Half of the Human Race Page 21

  As each prisoner was conducted to her solitary cell, Connie braced herself for the slam of the door, so harsh at times it would make her jump. She had stepped over the threshold of her cell when she heard an uncertain step behind her. She had not even noticed that the wardress in charge of her was the same one she had addressed earlier. In a hushed tone, the woman said, ‘It is Saturday.’ She hadn’t forgotten Connie’s question. Caught off-guard by the unexpected courtesy, Connie was about to thank her when the door was closed fast, and another long spell of solitude began. Saturday, then. This was the day she had set as her deadline to answer Will’s proposal of marriage. Before they had parted on the night of Olivia’s wedding he had asked permission to call at Thornhill Crescent to receive her answer. From the gleam in his eye she could tell that he was confident of a favourable outcome.

  And she would have obliged him, she felt sure, but for her needling doubts as to his true character. While she believed in the sincerity of his love, and returned it in full measure, she sensed that a future together would very soon provoke a test of loyalty beyond Will’s command. His anger at her disobliging treatment of Foulkes had later occasioned an apology, but she nonetheless felt that Will’s remorse was the result of a change of mood, not a change of mind. He was, at heart, a traditional fellow who would not take kindly to forthright displays of independence on the part of his wife. Or would he? Connie, mindful of her date with suffragist destiny on the following Tuesday, had decided to take the risk. Knowing there would be little chance of escaping arrest and a conviction, she would go to prison. If Will should renew his offer of matrimony after that, she would rejoice; the proof of his love would be incontrovertible, while the assurance of his solidarity would be her comfort through the dark vale of incarceration.

  In the first hours of her arrival at Holloway she had been too disorientated even to consider his reaction, or anyone else’s. She had not yet recovered from the shock of the sentence – six months had winded her like a punch to the stomach. Now, with the hours beginning to slow, she sensed trackless swathes of dead time in prospect, like an Arctic explorer looking out upon a tundra and suddenly daunted by the isolation.

  A few hours later on this same Saturday, Will was strolling north from King’s Cross, rehearsing in his head the scene to come. He had slept poorly that week, distracted by his endless replaying of what had occurred at Olivia’s wedding between himself and Connie, and the suspense she had provoked by deferring her answer. It was, he felt, a quite delicious suspense, rather like being not out overnight on ninety-odd, knowing that one boundary and a dashed single or two would take him to a hundred the next morning. Her demeanour, the very softness in her eyes, had instilled in him a certainty that she would consent to be his wife. If it pleased her to be coy and to pretend at indecision for a few days, well, then – so be it. Her footling over the matrimonial contract scarcely worried him. Once they were wed she would no longer have to query his entitlements, still less to make a public nuisance of herself. Her life would instead be consumed with the duties of a wife and hostess, and soon enough, perhaps, the joys and cares of a mother. An involuntary chuckle escaped his lips; only think, Mr and Mrs William Maitland! Request the pleasure of … will be At Home … are pleased to announce …

  Tickled by these rapturous novelties, Will quickened his pace along Caledonian Road, a thoroughfare he found quite hilariously tatty. Two o’clock, she had said. Crisp low sunlight hung over the September afternoon, gilding leaves that were just beginning to lose their green. As he approached the Callaway home he was puzzled to see the shutters closed and the blinds on the upstairs windows still down. It gave the house a prim look of mourning. Composing himself, he trotted up the front steps and, rather than pull the bell ring, applied a respectful double knock. A maid answered his summons, but on hearing his request she flushed deeply and stuttered out a few words to the effect that ‘Miss Constance’ wasn’t home at present.

  ‘Oh … out shopping, perhaps?’ he said lightly, but the girl frowned as if he had made a rather tasteless joke. Behind her, a door opened, and Fred put his head out. On seeing Will at the door, he gave an awkward little wave and said, ‘Thanks, Maggie, that’ll be all.’

  He invited Will through, and ushered him into the room from which he had emerged. It was a study, with a cliff face of books on either wall. Fred, unshaven and without a collar, gestured Will to the couch, and resumed his own place on a leather-backed chair. Newspapers lay open on the desk. Will sensed his host’s preoccupied air.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you. Constance appointed this hour to call upon her …’

  ‘Ah. Then … you haven’t heard.’

  The seriousness of his tone caused Will a moment of horrific dread. ‘What – is she ill?’ he said.

  ‘No, no, not that …’ Will felt relief flood his senses, though Fred’s countenance remained sombre. ‘She’s – she was arrested, on Tuesday. Breaking windows. She wouldn’t pay the fine, so … she’s in prison.’

  Will stared at him, too stunned to speak. In the silence that followed, Fred picked up a cigar cutter and began toying with it. After some moments Will found his voice, though it sounded strange to his ears.

  ‘In prison – where?’ He sensed his mind playing a trick, for this wasn’t the question foremost in his thoughts.

  Fred gave a slow, brooding nod. ‘Holloway.’ He could see that Will was struggling to digest this. ‘I’m sorry … It’s been rather a shock for us all.’

  ‘What – what did they give her?’

  Fred looked down, and said quietly, ‘Six months’ hard labour.’

  Will felt his hands shaking as he tried to steady himself. His thoughts, like a ragged army in retreat, were flying in vain towards any refuge that might hide him from the terrible pounding of these bare facts – that the woman he loved had been guilty of criminal damage, that she had gone to prison rather than pay a fine, that she had dealt his proposal the most belittling rejection. Had she meant to wound him? It seemed inconceivable, given their mutual avowals the last time they met, and yet her request for a week’s grace now seemed a mockery of his hopes. Fred had been talking on in the meantime, explaining how Connie would do four weeks’ solitary confinement before she was to be allowed a visitor or a letter, and how their mother had taken to her bed, while Olivia didn’t even know about it yet …

  ‘I say, old chap, are you –? You’ve gone awfully pale.’

  Will couldn’t speak. He lowered his head until it was cradled in his hands. Gazing at the Turkey carpet at his feet, he heard Fred rise from his chair and leave the room. Will was thinking of her, alone in a cell, and the terrible clench of pity it caused him overrode the shock of his humiliation. For a moment he sensed a mysterious nobility about her. She had sacrificed herself for a cause, a thing … He had never had that sort of belief himself – not in anything. That he had not suspected her capable of it was almost frightening. Did he really know her, this woman to whom he had poured out his heart? He heard Fred’s footsteps returning, and felt a nudge on his shoulder.

  ‘Here, down the hatch.’ Fred put the glass in his hand. Will smelt the soothing, nutty fumes of brandy, and, too wretched to object, he tossed it down his throat. The burn of it made his eyes water. When he finally looked up, Fred was sitting on the edge of the desk, his eyes trained anxiously on his visitor.

  ‘Thank you,’ Will croaked, handing back the drained glass. He wondered if his reaction to the news might look peculiar, for Fred would have no clue as to how matters stood between him and his sister. He had no clue, come to that. They talked for a brief while about what might be done for her, though neither of them had friends in Parliament, or in any other sphere of influence.

  ‘Six months,’ Will said in an appalled undertone. ‘Isn’t that … a bit stiff?’

  ‘I thought so, but then it came out in court that it was the house of one of Asquith’s cronies, and the magistrate apparently decided to make an example of them.’

&nbs
p; Another gloomy silence fell between them. Fred went pacing around the room, then eventually sighed: ‘To think of the fun we had at the wedding – this time last week! Poor Con …’ He stopped, and frowned. ‘I wonder if she was planning it then?’

  Will, staring into the distance, gave a non-committal shake of his head. He would like to have been open with Fred, to have recounted the peculiar course of his relationship with Connie, but he hardly knew the fellow. And any prospect of intimacy between them had now disappeared behind a prison door. He took up his hat, and rose hollow-legged from the couch.

  ‘I’m very sorry to have intruded,’ he muttered. ‘Be kind enough to pass on my condolences to your mother –’ He stopped, and looked Fred in the eye. ‘If you do get to visit Constance, would you tell her that – I called?’

  Fred gave a suspicionless nod. ‘Of course I will,’ he said. At the door a grave handshake was exchanged, and Will took his leave of the forlorn house. He retraced his steps around the crescent and onto Richmond Road, remembering the last time he had walked down this way, the afternoon he had come to her bearing flowers and an apology. Then he tormented himself further by retrieving the image of her face at the wedding, her eyes agleam, the lashes dark with tears. She had not intended to be so heartless towards him. Had she? You will have an answer, she had said, and this was it – she preferred a prison sentence to betrothal. He had just reached Matilda Street when he was seized by a dreadful sweating faintness. Grasping hold of a railing he half crouched, and had a couple of seconds to groan before he vomited onto the pavement.

  When the magistrate handed down his sentence Connie had wondered what might constitute hard labour, so it came as a relief to discover that the burden, so far, consisted in darning prison clothes. She was at work on a rough old stocking one morning when she heard the rattle of keys and her cell door being unlocked. She stood up, preparing for an inspection, but her visitor turned out to be a short, pudgy-faced man with a watchful gaze and fine, sandy-coloured hair. She recognised him as the prison chaplain. He introduced himself, in a gentle, faintly impedimented voice, and they sat down. He asked her how she was getting along.

  ‘Quite well,’ replied Connie, ‘apart from the light burning outside my room all night. And not having a book to read.’

  He picked up the cell’s prayer book from her table. The volume was unpromisingly titled The Narrow Way. ‘I have known inmates who have found great comfort in this,’ he said, riffling the pages.

  ‘I know quite enough already about “the narrow way”,’ she replied equably. ‘It rather describes the policy that put us in here.’

  He paused, watching her. ‘Have you faith in the Lord, Miss Callaway?’

  Connie gave a shrug. ‘As little as makes no difference.’

  ‘And yet the wardresses tell me they have heard singing from this cell – hymn singing.’

  She nodded. ‘I find it brings a certain … solace. When one is alone. Which is most of the time.’

  ‘And what hymns do you sing?’

  ‘Oh … I’m rather fond of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” at the moment.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful one,’ he agreed, and spread his palms. ‘Would you care to sing it now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m not alone.’

  His shoulders slumped in a little mime of disappointment. He drew his hands together, fingertips brushing his nose. ‘So you are confident of surviving this ordeal without the help of – a higher power?’

  ‘I’ll take my chances,’ she replied mildly.

  ‘Miss Callaway – may I speak candidly? Most of the women in this prison have not enjoyed the advantages that you have. They have strayed into criminality through hard circumstances, or through vicious influences – or because they scarcely know any better. You, on the other hand, have been privileged by birth and education to understand the concepts of good and evil, to make moral discriminations and to act accordingly. Have you never considered it your duty to set an example?’

  ‘My duty, as I see it, is to support the principle and justice of women’s suffrage. And in submitting myself to imprisonment I am setting an example – to women and to men, who will one day come to understand what the sacrifice of a few has done for the many.’

  ‘But that is absurd. All that you are sacrificing is your self-respect.’

  Connie narrowed her eyes at him. ‘I cannot agree. The absurdity is the government’s – to think they can crush an idea by shutting hundreds of us up like this.’

  ‘Your sentence is six months, I gather. Are you really prepared to serve that? Prison time will seem far longer than time spent outside.’

  She paused, considering. ‘A woman gives nine months of her time to the creation of a life. What is six months to give to a great movement like ours?’

  ‘Yes, but the waiting –’

  ‘Birth always means waiting.’

  The chaplain looked away, and sighed. He picked up the prayer book again, and seemed rueful. Eventually, he said, ‘I will endeavour to obtain other books for you. Is there anything in particular …?’

  Connie smiled at last, acknowledging his concession. ‘Some poetry? – if they have any.’

  He nodded, and his voice took on a musing tone. ‘I used to write a little, in that line. Before I was called to this …’ He looked about the cell, almost as if he were an inmate himself. ‘It was … mostly poor stuff. But you oughtn’t to think that all persons employed by the government are incapable of – lyric feeling.’

  She heard the slight defensiveness, and felt sorry for him. ‘I don’t think that,’ she said in a softened voice. He stood up to leave.

  ‘The life here can be grievously hard. Should you ever be in need of help, I will be at hand.’

  Connie waited until he had called for the wardress, then cleared her throat. ‘There is something I’d like to ask you.’

  ‘Yes?’ he said, leaning forward.

  ‘The hot drink they serve us here, with the meals. What is it?’

  The man looked puzzled. ‘The drink? Why, it’s tea.’

  ‘Tea?’ She blinked in surprise. ‘Well – thank you for telling me! I would never have guessed it from the taste.’

  It was evidently not the question he had hoped for. He bowed briefly at her, and withdrew.

  The window of her cell was three bars across, six bars down. Twenty-one squares of grimy glass. The bottom two panes opened, and Connie would stand on the stool to look out at the yard below, where ordinary prisoners took their daily exercise. They walked in a single file, one behind another, unspeaking. A cheerless brick building was all that she could see opposite her; the young wardress, whose name was Miss Ewell, had told her it was the infirmary. Today Connie was putting out a few breadcrumbs for the pigeon that had alighted on her ledge. It pleased her to think she was feeding the birds of Holloway at the government’s expense. The pigeon had paused, its gaze magisterial. Sometimes she would stare back into its marbled jet eyes, imagining she could hypnotise the creature and bring it under her control. But just when she seemed to have locked its eyes on hers, it would jerk its head aside and resume its silly pompous strut.

  Across the lower portions of the window names, dates, had been etched into the glass by the cell’s previous occupants. Was it mere idleness that had prompted them to scratch their names here, or was it an urge to memorialise, to remind future inmates that they had once passed through here? HELEN 08. SD. MIM. ANN. MAISIE. One artistic hand had carved her initials, EHW, with the first two letters floating daintily inside each cone of the W. Then Connie spotted one etched into a higher pane, quite on its own. R LOVES ALICE MARCHANT 1907. Something about the declaration surprised her; she had assumed that the prisoners would record only their own names. Why? Were they not just as likely to be the names of their sweethearts? She stared at the words again: ‘R’, whoever she was, had been tall, since Connie, even with her height, had to stand on tiptoe to touch the glass
. It moved her, for some reason, that R had limited herself to an initial, yet had patiently carved out the whole name of the girl she loved. Lucky Alice Marchant. She wondered if the love had survived imprisonment. How strong would it have to be? The pigeon she had been feeding had moved off, probably to scavenge outside another’s window. She felt in the pocket of her dress, and found her darning needle. Still on tiptoe, she began – an inch below R’s message – an inscription of her own. The point of the needle was less than sharp, so she couldn’t be as ambitious. But, heedless of the time, she scratched away at the glass until the initials were clearly legible. There were only two.

  WM

  11

  AS THE CAB drew to a halt outside Silverton House, Will stepped onto the gravel and held open the door for his mother and sister, both of them muffled in their winter coats and hats. It was ten days before Christmas, and they were returning late from one of the soirées that constituted Mrs Maitland’s seasonal round. Will’s present mood had inclined him against such gatherings, and this evening had become a particular trial once he realised that he was to be part of a matchmaking experiment. He had barely shaken hands with the host before his mother was imperiously summoning him from across the room and almost forcing him into the company of a young woman, who looked no less startled than he must have. Ada Brink was delicately pretty, with a mass of blonde curls, a pert mouth and a tinkling girlish laugh that Will found pleasant on the ear, if a little too easily provoked. He would no sooner offer some pale witticism than she was giggling behind her hand and calling him ‘a card’. When she told him that she had recently been to Court, he enquired as to her offence.