Bring Out the Banners Read online

  Panting, she reached the gallery. Someone far below – goodness, it was one of Belle’s companions! – was standing up in her box, and addressing the startled King through a megaphone.

  ‘Women are fighting even today, as Joan of Arc fought centuries ago, for liberty! They are being tortured, their lives put at risk, in your name, Your Majesty, and by the orders of your ministers – ’

  In the stalls people were shouting in shocked voices. ‘Disgraceful!’ ‘Throw her out!’ The bald heads and the elaborate coiffures tossed with indignation like a storm-lashed sea.

  King George stared back at the speaker, seemingly paralyzed. In the gallery, round Fiona, there was equal uproar.

  ‘Why doesn’t someone do something? Get them out!’

  ‘They’ve locked themselves in!’

  ‘They’ve barricaded the door!’

  The amplified voice went on remorselessly. Then came a furious battering in the background, a crash as the door yielded, a rush of dark figures.

  The Queen was plucking at the King’s sleeve. He rose. They left the royal box, followed by a flurry of scandalized courtiers.

  Belle also, and her companions, were lost to sight in a scrum of indignant attendants. Their exit was assisted with less ceremony.

  Meanwhile, all over the gallery, hitherto quiet and well-behaved women were producing their little square banners of white calico. Leaflets were sailing down like snowflakes into the dress circle and stalls. Fiona ran to the brass rail of the gallery and flapped her own banner with zeal.

  Furious arguments were raging in every part of the opera house. It was three-quarters of an hour before the performance could continue. Long before that she had rejoined Guy.

  She was relieved to see a distinct twinkle in his eye. ‘I won’t ask where you’ve been,’ he said.

  ‘Are you cross? Should I have warned you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I wonder what’s happened to Belle. Fancy her! She only joined at the Earl’s Court meeting.’

  ‘I expect her name helped – in getting that box.’

  The second interval was much shorter. He bought her a glass of white wine. ‘You need it. I think you deserve it.’

  Her anxiety on Belle’s account was soon relieved. They met one of Guy’s journalist friends. No one was being charged, he said. The police disliked arresting people with titles and social influence. These suffragettes only wanted more publicity. Why give it to them?

  ‘A coward’s excuse!’ said Fiona. She enjoyed the rest of the evening.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Those wild women! In front of the King and Queen! What’s the world coming to?’ Fiona kept her face blank as Mr Bagshaw scowled at the headlines.

  His office in Red Lion Square was almost pure Dickens. She herself, one of the few modern additions, was still referred to as his ‘typewriter’. But she gave satisfaction. Her spelling was faultless, she had mastered the unfamiliar legal terms, she was – unlike her employer – at ease with the new-fangled telephone, which she would answer calmly, not as though it were a spitting wildcat. Being female, though not flighty, she did not of course smoke, so she did not disappear as the clerks did to puff a furtive cigarette in the storeroom. In short, Mr Bagshaw had decided that Miss Campbell was a good thing, well worth her pound a week, the same rate as the Civil Service. A man would have expected three.

  Fiona did not complain. The job had brought freedom – escape from the constraints of home, first to a working girls’ hostel, then to the fuller liberty of the attic rooms she shared with Daisy. And the job was safe, so long as she concealed her suffragette sympathies.

  Guy, however, was beginning to feel dissatisfied with his journalistic efforts. He wanted to get back to more literary work. His heart leapt one morning when he received a letter, its crested envelope addressed with elaborate loops and flourishes, a positive arabesque in sepia ink. The note inside was similarly decorative.

  ‘Dear Mr Dangerfield, I have just read The Anvil with immense enjoyment. A real discovery. I look forward to your next novel. Before then, though, I am curious to meet the author. I am At Home every Thursday evening…’ The signature, equally ornate, was ‘Ottoline Morrell’ – 44 Bedford Square! That must be quite close to Belle’s.

  He had heard of Lady Ottoline. Who had not? Wife of an obscure Liberal MP, but sister of the Duke of Portland. Not political, but passionately interested in the arts, friend of the famous, patron of the unknown. An invitation from her meant that you had arrived, or at least were definitely on your way.

  Even Rudd was impressed. He himself seldom went anywhere. He spent his life crouched over his desk, a shirt-sleeved spider wreathed in tobacco smoke. But he knew all about those At Homes. Her ladyship was eccentric, unconventional, insatiably interested in people. Anyone could be drawn into her net. Guy might meet eminent statesmen or hungry geniuses.

  He settled one doubt for Guy. ‘Don’t worry about clothes!’ Lady Ottoline liked people to dress as they pleased. She was original in her own taste, sometimes with bizarre results. Rudd quoted a famous writer’s description of her hat as a crimson tea cosy trimmed with hedgehogs. ‘Of course, you’ll see tail coats and white ties – but plenty of casual Bohemian wear, velvet jackets and so on.’

  Guy played for safety. When Thursday evening came he presented himself in his best suit, but with a soft-collared shirt and full-flowing, poetic-looking tie like one he had seen in a photograph of Rupert Brooke.

  A parlour-maid received him, took his overcoat and hat, and led him through green double doors to a wide hall, from which a curving staircase led up to the drawing room. He mounted it, unusually dry-mouthed and nervous.

  The drawing room was a vast double room, running from front to back of the house. It was already crowded and noisy with a dozen animated conversations. There were masses of golden chrysanthemums in huge urns.

  He glanced round. What hope of seeing anyone he knew! A few faces were familiar from the newspapers. That must be the great Nijinsky. He had actually seen him, dancing in the Ballets Russes. And Lady Ottoline herself was unmistakable.

  She stood by the fireplace, tall, with a cloud of mahogany-red hair, high-arched nose, and jaw like the prow of a galley. She wore an embroidered Russian blouse. Perhaps in honour of Nijinsky. She was talking to a lanky man with a long beard, also red-brown, and a solemn cadaverous face. He had an odd squeaky voice and was convulsing her with his wit.

  She suddenly became aware of Guy and took a step towards him, thrusting out her hand. ‘You must be Guy Dangerfield?’

  ‘Yes – you were kind enough – ’

  She turned to her bearded companion. ‘Lytton, this is Mr Dangerfield – he’s just written a most amusing novel. And this,’ she told Guy, ‘is Mr Lytton Strachey. You know, of course, his wonderful Landmarks in French Literature.’

  ‘Of course!’ Guy hoped that his lie would not be exposed.

  But after a brief civility Mr Strachey said he had just seen someone named Virginia, and must speak to her. He drifted away. ‘You have no drink,’ said Lady Ottoline. She signalled to a maid. ‘Champagne?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It makes my head ache,’ she said regretfully. She seemed to be sucking a peppermint. ‘You look younger than I expected.’ She asked about his next book. He dared not admit that it was not yet started. He said, carefully, ‘It’s still in its very early stages – ’

  ‘Ah, still evolving! To discuss it with other people can be fatal. I know how the creative mind works.’ She made some intelligent comments on The Anvil and asked him about himself. Her sympathy warmed him. He grew in confidence. ‘I like to watch the careers of young writers,’ she said. ‘Do you know the work of D.H. Lawrence?’

  ‘Sons and Lovers? I – I’ve not read it – yet.’

  ‘You must. Another young man of promise. But he made me so homesick.’

  ‘Homesick?’

  ‘He’s from Nottinghamshire – where I grew up. Welbeck
Abbey is quite near the pit where his father worked. The dialogue of his characters takes me back into my childhood. I’m dying to meet him. But I gather he lives in Italy.’

  Guy felt that this was enough about Mr Lawrence. It would be nice to get back to Mr Dangerfield.

  But Lady Ottoline was glancing towards the door. ‘Here’s Belle Isherwood. Such a delightful girl. She’ll be thrilled to meet you. And I owe it entirely to her recommendation – ’

  He felt a slight pang of disappointment. So he too owed this to Belle. Lady Ottoline would never have heard of him, otherwise. Clearly Belle had not revealed that she already knew him. Their hostess was introducing them as strangers. He avoided Belle’s eye. He ought to be grateful to her. She was obviously trying to help him.

  ‘I will surrender him to you,’ said Lady Ottoline in a convincing tone of regret. ‘I must not neglect my other guests.’ She sailed away, greeting people effusively in her sonorous, slightly nasal voice.

  Guy could now meet Belle’s gaze. ‘I must thank you – ’

  ‘You’re not cross?’ She sounded anxious.

  ‘Of course not! This could be very … helpful.’

  ‘I do hope so.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he whispered, ‘who some of these people are.’

  She pointed out Mr Yeats, the Irish poet, with his long hair, pale bow tie, and black-ribboned glasses. He seemed to be declaiming, rather than talking, to a dapper companion, Max Beerbohm, the cartoonist and wit. She identified Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour leader, and a young painter named Stanley Spencer. The woman talking to Mr Strachey was Mrs Woolf, terribly intellectual and to Belle somewhat alarming. She lived close by in Gordon Square. Her set was becoming known as the Bloomsbury Group.

  All these clever people, Guy thought, talking so fluently and brilliantly, but – to judge from the scraps of conversation he caught – not about votes for women. This was another world. So much zest and variety. It was an eye-opening experience.

  Belle introduced him to a young man of his own age, David Garnett. His father was a publisher’s reader, celebrated in literary circles, and his mother well known as the translator of Dostoevsky and other Russian authors. David had stayed with D.H. Lawrence in Austria, just after Lawrence’s elopement with Frieda Weekley.

  ‘You should tell Lady Ottoline about them,’ Guy suggested. ‘She’s very interested in him.’

  ‘Oh, I have. Of course, Lawrence is a family friend of ours now. My father’s done a lot for him.’

  Lucky Lawrence, he thought. What it was to have the right kind of friends! But Belle was doing her best for him.

  Suddenly she stiffened; her whisper became the hiss of a hostile cat. ‘See who’s here!’

  No need to identify the newcomer. That distinguished sculptured head could belong only to the Prime Minister. Mr Asquith crossed the room with outstretched hands to greet his hostess.

  ‘How can she?’ said Belle between gritted teeth.

  ‘Well, her husband is a Liberal.’

  ‘She lives her own life! Of course, Asquith knew her as a girl. He was like a favourite uncle, lending her books and everything… But she must know what he’s doing now. The arrests – the treatment of the hunger-strikers –’ Again Belle became an angry kitten, beautiful but spitting viciously. ‘I’d like to ask him, in front of everybody, “Why are you torturing women?” If only I had the nerve.’

  ‘You haven’t the bad manners, thank God.’ For an awful moment he had been afraid that perhaps she had.

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I’m a guest in this house. It would be unforgivable. And I’ve been trained,’ she added bitterly, ‘to put good manners before anything. But sometimes I think sincerity should come first. Don’t worry, Guy.’ She smiled. ‘I’m a terrible coward.’

  By now people were beginning to leave. They went over to thank their hostess for a delightful evening.

  ‘You must come again,’ she told Guy.

  ‘You were a success,’ Belle told him as he escorted her the short distance to her own door. ‘She doesn’t say that to everyone.’ They paused outside her house. ‘I’m sorry, it’s rather late to ask you in. Good night, Guy, and thank you.’ She squeezed his arm lightly and ran up the steps.

  It was not just the lateness of the hour, he knew. She could not walk in and confront her parents with an unknown young man. Mothers of rank had lists of acceptable friends for their daughters. It was advisable to have been at Eton, and then Oxford or Cambridge. Better still, to hold a commission in the Guards. He did not qualify and never would.

  That did not trouble him. Striding home to Lamb’s Conduit Street he saw a quite different future opening before him.

  Chapter Nine

  A few days later Fiona, making a hurried lunch-hour call at the Kingsway headquarters of the Women’s Social and Political Union, was beckoned across by Miss Roe.

  Grace Roe had taken over the organizer’s post some months earlier – apparently at a moment’s notice – when Annie Kenney was sent to prison for eighteen months. In fact, as Fiona now realized, she was well prepared and had been secretly groomed for the work. She was a complete contrast to the Lancashire mill-girl. A soft-spoken young Irishwoman, well educated and, having lost her mother at the age of twelve, already experienced in running a household. Fiona admired her and the way she ran this office.

  ‘Great news,’ she murmured. ‘Mrs Pankhurst has dodged the cats. She’s in London. Making a public appearance tonight.’

  Fiona sensed her excitement. ‘Oh, where?’

  Miss Roe explained that they dared not hire a hall or advertise the event beforehand. Mrs Pankhurst must not be arrested again. ‘You know Mouse Castle? She’ll speak from that high balcony over the porch.’

  Mouse Castle was the nickname for 2 Campden Hill Square, home of Mrs Brackenbury, a general’s widow and a fearless supporter of the movement. She used it as a refuge for victims of the Cat-and-Mouse Act.

  It would have to be an impromptu meeting with whatever crowd they could muster in the square. ‘But pass the word round,’ Miss Roe requested. ‘People you can trust. The vital thing is to get a mention in the newspapers afterwards.’

  ‘I’ll be there anyhow,’ Fiona promised.

  On her way back to her office she called Belle’s telephone number from a public box. An urbane voice answered. ‘The Earl of Cleveland’s residence – ’ The butler went off to acquaint Lady Isabel. A minute or two later she was on the line, breathless but welcoming. Fiona explained in guarded terms. ‘You bet!’ said Belle. They arranged to meet that evening by the pillar-box in Bedford Square.

  Should they tell Guy? Miss Roe was anxious to get something into the papers. He had no telephone, but Fiona, as she walked home from work, could easily make a slight detour by way of Lamb’s Conduit Street. So when she left Mr Bagshaw’s she hurried through the foggy dusk and rang Guy’s bell. It was answered at once by clattering feet on the uncarpeted stairs.

  ‘Fiona!’ He looked astonished to see her standing there in the golden ring of the street-lamp.

  ‘I thought you’d like to know – but something confidential – ’

  ‘Come in.’ She followed him upstairs. He said, apologetically, ‘My place is a bit spartan. I took it unfurnished – so much cheaper, you know.’

  It was still, to her eye, unfurnished. A rug to cover part of the floorboards, one lumpy old armchair to which he waved her with ceremony, a table on which stood his typewriter – and, draped over a kitchen chair in front of a gas fire, a spotless white shirt. With a cry of horror he snatched it up and fled into another room, which she could only hope, for his sake, contained at least a bed.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not used to visitors. And my mother made me promise – ’

  ‘I know.’ She laughed. ‘“Promise me you will always air your clean clothes before you put them on.’”

  He stared. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I know mothers.’

  Her own had said that. She had also s
aid, Fiona remembered suddenly, ‘Promise me you will never in any circumstances visit a gentleman’s rooms by yourself.’ But, she thought, I am a year older now. And it is 1914.

  She told him the time and place of Mrs Pankhurst’s planned appearance. He said at once: ‘Fine! I’ll be there.’

  She stood up. ‘I must be going. I must go home first, and then I’m meeting Belle…’

  He put out an arm to detain her. ‘You won’t have much time. And you must eat something first. I bought some sausages.’

  She did not argue. He disappeared into some sort of screened-off cubbyhole. She heard him filling a kettle. Soon came the aroma of frizzling sausages. He reappeared briefly, flapped a tablecloth over the space not occupied by his typewriter, and flung down a handful of cutlery. ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘Of course! I expect,’ she called after his retreating back, ‘she made you promise never to leave a frying pan?’

  ‘No,’ he shouted back. ‘I only learnt that by terrifying experience!’

  They were soon sitting down to tea, bread and butter, and sausages. The meal ended with gigantic cream buns from the baker’s down the street. ‘A rather schoolboyish taste, I’m afraid,’ he said.

  ‘You speak as though your schooldays were prehistoric.’ He could only have left school three or four years ago.

  ‘Well, quite a bit of history has happened since.’

  She wondered if he would ever tell her about it. But all too soon it was time to go. He brushed aside her query about the washing-up. As it was, they found Belle already waiting by the pillar-box.

  They caught the tube to Notting Hill Gate. In Campden Hill Square an expectant little crowd had gathered in front of Number Two. Many, thought Fiona, looked like members of Mrs Pankhurst’s bodyguard.

  They were not kept waiting long. Suddenly the curtains of the first floor windows were flung back. In the light streaming out into the gloom a figure appeared on the wrought-iron balcony above the tall white pillars flanking the front door. There was a burst of welcoming applause as Mrs Pankhurst stepped forward to the rail.