‘You don’t have to talk about it,’ he added upon seeing her reticence. ‘Only if you want to—it might help?’
‘It was hard,’ she began. ‘The cells were small, dark and ill-ventilated. There were lice on the damp mattress. We were forcibly searched, weighed and medically-examined at the whim of the wardress and doctor. We were allowed little exercise and nothing to read nor to occupy our minds. We tried singing and telling stories to keep our spirits up. And of course, we were absolutely starving hungry. Do you know what it takes to refuse a mug of cocoa and some bread and cheese when you haven’t eaten a single thing in two days and it’s placed down on the cell floor in front of you? Just the smell of it…’
It was a rhetorical question but Cecil shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine,’ he mumbled.
‘It was my own choice, of course: I could have eaten it and, on several occasions nearly did, but at that point it felt like running a race and giving up just before the finish line. We’d done so much. We made the national press,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘I knocked on Number 10 Downing Street and hit the Prime Minister: not many women from the workhouse can say that, now, can they?’
Cecil returned her smile. ‘No, I don’t suppose they can.’
‘Being force-fed was…’ She couldn’t quite find the words: ‘…it was inhumane, barbaric, mediaeval…torture, really. Having a doctor shove a rubber tube down your throat—a tube not washed or sanitised from the last person—was just…’
Cecil leant over and touched her arm. ‘You don’t need to carry on, Grace. Maybe it’s better forgotten?’
‘I’ll never forget it; not ever,’ she said, touching his hand with hers. ‘Do you know what the worst part was, though?’
He shook his head.
‘The special cells. Dark, damp and cold. The singing stopped. A single day felt like a month. Hours and hours were spent staring at the walls. By the end of it, I came to know the lines, contours and cracks of each and every brick like those of my own palms. Loneliness and despair came hand-in-hand. The one thing that helped me through it, that made me believe that it would all be worth it in the end, was the light across the street.’
Cecil was taken aback and his eyes moistened.
‘Even when I was moved and could no longer see it, it was there in my mind. You were there—not banging drums and shouting propaganda—just waiting for me. Thank you.’
Cecil wiped his eyes. ‘Goodness, you’re making me look a complete sissy.’
Grace laughed and squeezed his hand.
‘Will you carry on?’ he asked.
‘Until my leg improves, I’m limited to letter-writing and speeches. I’m back on the promenade next Saturday if you want to come and listen.’
‘I might just do that,’ he grinned. ‘Have you heard about the big meeting tomorrow night at the Brighton Pavilion?’
Grace shook her head and frowned. ‘Tomorrow? Are you sure? Minnie or someone from the WSPU would surely have said something. I don’t know anything about it.’
‘No, it’s an anti-suffrage meeting: the Brighton branch of the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage. There’s to be a march to the Pavilion where Mrs Wild is going to speak.’
‘Oh, golly!’ Grace muttered, sitting bolt upright. She had to be at that meeting. ‘That awful man’s wife.’
‘Why do you hate him so, Grace?’ Cecil asked.
‘The way he treats women,’ she answered. ‘Every woman in his life—family, servants and in his big factory—they’re all treated like third-class citizens. He needs bringing down a peg or two. Will you come to the meeting with me tomorrow?’
‘Of course, I will.’
Grace sighed and squeezed his hand again. Inside her heart an unknown warm sensation began to smoulder. ‘Perhaps afterwards we could have a walk and a cup of tea?’
‘I’d like that very much,’ he replied. ‘Maybe this time you’ll stay long enough to let me finish my drink?’
‘Don’t push your luck, Cecil Barwise.’
A deep rage gathered inside Grace, as she used her walking cane to step out of the taxi motor-car. A large crowd—maybe up to one hundred people, predominantly men—was gathering under the clock tower, just across the street from the WSPU office in the town centre. The gall of it! Their appearances revealed them to have largely come from the working classes. Didn’t they know better? Grace questioned. They, too would benefit from universal suffrage. The anger began to bubble up at the stupidity of what she was seeing. Someone on the other side of the crowd, out of Grace’s sight, began to corral the men into lines. A brass band struck up with the opening bars of an unfamiliar tune.
The taxi pulled away and Grace was left alone on the pavement, feeling decidedly vulnerable. She straightened her sash around her and raised the wooden placard. ‘Votes for women!’ she shouted.
A sea of choleric faces turned in her direction. The jeers began.
‘Votes for women!’ Grace shouted. ‘Votes for all!’
‘Votes for dogs!’ one of the men shouted back. ‘Votes for cats!’
‘Votes for flour!’ one of them laughed, rushing up to Grace and emptying a bag of flour over her head.
She swung her placard round to swipe the juvenile delinquent but he was too fast and ducked down before scurrying back to the pack of laughing men.
Grace shook herself down like a wet dog, then combed her fingers through her hair to pull some of the flour free. Two hair pins tumbled to the ground, bringing with them a lock of hair from her previously neat pompadour.
Something hard
