Bring Out the Banners Read online

  As the Ritz Hotel loomed before them, she plucked at Fiona’s sleeve. ‘Hang on,’ she muttered urgently. ‘I’d forgotten Mamma was lunching here today. They’re just coming out. If she sees me she’ll guess where I’m going.’

  They paused in the shady arcade, just short of the imposing entrance. A top-hatted hall porter was grandly beckoning a taxi. Fiona looked with interest at Belle’s mother, a substantially-built lady wearing an immense hat piled high with artificial flowers and feathers.

  ‘Would she forbid you?’

  ‘She’d worry till I was safely home. And I’d hate that.’

  The Countess drove off. They turned into Green Park. On this sunny afternoon it was full of the usual strollers, but there were many others like themselves, making purposefully down the grass slope towards the palace, glimmering through the trees.

  ‘Let’s put on our sashes,’ said Belle. They unrolled them and slung them over their right shoulders, VOTES FOR WOMEN slanting across their chests.

  The roadway in front of the high palace railings was solid with people. The straw hats showed how many men were mixed with the suffragette demonstrators. Overtopping them were the dark helmets of the policemen, and above them again the hundreds of mounted men, their horses’ heads tossing.

  ‘Just look at the police,’ gasped Fiona. ‘Hundreds!’

  ‘She’ll never get through,’ said Belle despairingly.

  Fiona could only agree. Of late the police had been getting much tougher in their action. Years ago, veteran suffragettes had told her, it had been quite hard to get arrested. You could shout and wave banners to your heart’s content, but the patient bobbies would do nothing. They would not arrest you unless you actually assaulted them. Some genteel ladies had found this extraordinarily difficult. They would drum feebly with their fists on the thickly uniformed chests of the constables or stamp dainty feet on their massive boots without producing any reaction. The surest way to commit a technical assault was to spit in the officer’s face, but some ladies were so inhibited by their strict upbringing that they could not muster the saliva to do so.

  Those days were over. The police now had orders to be rough. Many disliked those orders intensely, but had to carry them out. In some, when sufficiently goaded, a hidden streak of brutality came to the fore. Fiona had heard tales of savage kicks and armtwistings, of clothes torn off women’s backs, faces deliberately scraped along rough walls and railings until they were covered with blood.

  High above the palace roof the royal standard showed that the King was within. But what hope had Mrs Pankhurst of getting through to him – or even of reaching these outer gates – against such an overwhelming display of force?

  Yet suddenly there was an outburst of shouting in front, the word spreading back through the crowd.

  ‘She’s there!’

  ‘She’s done it again!’

  Somehow, miraculously, Mrs Pankhurst had appeared at the gates. Only afterwards did they learn how she had achieved it. She had spent the night at a supporter’s house in Grosvenor Place at the rear of the palace. There she had made a brief speech to the other members of her deputation and the bodyguard. ‘Whatever happens, do not turn back!’ She had started out at their head, but at some point slipped away, eluded the police and reached the gates alone before she was recognized.

  Fiona heard, far in front, a woman’s cry of dismay. ‘They’ve got her!’ Then another woman’s voice, firm and clear – was it the General’s? ‘We mustn’t let ’em! Come on!’

  There was a surge forward. Belle went with it, shouting with the rest. Fiona plunged after her. The police had charged. She saw the bobbing helmets, the batons rising and falling. She heard screams.

  Now came a clatter of hoofs. The mounted police were charging too, wielding long staves, not truncheons like the constables on foot.

  The crowd thinned as people turned to escape. She got a clear view of Mrs Pankhurst. She was in the grip of an enormous police inspector with a waxed moustache and a chest lined with medal ribbons. He lifted her clean off the ground. She dangled in his hands, helpless as a doll.

  Belle was rushing forward to help her, but a policeman on a grey horse shot between, blotting out all view of Mrs Pankhurst and the inspector. Fiona saw the rider change his staff to the hand holding the reins so that he could reach down with the freed one and clutch at Belle’s sash. On the man’s far side, hidden from view by his horse, a man was shouting an indignant protest. The policeman turned his head to swear at him.

  ‘I don’t care if you are “press”! I’m arresting this young woman. If you obstruct me I’ll arrest you too.’

  At all costs Belle mustn’t get arrested. Fiona thrust her way through the mêlée. Belle was struggling, but the policeman’s hold on her sash was relentless. The horse’s hoofs scraped and drummed on the roadway as it turned this way and that. They were all now tightly enclosed by the crowd, shouting excitedly according to their sympathies.

  Suddenly Belle’s voice rang out, shrill with horror. ‘Oh, no! Not the poor horse!’

  Fiona saw only a woman’s upraised arm, a glint of sharp steel against that tossing head.

  Chapter Twelve

  Instinctively Fiona shut her eyes.

  There was a harsh cry from the rider. The clatter of hoofs broke into a chaos of disordered noise. An unknown hand pushed her violently sideways and she went sprawling. Her eyes opened to a new view of the world from ground level, all blue-trousered legs and skirts and dancing hoofs.

  The police horse was apparently unhurt but now literally uncontrollable, its reins severed. Over Fiona’s head an elderly lady was saying with quiet satisfaction: ‘Secateurs! Nothing like them. In the garden – or anywhere else!’

  With a swish of her long skirt the lady vanished into the crowd. No one tried to stop her. The policeman had dropped from the saddle and was striving to pacify his startled mount. He was too busy to arrest anyone.

  Fiona struggled to her feet. Belle too must have fallen over, for she was being helped up by a good-looking young man in a straw hat, which had been knocked askew at a rakish angle.

  ‘Guy!’ cried Fiona with relief. ‘Where did you spring from?’

  He grinned. ‘I didn’t spring – I was shoved. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘But Mrs Pankhurst – ’ Belle gasped.

  ‘They’ve driven her off in the Black Maria.’

  Belle allowed herself to be shepherded into the safety of St James’s Park. Demonstrators were spattering the police with paint or pelting them with stones from holdalls they had brought with them. Others had equipped themselves with secateurs for cutting through the reins of the mounted men.

  ‘It’s all rather pointless now,’ said Guy.

  ‘Pointless?’ Belle echoed angrily.

  ‘They’ve got most of the leaders. They’ll be halfway to the cells by now. What do all these other women expect? To break into the palace – past all these police and then the guard? Chucking stones won’t achieve anything.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s right,’ said Fiona.

  ‘It’s – it’s so defeatist!’ Belle’s voice trembled.

  Guy tried to calm her. ‘I think what we all need now is a cup of tea.’

  ‘Tea!’ snorted Belle. Privately Fiona thought it a sound idea.

  ‘Yes, tea.’ Guy studied them both with a quizzical expression. ‘I don’t think I can take you into the Ritz – ’

  The girls became suddenly aware of their appearance. ‘Oh, dear!’ said Belle, her sense of humour flooding back. ‘If I was at home in the country I could pretend I’d fallen down in the stable yard – ’

  ‘Mounted police do rather increase the hazards.’

  There was not much they could do beyond straightening their clothes and taking off their stained and tattered sashes. He escorted them to a secluded patch of shade near the teahouse and went off to fetch a tray.

  ‘He is nice,’ Belle said, ‘though he makes me mad at times.’

 
Fiona nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘Men can be maddening, my brother especially. But there’s something to be said for them – ’

  ‘You’ve found that?’ asked Fiona gravely.

  ‘Haven’t you?’

  Guy’s return with a laden teatray provided an obvious answer.

  He was on top of the world. He had sold an article – a really literary article – for five guineas. Five pounds and five shillings! He was in a mood to squander the shillings. Belle, in her present disreputable state, must go home by taxi. They picked one up in Trafalgar Square. Already the evening papers were out with startling headlines. SUFFRAGETTES BATONED BY POLICE, cried the Evening News. SUFFRAGETTE RAID ON THE PALACE, retorted the Westminster, WILD SCENES. The Globe shrieked: ARMED WOMEN BESEIGE THE KING!

  In the taxi Belle asked: ‘Will you be at Lady Ottoline’s tonight?’

  He hesitated. ‘No, not tonight, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Too much excitement for one day?’ She chuckled. ‘Next Thursday perhaps?’

  ‘Will you be there?’

  ‘If you are. I expect David Garnett will be, next week. His father could be awfully helpful when you – ’

  The taxi pulled up, as instructed, just short of her home. Guy paid it off. ‘I shall sneak in by the servants’ entrance,’ said Belle. ‘They’re so good, they always cover up for me.’

  Fiona could imagine that below stairs Lady Isabel was regarded as a household pet, universally loved. As the girl vanished down the area steps she turned to Guy, herself. ‘Thanks for the ride. I’ll be all right from here.’ But he insisted, as she knew he would, on seeing her to Francis Street. But her urgent need of a bath and change of clothes made it impossible to ask him in.

  ‘I trust you are feeling better, Miss Campbell?’ said the old lawyer next morning.

  ‘I’m quite recovered, thank you, Mr Bagshaw.’

  Yesterday’s demonstration had made him more belligerent than ever. ‘What is the world coming to?’ he demanded. ‘These dreadful women! Mr Asquith should really crack down on them.’

  Her mind flew back to that scene. The multitude packed dense around the great new memorial to Queen Victoria, the police charging, the batons gleaming in the sun… There had been plenty of ‘cracking down’. She could not help saying: ‘Doesn’t it seem odd, sir – everyone looks back on the old Queen as so wonderful, yet if she’d been anyone else they’d have said she wasn’t even capable of voting?’

  Mr Bagshaw bridled at this. ‘You forget what she owed to her husband’s excellent guidance. The Prince Consort – ’

  So they were back to the pompous dictum of Sir Almoth Wright. No good women in public life, only women who had been influenced by good men. She could not let that pass. She said with deceptive meekness: ‘But Good Queen Bess never had a husband. Of course she did have a famous father – ’ She hesitated a moment, then with quiet satisfaction slipped in the dagger. ‘Henry the Eighth.’

  ‘We cannot spend the morning discussing history,’ said Mr Bagshaw shortly. ‘We must get on with the letters.’

  In fact, the government was now acting with the energy he demanded. Wholesale arrests – most of the leaders and many rank-and-file members – had been made during the Buckingham Palace disorders, which had gone on for several hours. Fiona realized with a shiver that only luck had saved Belle and herself from the same fate.

  What would happen now? Presumably the quietly efficient Grace Roe had her orders from Christabel in Paris. Routine tasks such as the chalking of pavement slogans and the distribution of The Suffragette must go on. At midday on Saturday she went straight from the office to Kingsway to offer her services.

  Grace Roe, as always, had a welcoming smile. Yes, it would be all hands to the pumps now. They were discussing what part-time help Fiona could provide, when heavy tramping feet were heard on the stairs. The room filled with blue uniforms. An inspector marched up to them.

  ‘Miss Roe?’

  ‘Yes?’ She looked quite unruffled.

  ‘I have a warrant for your arrest.’

  ‘Indeed? On what charge?’

  ‘Conspiracy.’ He added the usual warning in official tones. The rest of the staff were being herded in from the other offices. He consulted a list in his hand. ‘I can see,’ he said with a smile, ‘that Mrs Drummond is not here.’

  ‘If she were, she would have spoken for herself by now!’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, madam.’ He surveyed the others, checking their names and functions – the office manager, the financial secretary, the assistant editor of The Suffragette, the sub-editor, the business manager. They were taken downstairs to the street.

  He turned to Fiona. Her heart gave a sickening lurch within her. ‘And who are you, young lady?’

  ‘My name is Campbell. I – ’

  Grace Roe cut in swiftly. ‘This young lady is not a member of the staff. She is just a caller.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, her name’s not on my list anyhow.’

  A sergeant stepped forward, holding out some foolscap sheets clipped together. ‘We’ve found this list of subscribers, sir – ’

  ‘Thank you. We’ll go through this place with a toothcomb.’

  ‘I protest,’ said Grace Roe. ‘You have no right!’

  ‘I have a search warrant, madam. If you will get your hat and handbag…’

  As she was taken downstairs after the others the inspector said to Fiona in a kindly voice: ‘If I may offer you a word of advice, young lady, I would say, don’t get mixed up with these people. If you were a daughter of mine – ’

  ‘If you were my father,’ she burst out, ‘I shouldn’t be proud of you for what you’re doing!’

  She went, and he made no move to stop her.

  Outside in the street the prisoners had been packed into a couple of taxis and were moving off in the direction of Bow Street. A constable had taken his stand outside the front door. Overhead she could hear the offices being ransacked. Helpless and despairing she could only walk away.

  That evening the doorbell rang at Francis Street. Daisy looked at her in alarm. They seldom had callers, especially late ones. Full of apprehension Fiona said: ‘I’ll go.’

  Daisy said, with desperate optimism: ‘If it’s your nice Mr Dangerfield you can ask him up. I’m here as a chaperone.’

  Heart in mouth Fiona ran downstairs. If it wasn’t Guy it might at least be Belle.

  It was neither. It was a shabby middle-aged woman she had never seen before, someone with a cockney voice.

  ‘Miss Campbell?’

  ‘Yes. Who is it?’

  ‘I got this message for you. Confidential.’

  ‘Won’t you come up?’

  ‘Better not, dear. It’s just this: “The business has been transferred to 17 Tothill Street, Westminster.” Number seventeen, dear. Good night.’ The stranger walked away briskly towards the brighter lights of Tottenham Court Road.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Miss Campbell, is it?’ The butler was respectful but cordial. ‘If you will hold the line, madam, I will ascertain if Lady Isabel is at home.’

  Soon a breathless Belle was speaking.

  ‘I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ said Fiona. ‘Could you come out? A stroll in St James’s Park perhaps?’

  Belle laughed. ‘What could be more respectable for two gels on a fine Sunday morning! Quarter of an hour?’

  ‘Fine. Corner of the square.’

  Walking down Tottenham Court Road, Fiona described yesterday’s event at headquarters. ‘And then, last night, comes this mysterious woman with her mysterious message.’

  ‘Tothill Street is just near the Abbey.’

  ‘There may be no one there now – ’

  ‘I bet there will. If they sent you the address they must want you to make contact. You’ve not told Guy? But, of course, he’s not on the phone.’

  ‘And he’s not a member.’

  ‘It’s a pity we don’t let men join,’ said Belle.

  ‘I agree.
’

  ‘I suppose he could join Miss Sylvia’s lot.’

  Sylvia Pankhurst, more militant than her mother and sister, had parted company with them and now headed a separate organization in the East End, closely linked with Keir Hardie and the Socialist movement. She was even recruiting a ‘People’s Army’ prepared for a serious battle with the police. Men were more than welcome.

  ‘I don’t think Guy agrees with her views,’ said Fiona.

  They crossed Horse Guards Parade. The leafy park, with its silver sheen of lake, stretched away to the distant façade of Buckingham Palace. They reached Tothill Street. The bare offices at number seventeen echoed with brisk voices. Some faces looked familiar, but the girls had to identify themselves and be checked on a list. ‘We have to be rather careful now,’ they were told.

  Grace Roe had quietly prepared for yesterday’s raid. Just as she herself had been secretly groomed to take Annie Kenney’s place, so had she trained her own successor if she were arrested. No name was mentioned but already the office was beginning to function in its new premises.

  Fiona was immediately set to work. Belle confessed with shame that she could not type, so was given envelopes to address, far too slowly, in the careful copperplate writing she had learnt at school. Then, apologetically, she had to rush off to luncheon. Fiona stayed the whole afternoon, sustained only on a cup of tea and an indigestible bun. Her offer to return next day, when she left Mr Bagshaw’s, was warmly accepted.

  Over the next weeks the pressure grew at Tothill Street. It was vital to keep up publication of The Suffragette as a sign that the movement was still very much alive. At least the authorities could not touch the editor. Safe in Paris, Christabel could still control it, though the difficulties of communication were multiplied.

  To have banned the paper would have struck at the sacred British principle, the freedom of the press, and stirred up a hornets’ nest in Parliament and throughout the country. The government took a more subtle line. If they could not stop the printing of the paper they could make it almost impossible to buy. A letter went to all wholesalers, asking them not to handle it. The big firms fell obediently into line and the retail newsagents were unable to get supplies.