A Death for a Cause (4 page)

Richenda, I thought ruefully, would be having a grand time. She had few friends in real life, and of her family, there existed affection only between herself and her brother Bertram. Feeling as she did now, that Hans no longer desired her, I could well understand her desire to feel part of something bigger, to be welcomed into the suffragette fold, and to march shoulder to shoulder with women whom she could pretend were her sisters.

I knew I was being nasty, that these were unkind thoughts about Richenda, but I latched on to the seething annoyance inside me that she had dragged me into this mess and at my own stupidity for not realising the significance of the colours she had been dressing me in for some time. She had played me for a fool. Yes, it was better to hold onto to this anger than give into the creeping fear that threatened to swallow me. I glanced sideways at Emily Davidson. Her reticule was small. Could it contain a brick? It was tied with a feminine bow, so I doubted it. If I was bringing a missile for use, I would have ensured although hidden it was also easy to access.

The noise was tremendous. Women may in general have lighter voices, but get enough of them together and they will prove to you that their lungs have as much capacity as any men's. And while men may hold this image of gentle women tripping lightly along the woman in this march took every step with decision, with pride, with determination, and their boots rang with headache-inducing rhythm.

Again I tried to look about me, beyond the forms of the women surrounding me. I glimpsed buildings, but none were familiar to me. Another snatch of panic fluttered in my stomach. I was lost. I had no idea where we were heading and no idea how to return to the hotel. Be calm, I again silently urged myself, London is full of cabs. But would any of them take a suffragette home?

Along the road we were marching I became aware of spectators. From the start people had stopped their business to gawp at us.
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But now the spectators were no longer merely watching. Even over the noise of the song, I became aware of male voices. The words were difficult to distinguish, but the tone was hostile. We passed one man and I saw his face contorted in anger. Windows were opening. Men were hanging out of them, shaking their fists at us. We must be coming into the heart of the city, for there were more and more of them. Then the missiles began. Not from our side as I had feared, but people, both men and women began to throw things down from the windows. The contents of a bucket were launched over some women in front of me, who shrieked with alarm and revulsion. They were not to be the only victims.

And now I saw police lining the road. Perhaps they had been following us for some time, or perhaps they, unlike I, had always known where this march was headed. Surely I thought they would intervene. Insults were one thing, and I suspected the suffragettes were all too accustomed to them, but missiles? Stones, old books, even a saucepan landed close enough to me that I had to step quickly to avoid being hit. My anger took a different turn. We were unarmed women. We were being attacked! There were more and more police lining the road, but not one man moved to aid us.

As we turned a corner, marching into a square, where there was a platform waiting, no doubt intended for us to listen to speeches, where it was easy to block the exits – it was then they sent the horses in.

In the initial moments of the onslaught by the police the women held firm, but police both on foot and on horse waded into the ranks of women, batons raised. It quickly became clear it was not enough for them to disperse this march; they were intent on taking prisoners. And worse yet, they had no hesitation in using violence against us.

My first thought was to find Richenda. I twirled wildly on the spot, trying to see through the heaving masses and keep my balance. Surely, with her flame-red hair I would be able to spot her.

Near the centre of the square, bodies jostled me from all sides. The smell of perfume mingled unpleasantly with the smell of sweat. We had been marching hard and now we were being forced closer and closer together. For now, I was caught among the women away from the police, who were skirting the edge of the square. Through the crowd I thought I caught sight of police vans blocking one of the square's exits. The shy girl who had stood on my left cringed fearfully, unable to move. ‘You need to get away from here,' I told her. She was mere inches from me, but I had to yell so she could hear me. Instead of heeding me she curled in on herself, crouching lower to the ground. I hauled her up by the arm. ‘Keep moving,' I shouted, ‘stay on your feet or the crowd will crush you!' She looked at me with wild and frightened eyes. I knew I could not leave her.

I pulled her after me, not making for an exit, but wading deeper into the crowd. ‘Richenda!' I called, but my voice was lost. The mood in the square was changing fast. The singing continued in snatches across the square, in groups and the single women who held firm, but mostly the air was shrill with cries of outrage and screams.

Some of the women had been carrying flags on poles. I saw these now raised as weapons. Who struck first I could not in all honesty say. It was mayhem. A woman pushed past me wielding her flag before her. She headed towards the side where we could now hear the whinnying of horses.

Hans will never forgive me if I do not find Richenda, I thought, but the likelihood of doing so seemed remote. Indeed, if I, and the terrified girl who had attached herself to me, were to get away, we had to go now.

I cursed Richenda a thousand times as I turned my back on her. I could only hope her stout form and strong temperament would bring her through. Even then I could not bring myself to believe that the London police would use force against women. I told myself they were only trying to frighten us.

I pushed through the crowd. The tidy rank and file had disintegrated. It seemed to me that the women were a mixture of those who were ripe for battle and those who desperately wanted to flee.

This is not a happy mix for any army in close quarters, for army we were about to become. The policemen advanced into the throng. Batons raised, they lashed out around them. I glimpsed one women, her straw hat askew and blood running down her face. Her companion, a matron long past middle years, thumped the policeman heartily with her flag, beating him off her colleague. Two men came up behind her and grasping her by the arms dragged her back, with no thought given to her age or fragility. I saw her mouth open, whether she was screaming or cursing I could not tell, but they bore her off. Her companion bloodied and confused stumbled back into the fray and I did not see her again.

To my right I heard the whinny of a horse. Unbelievably the police had ridden their horses into the heart of the crowd. Women scattered from the beast's path as the rider lashed out right and left with his baton. I tried to pull my charge out of the way, but I was too slow. The baton came down and caught her a glancing blow on the cheek. She gave a small cry and slumped to the ground, the horse above her. Without thinking I leapt for the horse's reins, and pulled it sharply round to the right, so the hooves fell close, but not on her. The rider struck at me with his baton, and with a strength I did not know I had I grabbed at his belt and hauled him from his seat.

The horse, wanting even less than its rider to be among the crowds, made off. The rider attempted to struggle to his feet, but already my actions had been noted. A cry of triumph arose around and women surged forward beating at the man with umbrellas, flags, reticules, and even in one old woman's case, her shoe. I might have feared for his life were it not that the unseating of the rider had been noticed and forces quickly despatched in our direction.

Within moments my arms were pulled behind me by two policemen who addressed me in such language that I had never heard before in my life. Instinct warned me this was no time to fight. These men's blood was up, but so was mine. I managed to twist hard to my right and bite one man savagely on the hand. I tasted blood.

The next moment a blow of such force landed on my head that the world went completely dark.

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Even I am not so foolish as to believe this!

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See my journal
A Death in the Asylum
.

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What my mother would have made of me making such a spectacle of myself I shuddered to think. I could only have made things worse if I had marched in my petticoats.

Chapter Six

Infamy! Infamy!

I woke slowly and in great pain. I was lying on something hard. As a child I had learned, from a particularly poisonous little girl who attended my father's Sunday School, not to open my eyes the moment I woke. Surprisingly it is a knack I have found useful in many situations. Having no idea where I was, but assuming I had been attacked and possibly kidnapped, I attempted to push aside the throbbing pain in my head and focus my attention on listening.

I have been concussed before and that fact I knew I was again allowed me to hope that my senses were not too addled. Still, it took a while for me to distinguish the sounds around me. Chiefly, I was aware of the scents of perspiration, dirt or dust – a strange grimy smell – and lastly the smell of a variety of perfumes, all conflicting horribly. Voices murmured around me. The words were indistinct, but they sounded to be all female. The inside of my head beat its nasty rhythm as I tried to understand how I came to be with many females. How were we all shut up together. Although my immediate memory was proving unhelpful, my mind provided me with an unpleasant flashback to the time I had almost become the inmate of an asylum.
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I felt my body begin to tremble at the thought, but then I realised there was no sharp smell of cleaning fluid or other medicinal smell. So, I could not be there. There was also no smell of pigs, I thought. And then the memory of being shut in a pigsty awaiting execution with Fitzroy flooded back – but we had got out of that …

‘Oh for heaven's sake Euphemia, Wake Up!' cried the all too piercing voice of Richenda Stapleford. I opened my eyes. In front of me I saw bars, such as one might find in a police cell. I was lying on a dirty, wooden floor. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a row of women's skirts. I pushed myself up using one hand, pausing half way as nausea almost overcame me.

Richenda Stapleford's face loomed over me. ‘Gosh, you look like a dead fish,' she opined. ‘Try not to be sick. I doubt anyone would come and clear it up.' I waited for a moment, catching my breath. ‘Where are we?'

‘In jail,' responded Richenda with a grim smile. She raised her voice. ‘It seems the King's police force now consider it their duty to attack and detain defenceless women.' She put her arm under my mine and helped me up. I staggered against her, but Richenda's fondness for cake has made her sturdy. She helped me across to a wooden bench where two other women at once made way for me to sit.

As she said it my memory flooded back. ‘Richenda,' I exclaimed, ‘how could you have tricked me into coming on a suffragette march? Hans will be furious.'

Richenda's face set in a more than usually mulish expression. ‘Let him be! This was a peaceful protest. Do you realise since we have been put in here none of us have received medical attention. We have been given neither food nor water. We have been treated like animals.'

‘Did they take your names?' I asked.

‘Yes, though some people gave obviously false ones.'

‘Did you?'

‘Of course not. I want out of here as soon as possible. Marching and listening to speeches is one thing, but being attacked and thrown into jail is quite another. I can't even repeat the words the guard said to me when I asked him for a small slice of cake. You would have thought I was asking to be crowned queen. I memorised the number on his uniform. I shall tell Hans how badly I have been treated.'

I reached up and gently touched the back of my head. ‘By being refused cake?'

Richenda had the grace to blush slightly. ‘Yes, I know you were injured … but honestly, Euphemia, you must have been fighting!'

I looked around. There were around twenty women crowded into a cell clearly meant for less. Their ages varied from an old crone, who was sitting on the floor picking at the edge of her skirt, to a young maid, who could have been no more than fourteen, who sat on the edge of the wooden bench, her face tear streaked, but her expression wooden. All the women were dishevelled and some had marks of blood on their clothes or their person.

‘Don't worry as soon as Hans hears about this he'll have us out of this terrible place,' said Richenda more kindly. ‘He's an important man in the City. That will count for a lot.'

‘Yeah, and I'm royalty,' said the crone, ‘Cockney royalty. And if I'm not mistaken, that one over there,' she pointed to a woman with long blonde hair that flowed unhindered over her shoulders, sitting with her hands neatly in her lap as if she was awaiting a train, ‘is a ladyship. Ain't going to do any of good. Coppers want to haul us all into court. Make an example of us. Show that we're wild hysterical women!' She laughed loudly, showing cracked and broken teeth. ‘I'm not saying that in my day I didn't get involved in a scrape or two, but this time! This time I was sitting quiet as you like on the edge of the square selling me flowers as usual and this copper drags me away from my pitch. Oi! I tells him. That's my livelihood you're leaving on the street. Then one of his mates kicked my buckets over with his big plates of meat. That was it. That was when I belted the one holding me with my stick.' She sighed, and looked suddenly deflated, like a pile of rags on the floor. ‘Took me stick away, they did. Probably broke it or burnt it. Bastards. Can't get up without it.' A spark of malice flickered in her eyes, ‘Reckon some of you fine folks are finally going to find out what it's like to be poor. To be treated like dirt. They ain't going to let any of you off. None of you at all. You mark my words. Stupid wenches trying to prove you're the equal of your men folk. Didn't you work out years ago that any one woman's worth three blokes – five? None of you have got the sense God gave you.'