The Anatomy of Death (6 page)

Florence laughed. “It wasn’t a hanky; it was a mantilla.”

“It looked like a hanky to me.” Dody smiled back, pleased with her sister’s return to good humour. “Give me a chance to do my hair. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

S
he found Florence and Hugo Cartwright in the drawing room, drinking tea. Hugo looked to be in his mid-twenties, the child of Catherine’s older brother. His fair hair and Teutonic cheekbones bespoke the German blood on his mother’s side of the family, a distant cousin of the old queen’s, if she remembered correctly. A pair of crutches leaned against the side of his chair.

“Pardon me for not getting up, Dr. McCleland,” Cartwright said.

Florence pointed to his bandaged foot. “Poor Hugo was hurt in the fighting. He actually saw Catherine being attacked by a policeman, but could do nothing to help on account of falling in the way of a mounted policeman who was charging the crowd.”

“It’s nothing, really,” Cartwright said, miserably shaking his head.

“You told the police what you saw?” Dody asked.

“I tried to, but they paid me no attention. I swear they didn’t even write my name down.”

Dody gave his arm a sympathetic squeeze above the mourning band. “It must have been terrible for you. Has your foot been examined by a doctor?”

Cartwright pulled a spotted handkerchief from his top pocket, blew his nose, and responded in the negative.

“Well, now’s your chance. Come on, Hugo,” Florence said. “Let’s get that bandage off so Dody can have a look at it.”

Hugo tried to push Florence away, in so doing knocking one of the crutches to the floor. “Really, Florence, I—”

“Dody doesn’t mind, do you, Dody? It might be broken, and if it’s not treated, it will become deformed. Come on, silly, it’s only a foot; it’s not like she has to pull your trousers down to get to it.”

Cartwright’s fair skin flamed, and Dody’s heart went out to the poor young man. “I’d be happy to examine your foot, Mr. Cartwright, if that is what you want, but I can’t force you to let me.”

“Of course he wants you to—don’t you, Hugo?” Once Florence’s mind was made up, nothing would make her change it. Hugo gave in with a resigned nod.

Dody stooped in front of her reluctant patient. She unwound the dressing and examined the foot, gently running her fingers along the red crease marks caused by the clumsy bandaging. She could see no sign of swelling or bruising. When she asked Cartwright to wriggle his toes, he did so with no apparent difficulty.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked.

He waved his hand vaguely over the whole foot. Dody spent a moment running her fingers along the fine bones. “I can’t see much sign of injury, but that doesn’t mean there’s none there. Damaged tendons sometimes don’t show swelling at all. If you wish, I can organise transportation to St. Mary’s to rule out the possibility of broken bones. The new X-ray department there is supposed to be good …”

“No, please, that is quite unnecessary.”

“Then when you get home, soak the foot in water as hot as you can stand and that should give you some relief. Meanwhile keep it elevated as much as possible.”

“Dody wanted to be a bone surgeon, you know,” Florence said as she fetched a stool for Hugo’s foot. “But no one would take her on because she’s a woman.”

“Damned shame,” Hugo said, eyes fixed upon Dody’s swiftly moving hands.

“There now,” Dody said, patting the neat figure-of-eight bandage. She hoped Florence would elaborate no further upon her career; she doubted this emotionally fraught young man would cope well with it at all. “Keep the bandage on as long as you can.”

Florence attempted to lift his foot to the stool, but Cartwright protested. “No, Flo, I don’t think I can stay. I came early only to see you. Seeing all those women after yesterday, going over what happened to Aunt Catherine, will be too much. I think I might just go home now. Will you pass me my crutches?” He struggled to his feet. “And do give everyone my apologies.”

“That’s quite all right, darling, we understand.” Florence helped him from the drawing room and into the hall, where
Annie handed him his topcoat and silk hat. Dody couldn’t help notice how, as he struggled with his coat, he seemed to favour one foot and then the other, as if he were confused as to which was paining him the most. She was muddling this over in her mind when the front doorbell rang. It was still too early for the other guests, surely?

Oh Lord, she remembered—Rupert!

S
o much for the “fearless” Dody McCleland, she thought wryly on her way home from the teahouse. She had proved herself as incapable of telling Rupert that their farcical romance was over as she had been of informing him of her new position with the Home Office. She hadn’t even seized the opportunity when he leaned over the table to inhale her scent and murmured, “Mmm, lemons.”

To be fair, though, he had been making a fine job of anticipating and forestalling any such announcement, playing the wounded puppy if she so much as failed to smile at his endearments. What was she to do? His family were old friends of her family’s, and she could forgive him the self-centredness which made him oblivious to so much about her, or her thoughts—unless they pertained to him.

But his behaviour had puzzled her; she was sure he was no more in love with her than she was with him. They had been
playing an elaborate game, and now he was building up to a marriage proposal which she was not ready to cope with. She fended him off with questions about the march. She had still not read the
Times
article.

Rupert told her the march was a response to the government’s rejection of the Conciliation Bill, a lukewarm compromise to female suffrage. Even if the Bill had been passed, it would give voting rights to female property owners only, ignoring the vast majority of women in the land. But it was a start, and its consideration had for a while given the suffragettes room to hope that the government was at last beginning to listen.

The street fighting lasted for several hours. “I was damned disappointed at missing out on it,” he said, battling to crush a knob of hard butter onto his teacake with his left hand, “but I had an appointment with the director of The Playhouse. Heaven knows whether I’d get another crack at it—it’s a fickle world, the theatre.” From there on, he’d spoken about his play, the theatre, Mr. Shaw, and Dody’s mother. Dody had her reprieve, at least until the following weekend, when they would meet at her parents’ house.

Only a handful of Florence’s Bloomsbury Division were still in the drawing room when Dody returned from the teahouse. She recognised Jane Lithgow and Olivia Barndon-Brown, and Florence introduced her to others she did not know. Several responded to her with a distinct chill, which made her suspect that the events of the autopsy room had already been discussed.

“My sister has just returned from Edinburgh,” Florence announced to the group, “to where she was forced to flee after her application to study bone surgery was turned down because she was a woman.”

Flee to Edinburgh?
Lord, Florence
, Dody thought,
why do you have to make everything sound so dramatic?

“I won’t tell you what Dody specialised in at Edinburgh,” Florence went on, although she had clearly told them before Dody’s arrival. “It might put you off Cook’s delicious smoked salmon sandwiches.”

The laughter was soft and polite except for one of the factory women present. Molly Jenkins, legs splayed beneath her patched skirt, let forth a gusty roar that spread around the drawing room like a contagion, infecting even those who only moments before had acted so cool and disapproving towards Dody.

Dody immediately warmed to the woman with the ruddy cheeks and easy smile. The likes of Molly Jenkins were often missing in the nonmilitant groups. The WSPU understood that a group of differing social classes could foster an important sense of female solidarity. Dody heartily approved.

Dody remembered one of Florence’s lengthy telephone calls to Edinburgh in which she had spoken enthusiastically of Mrs. Jenkins’s innovations, such as the tying of string to stones and holding on to them when they were thrown as if they were yo-yos. Thrown in this way, the stones would maximise damage to property, but minimise injury to people. It was also economic on stones, which were sometimes in short supply on the London streets. At this, Dody had been forced to cover the receiver to prevent her laughter from escaping down the wire.

The other working-class woman in the room was Daisy Atkins. Dody had already heard her story. A waiflike creature with large blue eyes, Daisy had been orphaned at the age of thirteen and had been adopted by a group of wealthy WSPU women, who taught her to read, write, and type. She had
recently been transferred to Bloomsbury, where she held the position of secretary. Her devotion to the movement was complete; this was the family she had always craved. “She doesn’t seem to think for herself, though, Dody,” Florence had confided. “It’s almost as if she’s been mesmerised.” The comment came as no surprise to Dody. Daisy had spent considerable time living with the Pankhursts; a more mesmerising family one could not imagine. But the women in the group were fond of Daisy and she brought out their maternal instincts.

Dody accepted a cup of tea from Annie and settled herself in a chair next to a handsome, regal-looking woman in her late thirties wearing a fox stole. Miss Jane Lithgow looked at Dody with a steady gaze. “I’d like to know where you stand, Dr. McCleland,” she said. “How far would
you
go to support the union, or are you allied more to the likes of Mrs. Fawcett?”

Everyone else in the room stopped talking. Dody knew she would have to choose her words carefully. “I am not in favour of extreme militancy,” she replied, “but the cause will always have my moral support. I believe that the emancipation of women is the most effective way of bringing about true social reform to man, woman, and child—”

“You
are
involved with Mrs. Fawcett’s group?”

“No, I am still trying to establish my career, and I do not have the time—”

“Mrs. Fawcett’s sister, Dr. Elizabeth Garrett, seems to find time for the cause. She was a participant in yesterday’s march,” Miss Lithgow said.

“That may be, Miss Lithgow, but she is considerably older than I and her career firmly established.”

“And she would never have condoned the violence that
erupted yesterday,” a sparrow of a woman named Mrs. Slowcroft put in. “Like me, she believes in nonmilitant tactics.”

“We didn’t start the violence; it was a peaceful march,” Molly Jenkins said, but her words were lost as Miss Lithgow, her fair skin emblazoned with passion and her eyes as accusing as those of the fox around her neck, cried out, “How, may I ask, can we be expected to peacefully bring about change when we don’t have the political rights to do so? You and your like have had more than twenty years to get us the vote, Mrs. Slowcroft, and where has your nonmilitancy got us? Nowhere! We need to act now: deeds, not words!” Then, turning to the other women in the room, she said, “I propose we launch some kind of counteroffensive. We need to let the authorities know we will not allow ourselves to be trampled in the street!”

“I’m with you,” Molly Jenkins called out, and the rest of the room, barring Dody and Mrs. Slowcroft, stamped their feet and rang teaspoons against cups in agreement.

Florence raised her hands to silence the din. “Whatever counterattack we decide upon, we must discuss it with Christabel Pankhurst first.”

“I don’t think Christabel would be averse to blowing up the Houses of Parliament itself,” Miss Olivia Barndon-Brown said with a chuckle. Olivia was a rotund, jolly woman who wore a Moorish kaftan of brilliant hues. When not involved in suffragette activities, she could be found working in the East End soup kitchen funded by her wealthy parents. She was second-in-command of the Bloomsbury Division and her earthy humour had proven a useful antidote to the petty tensions that tended to undermine other groups.

“Then, in the event of any such measure, Miss Barndon-Brown,
I am leaving.” Mrs. Slowcroft climbed to her feet. She gave Dody her hand. “It was lovely to meet you, my dear. I’m glad to see you have more sense than your young hotblood of a sister.”

“Mrs. Slowcroft is a visitor to our Bloomsbury Division,” Florence explained to Dody almost apologetically. “She’s a member of Mrs. Fawcett’s group, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society.” She shot Mrs. Slowcroft a frown. “I invited her here as a courtesy.”

“None of us asked for the trouble yesterday,” Molly Jenkins said to Mrs. Slowcroft, more moderately this time. “The Pankhursts told us to be’ave and be’ave we did. It was the police what caused the problems. And this ’ere”—she indicated the seated ladies with a reddened hand—“is exactly what they want—they want us to start bickering and fighting among ourselves so they can smash us up—divide and conquer, that’s their plan.”

“Quite right, Molly,” Florence said. “Mrs. Slowcroft, please sit down, do. Why don’t we all have another cup of tea and be friends?” Her sister reminded Dody of their mother breaking up a childish argument. “Although we work through different means,” Florence continued, “we are all fighting for the same cause.” She pulled the bell for Annie.

Mrs. Slowcroft let out a martyr’s sigh and sat back down again.

A slender young woman in a plain office suit, with muddy boots and a sodden hem, accompanied Annie into the room a few minutes later.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, I’ve had the most dreadful time,” she said. Her sudden burst of tears interrupted any kind of formal introduction to Dody, but as the other women fussed
around her, repeating her name, Miss Treylen, Dody was able to gather that she worked as a clerk at the docks. She had been using her afternoon off to sell copies of
Votes for Women
until she was accosted by a group of men, who snatched her bundle of newspapers and threw them into the gutter. She didn’t know what to do and the papers were quite ruined, she’d had to leave them where they fell—would Miss McCleland like her to collect more newspapers and return to the same street corner or should she try another?