s Social and Political Union welcomed male sympathizers but they could not become members, much less join in a secret mission like today’s. ‘He seems quite harmless,’ she said.

  ‘We can hardly throw him overboard now,’ said Mrs Blake humorously.

  Fiona had no desire to do so. She said, with an answering laugh, ‘And we are supposed to be nonviolent!’

  They moved forward into the bows, Mrs Blake clutching at her hat as they met the force of the wind. Even her long hatpins were hardly enough to keep it on. Fiona pulled up her hood, the spray cold on her cheeks as the little craft cut through the water.

  On this leaden December morning in 1913 Plymouth Sound looked grey and unromantic. No other small vessels were in sight. There were two warships at their moorings, like spectral sea-monsters. Further out lay their objective, the White Star liner Majestic from New York, anchored according to custom two miles out, waiting for the tender.

  ‘We must put on our sashes,’ said Mrs Blake.

  They took them out and slung them over their right shoulders. The boldly-lettered slogan, VOTES FOR WOMEN, spoke for all who claimed the suffrage, the equal right with men to choose the nation’s government, but the distinctive purple, green and white colours of the W.S.P.U. identified them as militants, determined on action. It was the Daily Mail that had first dubbed them ‘Suffragettes’ but they had adopted the nickname with pride.

  ‘The skipper will go as close as he can and circle the ship. She’s sure to be on deck. You’ve a good strong voice, my dear. It should carry.’

  Fiona grinned. ‘My brothers complain!’

  ‘And what do we shout?’

  ‘“The cats are here, Mrs Pankhurst, they’re close on you!”’

  Mrs Blake nodded approvingly. ‘“But we’re here to take you off!”’

  ‘Do you think the captain will let us?’

  ‘Mrs Pankhurst is a very determined lady. She is a British citizen, she has a right to enter her own country.’

  It should be quite simple. The liner had only to let down a gangway and she could step straight into their boat.

  Years later, looking back, Fiona would marvel at Mrs Blake’s confidence. But of course, it had been 1913, in a vanished age. In 1913, if you were British, you could travel through most of the world without even a passport.

  Now, as the motorboat surged forward, she rehearsed the words once more in her head. ‘“The cats are here, Mrs Pankhurst –”’ Her lips were dry with nervousness.

  The police had won their nickname with the notorious Cat-and-Mouse Act. If a suffragette went on hunger-strike in prison she was released before she could die, for it would never do for a woman to die while a prisoner. As soon as she was sufficiently recovered the police pounced and she was taken back to continue her sentence. Mrs Pankhurst was the most famous mouse of all. Nothing would break her determination to win the vote for women. She had been in and out of prison four times this year. Today, when she returned from her speaking tour in America, the police planned to arrest her again.

  It was to prevent this that Fiona’s party had come down from London.

  She turned her head, ducking the wind, and glanced back at the young stranger. He looked even younger now, hatless, his hair flicking about his temples.

  She caught the peal of his laughter as he joked with the fishermen. Unreasonably she resented their laughter. This was not the moment. But of course – men! Some were imaginative enough to sympathize. Most thought the suffragette campaign was just funny.

  She blinked into the wind again with narrowed eyes. The liner loomed ahead, a cliff of sheer steel against the sky.

  Chapter Two

  On deck, an hour earlier, another girl had been similarly nerving herself – but only to speak to the fellow passenger beside her, leaning on the rail.

  This was her last chance. Soon they would be docking, streaming down gangways in a flurry of farewells, finding seats in the boat train for London. The opportunity to speak to the notorious Mrs Pankhurst would have gone.

  Throughout the Atlantic crossing Belle had been studying her from afar. On the first evening the news had spread through the ship that Emmeline Pankhurst was on board. Belle had quickly identified her from her newspaper photographs. Half the passengers were eager to talk to this formidable lady. The other half wanted only the chance to ignore her pointedly and sweep grandly by, staring through her as if she were no more than a plain glass window, and a rather dirty one at that. A little crowd was usually gathered round her.

  Now, at close quarters, Belle was more than ever impressed by her slender elegance. She did not look like an agitator who swayed immense audiences. But, as Belle had heard, she had been sent to Paris at fifteen to finish her education, and that spell in the French capital had given her a poise and a dress sense that she had never lost in the later years of widowhood, financial difficulty and campaigning for the cause she believed in.

  Belle moistened her lips. She must speak, if only the most ordinary remark. ‘We shall be home in good time for Christmas,’ she said.

  Mrs Pankhurst swung round and smiled. ‘Yes. Though I am not quite sure,’ she added with irony, ‘where I shall be spending the festive season.’

  ‘I wish I could have heard your speech in New York! But Mother and I were visiting friends in Boston. You had a tremendous welcome!’

  ‘The American public is sympathetic to the suffrage movement.’ Mrs Pankhurst smiled again. ‘You clearly know who I am. May I know…’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. My name’s Isherwood. My friends call me “Belle”.’

  ‘And others, I imagine, call you “Lady Isabel”?’

  ‘Actually – yes.’ Belle flushed, surprised by this quick identification.

  ‘And your father is the Earl of Cleveland?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One
of the more enlightened men in the House of Lords, if I may say so! I saw your mother’s name on the passenger list. I was sorry he was not with you. Tell me, my dear, how long have you been interested in the suffrage question?’

  ‘Only since last summer. Derby Day, actually.’

  ‘Ah, Derby Day.’ Mrs Pankhurst’s tone was heavy with meaning. ‘Odd that a horse race should set so many people thinking about votes for women.’

  Belle’s memories came flashing back. The December morning became an afternoon in June. She and her brother had left their parents in the stand. More exciting, said Edward, to mix with the crowd.

  He placed a bet for her with a huge red-faced bookmaker in a loud-checked suit. Patriotically she backed the King’s horse, Anmer. They pushed their way to the rails at Tattenham Corner, to get a good view of the horses coming round the final bend.

  ‘Here they come!’ cried Edward, shaken for once out of his languid Cambridge manner.

  The drumming of hoofs was deafening, the horses mere streaks of speed, the jockeys crouching manikins.

  ‘He’s left it too late,’ Edward exclaimed in disgust. ‘Anmer will never make it now – ’ His tone changed suddenly. ‘Dam’ fool of a woman! What does she think…’ His words were lost in the roar of shock and horror from the crowd.

  Belle could see it all still, six months later, photographed on her mind’s eye like moving pictures. The King’s horse turning a somersault, the jockey flying through the air… She loved horses and her first thought was for Anmer. To her immense relief the horse was struggling to its feet, apparently unhurt. The jockey too was standing up, seizing the bridle, stroking the glossy neck.

  Only the dark figure of the woman on the ground was motionless. Ambulance men were racing across to her.

  The crowd was in tumult. Edward had lost the last trace of his university languor. ‘Serve her right! Running out like that – bloody suffragette!’

  It had seemed absurd afterwards – amid all that horror to feel an instinctive shock at her brother swearing in a public place. He ignored her scandalized gasp. ‘You’ve left school,’ he reminded her afterwards. ‘I bet King George was saying worse. His horse! They say he can cuss like a sailor!’

  From these memories Belle was brought back to the present by Mrs Pankhurst’s quiet voice.

  ‘Poor Miss Davison! She never told anyone beforehand. We’d never have approved of anything so dangerous.’ Edward, Belle recalled, had dismissed the dead woman as a crazy crank. But Mrs Pankhurst continued: ‘Such a brilliant woman! First-class honours at Oxford – they let women take the exams, but they can’t have the degree!’

  ‘It’s so unfair!’

  ‘London University is more modern. Emily took her BA there. There was nothing wrong with her brain.’

  At this point she was interrupted by a ship’s boy, almost bursting with excitement.

  ‘Beg pardon, madam – the purser’s compliments, and would you be good enough to come below to his office?’

  ‘I’ve been expecting this,’ murmured Mrs Pankhurst. ‘A marvellous invention, this wireless.’ She fixed the boy with a magnetic eye. ‘My compliments to the purser – but I shall do nothing of the kind.’

  Everything happened then with lightning speed. There was a rush of heavy booted feet across the deck. Belle was pushed roughly aside, Mrs Pankhurst disappeared into a little group of figures and was hustled protesting away.

  A crowd of passengers gathered like magic. There was a concerted rush to the rails on the other side. Fighting her way there, Belle craned over and saw a lowered gangway slanting down to a broad-beamed tug that was bobbing on the water alongside. She was in time to see Mrs Pankhurst being dragged down and lifted aboard.

  ‘Cor, there’s enough of ’em!’ said a deck hand beside her. ‘Five Scotland Yard men, two from the Plymouth police and a wardress from Holloway! They meant to make sure of ’er.’

  A babble of argument began among the spectators. Many shared the sailor’s indignation. Others were delighted that for once the authorities had been too smart for the suffragettes. Mrs Pankhurst should be locked up again until she had served the rest of her sentence.

  Belle seethed inwardly. She had never been quite clear about what Mrs Pankhurst was supposed to have done. Some women – never caught, never even identified – had blown up a house that was being built for Mr Lloyd George, a cabinet minister who was the implacable enemy of the suffragettes. Mrs Pankhurst had known nothing beforehand, even the prosecution admitted that she had been nowhere near the scene of the outrage, but she had been blamed for it. ‘As an accessory’, apparently, because of her militant views. Three years’ imprisonment, if Belle remembered right, had been her sentence at the Old Bailey.

  Belle knew now, quite certainly, where her own sympathies lay. That brief encounter with Mrs Pankhurst had completed the process started on Epsom racecourse six months ago.

  The tug had cast off, gone surging away, its tall funnel belching black smoke. A new chugging sound was audible as another, smaller craft rounded the bows of the Majestic. Two women stood up, wearing sashes that proclaimed them as suffragettes. Their voices rang thinly through the keen air. Other women, in the stern, were shouting too. ‘Cats are here, Mrs Pankhurst! They’re close on you!’

  There was a derisive chorus from the rail. ‘Too late, my dears!’ ‘The cats have got her – and a good thing too!’

  For a few moments the message did not penetrate. The two women were still shouting their useless warning as they passed beneath the spot where Belle was standing. She felt a pang of compassion as she looked down. They stood so straight, so resolute, amid the driving spray. One was middle-aged, in a big hat she had been forced to secure with a scarf knotted beneath her chin. The other, a girl like herself, wore a cape with a hood that had been blown back to reveal her head, with dark hair tousled by the wind, a nose and chin like sculpture.

  Then the news of Mrs Pankhurst’s arrest got through to them. The fishing boat veered away, abandoning its useless mission, and headed back to port.

  There was nothing to be done, Mrs Blake and her friends dejectedly agreed. The police were probably heading, the skipper explained, for some private landing place along the coast, where it would be illegal to follow them. In any case, what could a few ladies do against them?

  ‘We are not a violent movement,’ said Mrs Blake patiently. ‘We do not believe in violence.’

  Fiona noticed that the unknown young man was listening with particular interest. The ladies plunged into a vigorous discussion. What about the great rally planned for Sunday? How could they ‘welcome home’ their leader if she was not on the platform?

  ‘It can be a protest meeting,’ said Mrs Blake. ‘We shall have plenty to protest about,’ she added grimly.

  The immediate need was to telephone headquarters and report what had happened. Then, after a quick cup of coffee to warm them up, back to London on the first train. By now their craft was nosing its way expertly into its berth. After settling for its hire they headed for the hotel close by, where they had spent the night.

  ‘Will you order the coffee, Miss Campbell, while I telephone?’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Blake.’

  Fiona hurried away. When she returned she found her companions sitting rather morosely round a table. Mrs Blake alone was standing, fidgeting impatiently. ‘The telephone appears to be engaged,’ she said crossly.

  ‘Do sit down,’ said Fiona. ‘I’ll fetch you the moment it’s free.’

  ‘You’re very good, my dear. I won’t refuse.’

  Fiona recrossed the hall and found the telephone in its dark little cubbyhole under the stairs. She could hear a man’s voice speaking with slow deliberation. Through the glass she recognized the stranger in the boat. It would be him, she thought irritably. He would somehow get here ahead of us.

  He was speaking at what, in her office, old Mr Bagshaw termed ‘dictation speed’. Perhaps the young man was himself making a long-distance call, for he wa
s articulating each word very distinctly. She stepped back a pace or two, out of politeness, but could not help hearing what he said.

  ‘The welcome home meeting will become a protest rally.’ The voice changed to a conversational tone. ‘That’s the end of the copy. Mr Rudd knows I’ll be in touch if I find out anything more. I’m catching the next train to Exeter.’ He paused briefly. Then he said, ‘Dangerfield, Guy Dangerfield.’

  She must fetch Mrs Blake. As she turned, the door clicked open behind her and the voice greeted her pleasantly.

  ‘Ah, just the person I wanted!’

  She resented his familiar tone. ‘I can’t stop – I was beginning to think you were something to do with the police.’

  ‘Nothing like that. But if I could ask you a few questions – ’

  ‘You’ve no right. You’d no right to be in our boat. You’re a journalist,’ she accused him. ‘Spying on us.’

  ‘Oh, come.’ He was barring her way to the coffee room. ‘I’ve got the names of all the others, I just need yours. And in your case – I don’t think it would be offensive, do you? – if I enquired your age as well?’ She wondered afterwards if there had not been a hint of admiration mixed with the impertinence, but she was in no mood to hesitate.

  ‘It is offensive, very offensive.’ She had taken off her gloves, and the impact of her bare palm on his cheek rang through the foyer.

  A few minutes later the experienced Mrs Blake was calming her with coffee. ‘Understandable, my dear, but seldom advisable, to slap a journalist across the face!’

  Chapter Three

  Guy Dangerfield had taken the assault remarkably well.

  It was an experience anyhow, he reflected as he made for the railway station. He had been slapped in the face by a girl before, but not since he was nine and the girl a hefty eleven-year-old. This latest experience was quite different. And was it not experience that he was seeking?

  Six months ago, when his first novel came out, he had been stung by one reviewer: ‘Mr Dangerfield has wit and a way with words, but only Time will cure his principal weakness – he has just not lived long enough yet. Before attempting a second novel this promising young writer would be wise to wait until…’