The Wild Rose (4 page)

Joe rolled himself into his waiting room now and explained to his constituents what had happened to his wife. He apologized and asked them to please come back first thing in the morning. All agreed to his request, except a group of church ladies outraged over the posters they’d found plastered all over Hackney advertising a racy new musical revue—
Princess Zema and the Nubians of the Nile
.

“Lass has got about as much clothing on her as she had the day she was born!” one indignant lady—a Mrs. Hughes—said.

“I have to cover me grandkiddies’ eyes when they walk down the very street we live on!” another—Mrs. Archer—exclaimed. “We’ve got the kaiser making ructions, and Mrs. Pankhurst and her lot throwing bricks through windows. Our young girls are smoking and driving, and to top it all off, we’ve now got naked Egyptians in Hackney! I ask you, Mr. Bristow, what’s the world coming to?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Archer, but I give you my word that I will personally see to it that the posters are removed by the end of the week,” Joe said.

After he’d mollified the women, and they’d left his office, Joe, together with Katie, Seamie, and Mr. Foster, took the elevator to the street, where Joe’s driver and carriage were stationed. Another carriage, the one Katie and her escorts had traveled in, waited behind his.

“Thanks for coming to get me, luv,” he said to Katie, squeezing her hand. “I’ll see you at home.”

“But I’m not going home. I’m going with you,” Katie said.

“Katie, Holloway is a prison. It’s not a Labour rally, or a jam factory. It’s a terrible place and it’s not fit for a fifteen-year-old girl,” Joe said firmly. “Go with your uncle and Mr. Foster. Your mother and I will be home shortly.”

“Come on, Kate the Great,” Seamie said.

“No! I won’t go home! You’re treating me like a child, Dad!” Katie said hotly. “The suffrage movement is something that will affect me. It’s politics. And women’s rights. It’s history in the making. And you’re putting me on the sidelines! I want to write about the march and the arrests and Holloway itself for my paper and you’re going to make me miss the whole thing!”

Joe was about to order Katie home when Mr. Foster cleared his throat. “Sir, if I may make an observation,” he began.

“As if I could stop you, Mr. Foster,” Joe said.

“Miss Katharine does present a most persuasive argument—a skill, I might add, which will serve her well in Parliament one day. What a remarkable boon for the country’s first female MP to be able to say she was on the front lines of the fight for women’s suffrage.”

“You’ve got
him
in your pocket, too, haven’t you?” Joe said to his daughter.

Katie said nothing. She just looked at her father hopefully.

“Come on, then,” Joe said. She clapped her hands and kissed him.

“We’ll see if you’re so happy once you’re inside Holloway,” he said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Can you use a hand, Joe?” Seamie asked. “I’m feeling a bit useless here.”

“I could,” Joe said. “And an extra bit of dosh, too. Since it seems I’m expected to liberate half the prison. Have you got any?”

Seamie checked his wallet, said that he did, and handed Joe twenty pounds. Joe asked Mr. Foster to take the second carriage home.

“I will, sir,” Mr. Foster replied. “And I shall have the maid ready a pot of tea.”

“Good man,” Joe said.

He, Seamie, and Katie got into his carriage, a vehicle custom made to accommodate his chair. The driver carefully urged his pair of bay horses into traffic, then headed west, toward the prison. In only a few minutes they were at London Fields, the park where the suffrage march was to have terminated. The three passengers had been talking during the ride, but they all fell silent as the carriage rolled past the green.

“Blimey,” Joe said, looking out one of the windows.

Wherever they looked, they saw devastation. The windows of a local pub and several houses were broken. Costers’ carts were upended. Apples, oranges, potatoes, and cabbages had rolled everywhere. Banners, torn and tattered, hung limply from lampposts. Trampled placards littered the ground. Residents, costermongers, and the publican were trying their best to restore order to the square, sweeping up glass and debris.

“Dad, I’m worried about Mum,” Katie said quietly.

“Me, too,” Joe said.

“What happened here?” Seamie asked

Joe could hear a note of alarm in his voice. “I’m not sure,” he replied, “but I don’t think it was good.”

As the carriage rolled out of the square, Joe saw the publican throw a bucket of water over the cobbles in front of his pub. He was washing something red off them.

“Was that—” Seamie started to say.

“Aye,” Joe said curtly, cutting him off. He didn’t want his daughter to hear the word, but it was too late.

“Blood,” she said.

“Blood?” Seamie said, shocked. “Whose blood?”

“The marchers’,” Joe said quietly.

“Wait a minute . . . you’re telling me that women—
women
—are being beaten up on the streets of London? For marching? For asking for the vote?” Seamie shook his head in disbelief, then said, “When did this start happening?”

“You’ve been off tramping across icebergs for quite a few years, mate,” Joe said wryly. “And then off on your lecture tours, too. If you’d stayed in London, you’d know that no one’s
asking
for much of anything anymore. The have-nots—whether they’re the poor of Whitechapel, or national labor unions, or the country’s suffragists—are all demanding reform now. Things have changed in dear old England.”

“I’ll say they have. What happened to the peaceful marches?”

Joe smiled mirthlessly. “They’re a thing of the past. The struggle for suffrage has turned violent,” he said. “We’ve now two factions pushing for the vote. There’s the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies—led by Millicent Fawcett, with Fiona a member—which wants to work constitutionally to achieve its aims. And then there’s the Women’s Social and Political Union, let by Emmeline Pankhurst, which has become fed up with Asquith’s foot-dragging and has turned militant. Christobel, Emmeline’s daughter, is a firebrand. She’s chained herself to gates. Thrown bricks through windows. Heckled the PM in public. Set things on fire. The Pankhursts’ activities get a lot of press coverage. Unfortunately, they also get the Pankhursts—and anyone who happens to be near them—arrested.”

Joe glanced at Katie as he spoke, and saw that she’d gone pale. “It’s not too late, luv. I can still get you home,” he told her. “I’ll have the driver take us there first, then Uncle Seamie and I can continue on to Holloway.”

“I’m not afraid, Dad. And I’m not going home,” Katie said quietly. “This is my battle, too. Who’s Mum doing this for? You? Charlie? Peter? No. For me. For me and Rose, that’s who. The least I can do is go with you to fetch her. And write about what I see for my paper.”

Joe nodded. Brave girl. Just like your mother, he thought. Bravery was good and bravery was noble, but bravery couldn’t protect one from horses and batons. He was anxious about his wife, worried she might’ve been hurt.

“I guess that old dear was right,” Seamie said.

“What old dear?” Joe asked.

“The one in your office. The one complaining about the musical revue. She asked you, ‘What’s the world coming to?’ I thought she was just a cranky old bat, going on about naked Egyptians, but now I’m wondering if maybe she had a point. England, London . . . they’re not the same places that I left back in 1912. I sound like an old dear myself, but stone me, Joe—roughing up women? What
is
the world coming to?”

Joe looked at his brother-in-law, whose expression was still one of astonishment. He thought of his wife and her friends in some dank holding cell in Holloway. He thought of the strikes and labor marches that were nearly a daily occurrence in London now. He thought of the latest volley of threats from Germany, and of Winston Churchill’s telephone call, which had almost certainly been about garnering support for the financing of more British battleships.

And he found that he had no answer.

CHAPTER THREE

Seamie Finnegan thought he knew about prisons. He’d been in one for a few days once, years ago in Nairobi. His brother Sid had been incarcerated there for a crime he had not committed. Seamie and Maggie Carr, a coffee plantation owner and Sid’s boss, had contrived to break him out, which had involved Seamie and Sid trading places. It hadn’t been a difficult thing to do. There had only been one guard on duty and the building itself was, as Mrs. Carr had put it, “a two-bit ramshackle chicken coop of a jail.”

Now, however, as he gazed at the building looming in front of him, Seamie realized he knew nothing about prisons, for Holloway was like nothing he’d ever seen.

It looked like a dark medieval fortress, one with a keep, an iron gate, and crenellated turrets. A pair of gryphons flanked the entrance—an arched passage wide enough to permit carriages—and through it he could see the cell blocks—long, rectangular structures with row upon row of small, high windows.

He felt suffocated just looking at it. His explorer’s soul craved the vast, open places of the world—the snowy expanses of Antarctica and the soaring peaks of Kilimanjaro. To him, the mere thought of being confined behind Holloway’s ugly stone walls was crushing.

“Uncle Seamie, this way. Come on,” Katie said, tugging on his hand.

Joe had already rolled through the passage in his wheelchair and was halfway across the lawn and heading toward an inner building marked
RECEIVING
. Seamie and Katie quickly caught up with him.

The scene inside the receiving area was chaos. As Joe counted out Fiona’s and her friend Maud Selwyn Jones’s bail money to a uniformed man seated behind a desk, and Katie interviewed a woman holding a bloodstained handkerchief to her head, other women—many wearing torn and bloodied clothing, some with cuts and bruises—angrily denounced the wardresses and the warden. Family members and friends who’d come to collect them pleaded with them, trying to convince them to leave, but they would not.

“Where’s Mrs. Fawcett?” one of them shouted. “We won’t leave until you release her!”

“Where are Mrs. Bristow and Dr. Hatcher?” another yelled. “What are you doing with them? Let them go!”

The chant was taken up. Scores of voices rang out as one. “Let them go! Let them go! Let them go!”

The noise was immense. Over it, a wardress yelled that they must all leave, right now, but she was soon shouted down. Seamie saw an older man in a black suit and white collar going from guard to guard, a worried expression on his face.

Joe saw him, too. He called to him. “Reverend Wilcott? Is that you?”

The man turned around. He wore spectacles, was clean-shaven, and looked to be in his fifties. His hair was graying, his expression kindly and befuddled.

He squinted at them, lifted his glasses, and said, “Ah! Mr. Bristow. Well met in Islington, eh?”

“Hardly, Reverend. Jennie’s been arrested, too, then?”

“Indeed she has. I’ve come to collect her, but she doesn’t appear to be here. I’m most concerned. The warden has released many of the women to family members, but not Jennie. I’ve no idea why. I spotted Mr. von Brandt a moment ago, looking for Harriet. Ah! Here he is now.”

A tall, well-dressed man with silvery blond hair joined them. Introductions were made and Seamie learned that Max von Brandt—German and from Berlin originally, but currently living in London—was Dr. Harriet Hatcher’s cousin and had been sent by Harriet’s anxious mother to fetch her.

“Have you found her?” Joe asked him.

“No, but I did see the warden briefly, and he told me that Harriet and several other officers from the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies are being held elsewhere in the prison.”

“Why?” Joe asked.

“He said it was for their own safety. He told me that he’d had to separate officers of Mrs. Fawcett’s group from those of Mrs. Pankhurst’s. There were some harsh words between them, apparently, and he feared further hostilities would take place. He said they would be released shortly, but that was an hour ago and there’s still no sign of them.”

Joe, frustrated, wheeled himself over to a harried wardress to try to find out more. Max went with him. Katie continued to interview marchers and scribble notes. Seamie and the Reverend Wilcott attempted to make polite conversation. The reverend knew Seamie’s name and asked about his adventures in Antarctica. Seamie learned that the reverend headed a parish in Wapping and that his daughter Jennie, who lived in the rectory with him, ran a school for poor children in the church.

“It’s also a de facto soup kitchen,” the Reverend Wilcott explained. “As Jennie always says, ‘Children who are hungry cannot learn, and children who cannot learn will always be hungry.’ ”

As Reverend Wilcott was talking, a gate at the far end of the receiving room was opened and a group of dazed and weary-looking women walked through it. Seamie recognized his sister immediately, but his relief at seeing her soon turned to dismay. Fiona’s face was bruised. There was a cut on her forehead and blood in her hair. Her jacket was torn.

As the women entered the receiving area, a cheer went up from their fellow marchers—those who had been released but had refused to leave. There were hugs and tears and promises to march again. Joe and Katie hurried to collect Fiona. Seamie followed them. Women’s voices swirled around him as he made his way across the room. Seamie didn’t know most of the women, but he recognized a few of them.

“God, but I need a cigarette,” one woman said loudly. Seamie knew her. She was Fiona’s friend Harriet Hatcher. “A cigarette and a tall glass of gin,” she said. “Max, is that you? Thank God! Give us a fag, will you?”

“Hatch, is that a cigarette? Have you got an extra?” Seamie knew that voice, too. It belonged to Maud Selwyn Jones, the sister of India Selwyn Jones, who was married to his and Fiona’s brother Sid.

“You all right, Fee?” Seamie asked his sister when he finally got to her. Joe and Katie were already on either side of her, fussing over her.

“Seamie? What are you doing here?” Fiona asked.

“I was at home when your message arrived. I accompanied Katie.”

“Sorry, luv,” Fiona said.

“No, don’t apologize. I’m glad I came. I had no idea, Fiona. None. I . . . well, I’m so glad you’re all right.”

He was upset to see the marks of violence on her. Fiona had raised him. They’d lost both parents when she was seventeen and he was four, and she’d been both sister and mother to him. She was one of the most loving, loyal, unselfish human beings he had ever known, and to think that someone had hurt her . . . well, he only wished he had that someone here now, right in front of him.

“What happened?” Joe asked her.

“Emmeline and Christabel happened,” Fiona said wryly. “Our group was marching peacefully. There were crowds there, and police constables, but very little heckling or baiting. Then the Pankhursts showed up. Christabel spat at a constable. Then she lobbed a rock through a pub window. Things went downhill from there. There was a great deal of shouting. Fights broke out. The publican’s wife was furious. She walloped Christabel, and went after other marchers, too. The police started making arrests. Those of us who had been marching peacefully resisted and, as you can see, paid for it quite dearly.”

“The warden told us you were being held downstairs for your safety,” Joe said. “That there was scuffling between the two factions here at the prison.”

Fiona laughed wearily. “Is that what he told you?”

“It’s not true, Mum?” Katie asked.

“No, luv, it’s not. The warden held us downstairs, but not for our safety. There was no scuffling between us. The warden wanted to scare us, and he did. But he didn’t scare us off. He’ll never succeed in doing that.”

“What do you mean, scare you off?” Seamie asked.

“He put us all in a cell next to one in which a woman, another suffragist on a hunger strike, was being force-fed. He did it on purpose. So we would hear it. It was terrible. We had to listen to the poor thing scream and struggle, and then she was violently sick. So they did the whole thing over again. And again. Until she kept the food down. They made sure we saw her, too. Afterward. They marched her right by our cell when it was over. She could hardly walk. Her face was bloodied. . . .”

Fiona paused, overcome by emotion. When she could finally speak again, she said, “We were all quite undone, sickened ourselves, and cowed, every one of us. Except Jennie Wilcott. She was the only one amongst us with any presence of mind. She was magnificent. As the woman was marched by us, Jennie started to sing. She sang ‘Abide with Me,’ and the woman heard her. Her head was hanging down, but when Jennie sang, she looked up. And then she smiled. Through the blood and the tears, she smiled. And then we all started singing. I think the whole prison must have heard us and taken heart. And it was all because of Jennie.”

“Fiona, what exactly is force—” Seamie had started to ask, when a young woman suddenly stumbled and bumped into him. She was small and blond, about twenty-five or so, he guessed, and she had the ugliest black eye he’d ever seen.

“Pardon me! I’m ever so sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “It’s this eye. I can’t see terribly well with only one.” She was holding tightly to the Reverend Wilcott’s arm.

“There’s no need to apologize,” Seamie said. “None at all.”

“Mr. Finnegan, this is my daughter Jennie Wilcott,” the Reverend said. “Jennie, this is Seamus Finnegan, Fiona’s brother and a very famous explorer. He found the South Pole.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Miss Wilcott,” Seamie said.

“Likewise, Mr. Finnegan. How on earth did you get from the South Pole to Holloway? Some great misfortune must have befallen you.”

Before Seamie could answer her, Katie tugged on his arm. “Uncle Seamie, we’re leaving now. Are you coming?”

Seamie said he was, then turned back to the Wilcotts. “Please, take my arm, too, Miss Wilcott. It’ll be easier for you with someone on either side of you. I know it will. I went snowblind once. On my first trip to Antarctica. Had to be led around like a lamb.”

Jennie took Seamie’s arm. Together, Seamie and the Reverend Wilcott walked her out of the receiving area, toward the long, gloomy passageway that led from the prison to the street.

“Fiona’s just been telling us about your ordeal,” Seamie said as they walked. “You must be the same Jennie who sang ‘Abide with Me’?”

“Did you now, Jennie?” the Reverend Wilcott said. “You told me about the force-feeding but you didn’t tell me that. I’m glad you sang that one. It’s a lovely old hymn. It must have given that poor woman a great deal of comfort.”

“My motivation had more to do with defiance than comfort, I’m afraid, Dad,” Jennie said. “I sang to that woman, yes. But also to her tormentors. I wanted them to know that no matter what they do to us, they will not break us.”

“What is force-feeding?” Seamie asked. “And why were the wardresses force-feeding a prisoner?”

“Do you not read the London papers, Mr. Finnegan?” Jennie asked. There was an edge to her voice.

“Indeed I do, Miss Wilcott,” Seamie replied. “But they are hard to come by in New York, Boston, or Chicago. To say nothing of the South Pole. I only returned to London a month ago.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Finnegan. For the second time. It has been a very trying day,” Jennie said.

“Once again, there is nothing to forgive, Miss Wilcott,” Seamie said. He turned toward her as he spoke. Her eye was horribly swollen. He knew it had to be very painful.

“It was a fellow suffragist the wardresses were force-feeding,” Jennie said slowly. “One who’d been arrested for damaging Mr. Asquith’s carriage. She’s been in prison for a month now and is in the process of starving herself.”

“But why would she do that?”

“To protest her imprisonment. And to call attention to the cause of women’s suffrage. A young woman starving herself to death in prison makes for a good news story and elicits a great deal of sympathy from the public—which makes Mr. Asquith and his government very unhappy.”

“But surely you can’t force a person to eat if she doesn’t wish to.”

Jennie, who’d been looking straight ahead as she walked, turned her head, appraising him with her good eye. “Actually, you can. It’s a very dreadful procedure, Mr. Finnegan. Are you sure you wish to know about it?”

Seamie bristled at her question, and at her appraisal of him. Did she think he couldn’t handle it? He’d handled Africa. And Antarctica. He’d handled scurvy, snowblindness, and frostbite. He could certainly handle this conversation. “Yes, Miss Wilcott, I am sure,” he said.