‘Da, I promised Dr Murray I would include some new quotations in a pile of slips he is sending to Ditte for sub-editing,’ I said. ‘Can the post wait this morning?’
‘Give it to me. It will be an easy start to the day.’
I was grateful for his predictable response.
Da’s profile was clear from where I sat at my desk. Instead of sorting slips, I watched for a change in expression as he went through the post. When he got to the bottom of the pile, he picked up the leaflet. I held my breath.
He looked it over, read the caption and considered it for a minute with a serious face. Then he relaxed into a smile, his head nodding in comprehension of the cartoon – the cleverness, perhaps? Or the argument? Instead of screwing it up, he put it in one of his piles. He rose from the sorting table and delivered each pile to its place.
‘This should interest you, Essy,’ Da said, as he placed a small pile of slips on my desk. ‘It came with the post.’
He watched me as I took the leaflet from him and looked it over as if I’d never seen it before.
‘Something worth discussing with your young friends,’ Da said, before walking away.
Tilda was right; I was a coward. I put the leaflet in my desk and took my newest slip from my pocket.
Sisters. I searched the pigeon-holes. Sisters had plenty of slips, and already they had been sorted and top-slips written for different senses, but comrades was not one of them.
Lizzie was spending more and more time in the kitchen since Mrs Ballard began having her turns. The doctor had cautioned against standing for long periods, so Mrs Ballard had taken to sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of tea, issuing instructions. When I came in, she was turning the pages of the Oxford Chronicle and reminding Lizzie to salt the bird that had just been delivered.
‘Don’t be mean with it, now,’ she said. ‘It needs a goodly amount to make it tender. The longer it sits, the better.’
Lizzie rolled her eyes but kept her smile. ‘You’ve had me salting the birds since I was twelve, Mrs B. I reckon I know what to do.’
‘Been some trouble in town, they say,’ said Mrs Ballard, ignoring Lizzie. ‘Some suffragettes caught painting slogans on the Town Hall. It says here they was chased down St Aldate’s and they might have got away except one of them fell and the other two stopped to help her up.’
‘Suffragettes?’ said Lizzie. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’
‘That’s what it says.’ Mrs Ballard read through the article. ‘It’s what they’re calling Mrs Pankhurst’s women.’
‘Just slogans?’ I said. I’d expected arson.
‘It says here that they used red paint to write Women: No more rights than a convict.’
‘Didn’t your leaflet say that, Esme?’ asked Lizzie, her hands in the bird, her eyes on me.
‘The one who fell is married to the magistrate,’ Mrs Ballard continued. ‘And the other two are from Somerville College. All educated ladies. How shaming.’
‘It wasn’t my leaflet, Lizzie. It came in the post.’
‘Any idea who delivered it?’ she asked, without looking away.
I felt a crimson flush rise up my neck and engulf my face. She had my answer and returned to the bird, her movements a little rougher.
I moved to read the article over Mrs Ballard’s shoulder. Three arrests. No convictions, so no trial. I wondered if Tilda and Mrs Pankhurst would be disappointed.
In the Scriptorium, I searched the pigeon-holes. Suffrage was there, and so was suffragist. Suffragette wasn’t. I dug out recent copies of the Times of London, the Oxford Times and the Oxford Chronicle and took them to my desk. Each had articles mentioning suffragettes, one referred to suffragents, and another used the word suffragetting as a verb. I cut them out, underlined the quotations and stuck each to its own slip. Then I put all of them in the pigeon-hole they belonged to.
The performance was over for another night, and Bill and I were helping Tilda change into her street clothes.
‘You’re too comfortable, Esme,’ Tilda said as she stepped out of Beatrice’s bloomers.
‘But I live here, Tilda.’
‘So do the magistrate’s wife and the women from Somerville College.’
An hour later, we were at the Eagle and Child again. I felt dull against the energy of the women who had gathered to help. The new leaflet urged them to join Emmeline Pankhurst at a march in London, and already they were making travel plans. I wanted their resolve to infect me, but by the time we had spilled onto the street I had convinced myself I wouldn’t be joining them.
‘You’re scared, that’s all,’ Tilda said, her hand on my cheek like I was a child. She gave a bundle of leaflets to Bill and began to walk backwards. ‘Problem is, Esme, you’re scared of the wrong thing. Without the vote nothing we say matters, and that should terrify you.’
Lizzie was at the kitchen table, her sewing basket and a small pile of clothes in front of her. I looked towards the pantry for Mrs Ballard.
‘In the house, with Mrs Murray,’ Lizzie said. Then she handed me three crumpled leaflets. ‘I found them in your coat pocket. I wasn’t snooping, just checking the seams ’cos I was fixing the hem.’
I stood dumb. I had a familiar feeling that I deserved to be in trouble, but didn’t quite understand why.
‘I’ve seen them here and there, fallen out of letterboxes and stuck up at the Covered Market. I’ve been told what they say. Even been asked if I was going.’ She scoffed. ‘As if I could go to London for the day. She’ll lead you astray, Essymay, if you let her.’
‘Who?’
‘You know very well.’
‘I know my own mind, Lizzie.’
‘That may be, but you’ve never been any good at knowing what’s good for you.’
‘It’s not just about me; it’s about all women.’
‘So, you did deliver them?’
Lizzie was thirty-two years old
