Half of the Human Race Read online

  Moonlight was rearranging shadows across the room before either of them noticed the hour. ‘Heavens, it’s nearly ten o’clock,’ said Connie, checking her watch. With a guilty start she thought of Lily, and asked Will if she might use his telephone. He gestured out to the hall, where it stood, and she rang Lily’s parents’ house in Ellington Street. Her mother answered, with the news that Lily had not returned home. Connie tried to allay her worries, though to her own ears the reassurances sounded less than convincing. Will read her expression as she came back into the sitting room.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘She’s not at home. I can only think she’s been arrested.’ She picked up the veiled hat that Will had commandeered from the cloakroom as her disguise, and murmured, ‘And I’ll never see my hat again.’

  Will silently wondered at a mind that could flit with no apparent effort from criminality to hats. He sighed philosophically.

  ‘Is it worth it? I mean, all that you’ve been through today – for the vote?’

  Connie looked incredulous. ‘Of course it is. I believe the vote to be an entitlement. Years from now, people will look back in wonder to think we were denied it for so long.’ She searched Will’s face to gauge his reaction, and read there not disagreement but bemusement.

  ‘I don’t really understand why it’s so important …’

  Connie took a deep breath. ‘Perhaps because you have it by automatic right.’

  ‘Yes – but I don’t use it.’

  She stared at him. ‘You mean, you’ve never voted?’

  ‘Not once,’ he said, shrugging. Connie fell silent, sensing that further pursuit of the subject would find no common ground between them. Will, on the other hand, felt he had blundered and now sought to make reparation. ‘But, of course, if that’s what they – you – want, then it should be open to discussion …’

  ‘Open to discussion,’ echoed Connie. ‘You may have noticed how far that has got us.’ She looked at her watch again. ‘I’d better be going –’

  ‘Won’t you help me finish off this wine?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I mustn’t. You’ve been kind – very kind …’

  There was an awkward pause between them. Will was annoyed with himself for accidentally hurrying their night to a close.

  ‘If you give me your address I’ll ring down to the night porter – he’ll whistle up a cab for you.’

  ‘No, there’s really need –’

  ‘Please,’ said Will earnestly, ‘it’s the very least I can do.’

  Connie, too tired to argue, told him her destination, and Will went off to make the call. On returning, he found her clearing up the detritus of their supper.

  ‘Don’t bother with that. My housekeeper will do it in the morning.’ Connie paused, then continued stacking the tray and carried it into the kitchen. Will hovered in the doorway, wondering how he might delay her departure. He went off down the corridor and returned holding the cricket bat that Connie had noticed hanging above his bed. She tried to compose her features in such a way that suggested she’d not seen it before.

  ‘I wanted to show you this,’ he said, running his palm along the varnished blade in reverent absorption. ‘It’s the bat Tam was using when he hit that ball over the Lord’s pavilion in 1905. Only been done once before.’

  He gave the sacred relic to Connie, who hefted it in her hands. She looked up at him. ‘I saw him do it,’ she said.

  ‘No! You were there?’ Will’s eyes widened in awe.

  Connie nodded. ‘MCC versus Sussex. I was with my father and Fred – my brother. I remember him saying it was like a golf shot. Did you know it dislodged a chimney pot before it went down the other side?’

  ‘I read about that!’

  ‘So Mr Tamburlain gave it to you?’

  ‘Oh no. I bought it at an auction, before I knew Tam. He’d laugh to hear how much I paid for it.’

  ‘Well, it’s … a lovely thing,’ she said, handing it back. She gave him a polite, end-of-the-evening smile, and Will knew their time was up.

  ‘Allow me to see you out.’

  On the street, their faces half in shadow, he was holding the door open for her when she turned. ‘I won’t forget what you did for me today. Thank you.’ She extended her hand, which he clasped and then brought to his lips.

  ‘Goodnight –’ He wanted to say her name, but didn’t quite dare. ‘I hope your friend is … safe.’ He closed the taxi door and looked at her through the window. The smile he offered in farewell felt starkly at odds with his mood: there had been so much more he wanted to say.

  Lily had been arrested and taken to Bow Street Police Court, where she was charged with conspiring to commit damage in violation of the Malicious Damage to Property Act 1861. Connie, with a foreboding that felt close to a physical ache, had gone to visit her at the holding cells, and been refused admission. She was reading The Times over breakfast one morning the following week when her eye fell on the name – Lily Vaughan, 21 – under the headline SUFFRAGETTE MILITANTS SENTENCED. Connie stared at the column for some moments, unable to move. Her stricken look must have caught Olivia’s attention, for the latter looked over the top of her lady’s periodical and said, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Lily. She’s – they’ve given her two months’ hard labour.’

  ‘Oh, that foolish girl!’ She gave Connie her mongoose stare. ‘You can say goodbye to your cause now. After what she’s done – and the rest of them – nobody will ever think women fit to exercise the vote.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ Connie replied quietly, though her heart was sinking. ‘And I don’t think Lily’s foolish – she’s brave.’ But had she really advanced the struggle for suffrage? Connie had persisted in believing that the vote would be yielded to them on the basis of justice and common sense. Attempting to gain it by violence seemed precipitate, and the indignation it caused did perhaps play into the hands of the anti-suffragists. She returned to the letters of outrage in The Times. A few minutes later they heard the postman at the door, and their mother came into the morning room carrying a large parcel.

  ‘It’s for you, darling,’ she said, handing it to Connie with a look of mild curiosity. The label was in a hand she didn’t recognise, though the postmark indicated it had been sent within London. She unpicked the string and tore off the brown paper, revealing a cardboard box emblazoned with the name of a Scotch whisky distillery. None the wiser, she opened it and found, nestled in whispering layers of tissue paper, her navy cloche hat, with a piece of creamy card folded under its band. She read its text:

  Portman Mansions,

  Devonshire Place, W.,

  5 March ’12

  Dear Miss Callaway,

  Here it is, retrieved from the cloakroom at the Savoy. Your sorrowful air on recalling its loss was too hard to bear, so I poled over there the next day. Got an awfully queer look from the attendant, until I mentioned my personal connection to the hat’s owner – a fiction you’ve already heard.

  I don’t claim a reward, though I would be very much obliged if you agreed to join me for luncheon down at the Priory when the season begins in May. If the company does not entice you, the cricket perhaps will.

  With my respectful regards,

  Wm Maitland

  Connie felt her smile being scrutinised. She looked to the enquiring faces of Olivia and her mother, and clapped on her hat.

  ‘I thought it was lost,’ she said brightly, ‘but some kind stranger found it.’ She packed up the box and, still wearing the hat, tripped off to her room to look for writing paper.

  6

  THE HERRING GULLS were screeching for their midday feed, but to Will, sauntering along the esplanade, their unlovely ululations might as well have been Mozart. The sun glistened upon the pleated waves, and an April wind carried on it a salty spume to refresh the lunchtime promenaders. A little way out to sea a rowing boat bobbed tipsily on the waves, and he stopped to watch it. How delightful it was to feel at ease and savour the pr
ospect of one’s talent being rewarded. He first perceived his ascendant star from the moment last month when Tam, at his forty-fourth birthday dinner, had taken him aside and said, in a confiding tone, ‘It’s definite. Old Dodderer’s walking the plank. They’ll give him a testimonial but they want him gone. According to Du Boung, you’re their man.’ This utterance, impenetrable to an outsider, made Will quite light-headed with excitement.

  He kept reminding himself it was still hearsay, but last week a letter had arrived from the Priory secretary inviting him to lunch, not at the pavilion but at the Royal Victoria. That venue could only have been fixed upon if there were a cause for celebration – such as a change of the guard – and when Will had informed Tam of this communication, the latter said merely, ‘It’s yours, Blue. Well done.’ Out at sea, the little boat he had been monitoring bucked on a sudden swell and put one of its occupants on his back. Will chuckled, and walked on. The effort of tamping down his sense of achievement had proven beyond him. He had got his Blue at nineteen; had made his county debut at twenty-one and hit a hundred on the occasion; had overhauled Tam as the club’s top scorer; and now, a few months shy of his twenty-fifth birthday, he looked likely to be made captain. Even his mother might deign to crack a smile once she learned of this elevation. Better still, he had received a letter from Miss Callaway – he kept testing the name ‘Constance’ on his tongue, in a tone (he hoped) of suave address – accepting his invitation to lunch on the first Sunday of May, the eve of M—shire’s first home match of the season. He felt certain she would be persuaded to stay and watch him lead out the team as captain.

  He had donned his plum-coloured Priory club blazer, light grey bags and deck shoes, but had left his shirt collar open, hoping to strike a middle note between formality and rakishness. A tram chuntered by, and as he crossed the Marine Parade he felt a large raindrop smack his shoulder. He frowned up at the sky. Gah! That moisture wasn’t rain. A gull had swooped overhead and its load was now dribbling down the silk-faced lapel of his blazer. It looked as if someone had just thrown a small egg at him. He took out his handkerchief and began to wipe at it, distractedly wondering whether such a splattering augured good or ill. He couldn’t remember. It was the sort of thing Tam would know. Like most sportsmen he was incurably superstitious, and harboured a knowledge of arcane folklore that never failed to surprise Will. He now recalled Tam casually telling him that you should never kill a seagull because it was the soul of a dead sailor, or something. Or was that an albatross? Either way, Will would happily have shot whatever bird had just deposited this muck on him …

  Entering the foyer of the hotel he made straight for the gentlemen’s cloakroom. The humiliation of facing the committee with a great streak of birdshit badging his jacket was not to be borne. He did what he could with his dampened handkerchief in front of the mirror, but a ghostly whitish crest was still discernible on the cloth. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that being used as a seagull’s privy signified bad luck, not good. It had taken the wind out of his sails. He dumped the sodden kerchief in the bin and hurried out.

  The Royal Vic prided itself on a ‘better’ class of clientele, but the polite murmur of talk among the early lunchers only put an edge on Will’s nerves as he scanned the tables. Where were they? He asked a passing waiter, who informed him that a group of gents had taken one of the private luncheon rooms upstairs.

  ‘Ah, William, there you are,’ called Du Boung, the club secretary, rising from the table around which were gathered the three other committee members. Will already knew the expressionless treasurer, Leach, and the doughy, florid-faced manager, Colonel Pawley, who turned to the man on his right. ‘I don’t think you’ve met Lord Daventry, our new president?’ Will shook hands with a sleek-looking, neatly bearded fellow in tails whose gaze seemed instantly to settle on his recently mortified lapel.

  ‘Mr Maitland – how d’you do? I’ve been hearing great things about you.’

  The colonel was soon running through a precis of those things for the general benefit of the table. Will, unlike Tam, thrived on praise, though he kept his head bowed shyly while his host mulled over which of his hundreds last season had been the most pleasing. Leach signalled for lunch to be served, and over cold salmon and potato salad they talked in a desultory way about the forthcoming season, the current repair work on the pavilion, and sundry other matters of moment. Will, though braced by the early gusts of acclaim wafting his way, could not quite relax while the subject of the captaincy hovered like an invisible guest.

  As the plates were being cleared Du Boung, a drawling enthusiast whom Will regarded as his secret ally at the table, raised his voice and said, ‘Well then, if it suits you, My Lord, shall we attend to business?’ At Daventry’s nod, Du Boung addressed Will across the table. ‘I dare say you have already divined the purpose of our little gathering, William. We, that is, the committee, have accepted the resignation of Mr Dodds – after years of sterling service, I might add – and would like to offer the captaincy of the club –’ his head made an ingratiating sweep around the table ‘– to you.’

  Will sensed his face flush with pleasure and relief. Right up to the last moment he had worried that his intuition had been mistaken, that he had been invited to lunch simply to meet the new president, or to hear those expressions of gratitude for his performance last season, or – he hardly knew what. The birdshit – a good omen after all!

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen, My Lord,’ he said, looking at each of them in turn. ‘I’m delighted to accept.’

  ‘Bravo!’ cried Du Boung, leaning over the table to extend his hand. Then the colonel, to his left, merrily patted him on the back, and even Leach, impassive as an owl, had minutely tweaked his mouth into the thinnest of smiles. As the congratulations dwindled in echo, Lord Daventry fixed a keen eye on Will and said, ‘I’m sure you’re going to make an excellent captain.’

  ‘I hope so, My Lord.’

  ‘I need hardly tell you,’ Daventry continued, his tone more confiding, ‘that the job will entail certain, ahm, responsibilities, off the field as well as on.’

  ‘I’ll try to do whatever’s in the best interests of the club,’ said Will, already enjoying the sound of his own seriousness.

  ‘Of course, of course. Just so long as you appreciate that some of those responsibilities may be less … agreeable than others.’

  ‘I understand,’ replied Will, not quite sure that he did. Lord Daventry was now looking at Colonel Pawley to take up the conversation’s reins. The latter cleared his throat and said, ‘What we need, Maitland, is for a new broom at the club. M—shire has ambitions for the championship this season, as you know, but we are burdened at present by a fair bit of, well, dead wood. Dodds ought to have been released years ago, and there are one or two others whom the committee believes would best be – put out to grass.’

  There could be little doubt as to whom he meant. Alfred Lunt, a veteran amateur, had lost whatever guile his left-arm spin once had, and his unathletic presence in the field had become a team joke. Will felt a little sad, but knew that the fellow had an upholstery business in town to see him through to retirement. ‘Alf Lunt, I suppose.’

  Colonel Pawley nodded. ‘Mr Lunt is certainly one of them. Mr Jarrold, also.’ He had named another amateur, the club’s wicketkeeper, facetiously known in the changing room as the Ancient Mariner, because ‘he stoppeth one of three’. Will replied that he would deal with both of those gentlemen before the season began, and looked around the table in the expectation that business was concluded. But the colonel had knitted his brow into an expression of earnest solemnity.

  ‘There is one other whom we’ve talked about, just between ourselves, and have come to the conclusion that he’s, erm –’ he seemed embarrassed to say it – ‘surplus to requirements.’

  Will compressed his lips. He had no wish to play a guessing game. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure who …’

  There followed an awkward exchange of glances b
efore Colonel Pawley said, with a little jerk of his neck, ‘Tamburlain.’

  No other name could have surprised Will more, and for some moments he was struck dumb. He could almost have believed it a joke, only the faces around the table were deadly serious. Du Boung, registering his shock, took a quietly conciliating tone. ‘We all know what a superb batsman he’s been, and we know, too, of your very high regard for him, William. This is a fearfully difficult decision for all of us. But –’ he twisted his mouth into a rueful grimace ‘– sacrifices have to be made. And he’s not getting any younger.’

  There was some mumbled talk at this point as to how old Tam was, but Will, his mind racing, interrupted it. ‘So … you appoint a captain without first telling him that you intend to sack the club’s best player.’

  ‘We’re not “sacking” him. We’re just not going to renew his contract. And he’s not the club’s best player any more,’ said Du Boung, with a meaningful glance at Will, who now began to detect an ulterior motive behind this afternoon’s blandishments. Knowing of their friendship, the committee must have reasoned that he, Tamburlain’s friend and protégé, would be the best choice – the most sympathetic, that is – to break the unpleasant news to the man himself.

  ‘This is madness,’ Will said simply.

  ‘Not at all,’ cut in Leach, quiet up to now but listening closely. ‘I’m afraid it’s economic sense. Tamburlain’s wages are the highest of any player at the club. From the money recouped we could afford another two men in his place.’