The Sweetest Empire
By
Sally Patricia Gardner
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2007 by Sally Patricia Gardner
All Rights Reserved
To a Lady, with some painted flowers.
Flowers to the fair: to you these flowers I bring,
And strive to greet you with an earlier spring.
Flowers sweet, and gay, and delicate like you:
Emblems of innocence, and beauty too.
With flowers the Graces bind their yellow hair,
And flowery wreaths consenting lovers wear.
Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew,
In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew.
To loftier forms are rougher tasks assign'd:
The sheltering oak resists the stormy wind,
The tougher yew repels invading foes,
And the tall pine for future navies grows:
But this soft family, to cares unknown,
Were born for pleasure and delight alone.
Gay without toil, and lovely without art,
They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the heart.
Nor blush, my fair, to own you copy these:
Your best, your sweetest empire is – to please.'
Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld.
This is the story of successive generations of women who refused to know their place.
And a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to their real life counterparts.
Table of Contents
Part Two: Elizabeth, born 1878
Part Four: Hyacinth, born 1907
Part Five: Charlotte, born 1922
Prologue
She had always been frightened of horses, so that made it all the more ironic. But deep down she knew that her very fear had to be part of the sacrifice if it was going to mean anything at all. This time she was not going to fail.
It was a mellow, warm June day. Odd to be thinking so carefully about what to wear. As if it had ever mattered. Though as she chose a scarlet hat and gloves, the colour her one nod to both the gaiety and the defiance she was feeling, her mind flew back to that other red hat, so long ago. If she closed her eyes tightly she could still see her mother’s delighted expression as she tried it on in front of the large, gilt-framed mirror over the dining-room fireplace and the look of pride on her father’s face…
Part One: Mary
1868
“New hats for both my girls,” declared her father, gently pushing Mary to stand by her mother. Mother and daughter’s reflections beamed back at him together. Mother with the frivolous hat perched on her dark curls. Mary in her shiny new mortar-board. Wide smiles on both faces.
“This is going to be a year to remember for the Morrison family, thanks to my two talented women,” he pronounced.
So like him to celebrate her achievement as a triumph for the whole family, thought Mary. As indeed it was. Mary knew how fortunate she was that her parents believed in education for women and were happy to let her accept the scholarship to the college. Most of her school friends would not have been given the time or the encouragement to study, let alone take the exams. Even the Queen seemed to think that educating women was a waste of time. But Richard Morrison had married Dora at least partly because her intelligent conversation delighted him, not in spite of it. The news of Mary’s academic success afforded him the kind of pride that most fathers reserved for their sons.
Putting his face between them so that all three were posed in the mirror he announced: “And tomorrow I have a treat for us all. We are going to the Derby. A chance for your mother to show off her new hat, and for me to show off my clever daughter.”
They all rose early the following day. Richard had been to the Derby a couple of times before with some colleagues from the bank, but neither of the two women had ever been near a racecourse. It was quite a long ride on the tram, but, with their picnic basket stowed at their feet, their excitement helped it to pass quickly. When they finally arrived at Epsom, Mary was taken aback by the noise and bustle of the large crowd, but thrilled by the feeling that she was part of something exciting and special.
They did not manage to get near to the rail for the first race and so were only able to see the flash of the jockeys’ colours through the cheering figures in front of them. Mary was startled by the noise of the horses’ hooves on the turf and the way the ground seemed to shake as they pounded past on their way to the finishing post.
The winner of the race received an enormous cheer, though for most people it must have been merely a reaction to the tension, as all around them betting tickets were being thrown away with grimaces of disgust.
“Would you like to choose a horse for the next race?” asked Richard.
Mary and her mother looked at him in disbelief. From virtually every pulpit in the land sermons were preached against gambling, which apparently went hand in hand with the demon drink as the shortest road to hell. Richard laughed at them.
“Come along now, choose a name from the board and I will place a bet for us all. It will add to the fun, I promise you.”
And so it did. They chose a horse called Nightingale and found they were shouting for him in a quite abandoned way, to Richard’s amusement. But, as he pointed out, the aristocratic ladies in the stands were behaving in a similar boisterous fashion, so after that Dora relaxed. Nightingale trailed in somewhere at the back, to their disappointment, but Richard insisted that they try again. This time they chose a horse called Blue Gown, because Mary was wearing just such a dress. Richard said it had quite long odds and was unlikely to win but they had glimpsed him in the paddocks and had seen that he was a splendid horse so they told Richard that they would stay with their choice.
They had secured a place at the rail by now and their excitement knew no bounds when their horse came in first. Richard went off to collect their winnings.
“Enough for several hats,” he chortled.
The two women decided to walk round the course trying to catch another sight of their favourite. As they moved toward the paddocks a sudden commotion broke out in front of them and a scream rent the air. Startled, the two women were torn apart by a rush of people and before they had time to realise what was happening, a large black horse came surging toward Dora, who was powerless to move out of its path. Mary heard herself scream as she saw her mother thrown to the ground. The next moment someone had grabbed the reins of the panicked horse and was holding on for dear life as it reared and foamed at the mouth. Several men came running up and as the horse was finally quietened and moved away, Mary pushed her way toward her mother’s lifeless figure.
“Let me through, oh please, let me through,” she sobbed, and people fell back to make a path for her.
As she reached her mother she heard a masculine voice saying: “Make way, please, I’m a doctor.”
She looked up to see an elderly gentleman emerge from the crowd. He fell on his knees beside her and took her mother’s wrist in his hand.
“Thank God,” he said, “There is a pulse. She is still alive. We must get her home. Is she your mother?”
Mary nodded.
“Bear up, my dear,” he said, “I think she hit her head when she fell, but I don’t believe there is any other damage. Do you have a carriage here?”
Mary shook her head, suddenly unable to speak. With relief she heard her father’s voice and the next moment she was in his arms.
“Sir, is this lady your wife?” asked the doctor as Richard knelt beside the motionless figure.
Holding his wife tenderly, he replied: “Indeed, she is, Sir.”
“Tell me where you live and I will take you all home in my carriage, then you can send for your own physician.”
Back in their Norwood home, Dora was still lying unconscious on the sofa. Mary, recovering some of her usual composure and trying to stop her hands shaking, carefully removed Dora’s hat. She was shocked to see that it had been concealing a mass of dried blood. Richard sent their maidservant, Alice, for Dr White, who came straight away.
Dr White examined the wound on Dora’s head and sent Alice for some warm water. Between them, he and Mary cleaned the wound and while they were doing this a long, soft sigh escaped from Dora’s lips. Almost immediately her fluttering eyelids showed that she was coming back to life.
“Mrs Morrison, this is Dr White. Can you hear me?”
After a moment’s blank look, Dora focussed her eyes on the doctor and nodded weakly.
“Mary,” she murmured, “Where is Mary?”
Mary moved forward to take her mother’s hand, as Richard, who had fallen back to allow for the doctor’s ministrations, came into his wife’s line of vision.
All he was able to say was: “Oh, Dora, my love,” before a sob stopped his voice.
Dora struggled into a sitting position and, with a touch of her usual perkiness, asked: “Just how did I get home? No, never mind, tell me later. Are we all going to have a cup of tea now? As I remember we never did eat our picnic.”
Everyone realised that, pale and shaken though Dora was, she was trying to restore normality to the situation and Alice was dispatched to make the tea.
Having prescribed a dose of laudanum for Dora in order to calm her nerves, Dr White departed, promising to call again the next day. Richard went to the apothecary in the next street with the prescription while Mary summoned Alice to help her take Dora upstairs to bed. Mary was alarmed to see how unsteady her mother was and relieved when Richard returned with the medicine. Unused to dealing with drugs, they measured it carefully into a tumbler of water, and Richard took it up to his wife.
Mary and her father picked at the supper of cold ham that Alice had prepared for them before deciding to retire to bed themselves. Richard, still almost as pale as his wife, kissed Mary goodnight, saying ruefully: “Sorry, my darling, not quite the celebration I had in mind.”
Mary decided she was too worried and overwrought to sleep so she lit the oil lamp, and, sitting in the chair by the fire, picked up her much-thumbed copy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost She was to read literature at Holloway College and already had her reading list. She had been delighted to find that she already possessed most of the books on it. Tonight, though, the words and images were superseded by the events of the day.
At last, she drifted into an uneasy sleep, waking in a panic at the noise of horses’ hooves. She discovered the volume of poetry had slipped off her lap, knocking the brass companion set onto the tiled hearth. Wearily, she set everything to rights, doused the lamp, and finally prepared for bed. Her last conscious thought, as the dawn started to colour the sky, was to wonder what the morning would bring.
***
1870
Mary let herself into the darkened house with her usual slight trepidation. The silence felt like a physical presence. She was relieved to hear Alice bustling along the hall toward her.
“Oh, Alice, how is Mother?” she asked, removing her hatpins and laying her hat and satchel of books on the side table, “Has she had a good day?”
“Passing good, Miss,” replied Alice. Mary knew what that meant. It meant that Dora had slept a lot, eaten a little and spoken hardly at all. “I gave her the medicine about half an hour ago. She’s asleep again now.”
“Thank you, Alice,” Mary said. “Look, I’ll get the supper tonight. You go out with that young man of yours.”
“Well, if you are sure, Miss,” said Alice, already loosening the strings on her apron.
“Of course I am,” replied Mary. “Go on. Let yourself in quietly when you come home though, in case Father retires early.”
Going through into the drawing room she collapsed onto the sofa under the window. She was conscious of familiar and recurring pangs of guilt because when she was at college she felt young and motivated and full of life and fun, but the minute she arrived home depression descended on her like a dark veil. Her father would be home soon. Always coming through the door anticipating some miracle. That Dora would be dressed and animated, or at very least bearing some relation to the woman he had loved and married.
In her heart of hearts, Mary knew this was never going to happen. The woman Dora had been died on that fateful day at Epsom. The querulous, sometimes demanding, but mostly frighteningly fragile and passive invalid upstairs was the remnant of that intelligent and active person. Richard had consulted various physicians who talked vaguely of ‘nervous disorders’ and ‘pressure on the brain’ but offered no remedies that might release Dora from her twilight prison.
Mary went through to the kitchen to prepare a meal for herself and her father. If they ate as soon as he came home she would have time to study. As she chopped vegetables and filled saucepans her mind was occupied with the day’s lectures. She could no longer discuss her lessons with her parents as she had when at school. Dora was not well enough and Richard was too distracted. But her longing for the stimulation of intelligent conversation was now being filled by her college friends.
She had become especially intimate with Violet, who, like herself, was on a scholarship and reading literature. Mary greatly admired the sharp mind of her friend and they had fallen into the habit of eating their lunchtime sandwiches together. The two girls had many lively and enjoyable debates concerning the merits of their favourite writers. Each had visited the other’s house to meet their families and had encountered mutual approval.
Mary had felt able to confide in Violet how distressed she was at seeing her mother’s gradual deterioration. Just being able to admit to another person that she had little hope of improvement in Dora’s condition helped to ease the burden of the constant optimism she showed to her father.
“Though he probably does the same for me,” she admitted ruefully.
“Yes,” replied Violet, “but I expect he has friends at the bank to talk to, whereas until you started college you did not have anyone.”
Mary did not like to admit even to Violet that caring for her mother was becoming so demanding that she was beginning to think that she might have to forego her studies for a time. She was planning to talk to her tutors soon, as she was finding it more and more difficult to manage. She thought that they would keep her place as she
knew she was an above average student. Though when she might be in a position to resume was quite another matter.
She was startled by the sound of the door bell. Drying her hands as she went into the hall, she made out two figures through the frosted glass on the door and she suddenly felt a wave of apprehension. Hesitating, she took a deep breath before opening the door. The two men looked vaguely familiar.
“Miss Morrison,” said the younger of the two, a man in his twenties. “You may remember me. I am a colleague of your father’s. I brought some accounts round to him one evening and he introduced us. My name is Daniel Parson, and this is another colleague of your father’s, Mr Robbins. We have some difficult news for you and your mother. May we come in?”
“What has happened? Where is my father? Why are you here?” Mary could hear the mounting hysteria in her voice but was helpless to do anything about it.
“Please, Miss Morrison,” and Daniel took Mary by the elbow and guided her along the hall and in through the open door to the drawing room. Seating her in the large armchair by the fire – her father’s armchair, thought Mary – he stood with his back to the hearth in front of her and waited for his colleague to speak.
“Miss Morrison,” Mr Robbins began hesitantly, then: “Oh, dear Miss Morrison, there is no easy way to tell you this. Your father had a seizure at work early this afternoon. It was not immediately realised as he was working alone in the inner office. By the time we found him and sent for the physician I am afraid it was too late. As I am sure you are aware, he has been complaining of chest pains for some time. He refused to see his doctor although several of us had urged him to do so. We believe his heart may have been under too much strain lately, and ultimately was unable to cope.”
Daniel dropped to his knees and began to rub Mary’s hands, which had begun to tremble uncontrollably. Spotting a decanter on the sideboard, Mr Robbins poured some of the golden liquid into a glass for Mary, and Daniel put it into her hand and urged her to drink. The sip of whisky coursed through her like fire, enabling Mary to stop the shaking that was suffusing her entire body.
“Where is my father now?”
“The bank has already made some arrangements and his body…” Mr Robbins broke off abruptly, then, clearing his throat, he began again. “Your father is with Mr Perrin, the undertaker. I hope that is acceptable. Would you like to see him tomorrow? If so I will inform them.”
“Please.” She seemed incapable of saying more.
“Miss Morrison, have you someone who can stay with you? How is your mother? How will she bear the news?”
How indeed, thought Mary, trying, through her shock and grief, to confront the logistics of the situation.
“Gentlemen,” she said, gathering up the remnants of her strength, “I have no-one I can send for, but I shall tell my mother after she has had her medication so that she is the stronger to bear it. Forgive me, and please do not think that I do not appreciate your concern and what you have already done for us, but I think I must be alone now.”
Rising unsteadily but with determination, she shook hands with each man in turn, before ushering them into the hallway.
“May I call in the morning and see how you are?” asked Daniel.
“Thank you. That would be most thoughtful,” replied Mary as she let them out.
She was surprised to see that the evening sun was still shining and that life in the road was going on as normal. It was as if time was standing still and she was acting in a dream. Her father had never mentioned chest pains to her, though she had been aware that he had grown thin and for some time had little appetite. She had put it down to the strain of her mother’s illness.
Which brought her back to the moment. How to tell her mother. She went back into the kitchen to resume the supper preparations. Her mind felt numb. As she bent over the sink she was suddenly aware of the tears pouring down her face and dripping onto the half-peeled potato that was shaking uncontrollably in her hands.
Her mind was suddenly flooded with memories. Her father arriving home from the bank and hoisting her four-year-old self on to his shoulder with loud shouts of: “How tall you’ve grown today,” as she gripped his hair and gurgled with laughter. A picture of him sitting at her school desk, much too small for his long legs, as her teacher charted her progress, and winking slyly at her as her lack of talent for, and application to, drawing and painting was bemoaned. Him waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs until she appeared in her first grown-up gown to attend her first adult dance, his face suffused in proud smiles. Always there. A rock in her life. Gone. Forever.
Her sight misted over and she sank to the floor and gave way to a paroxysm of weeping.
“Oh, Father, Father, please don’t let this be happening,” she wept. “Please let it be some awful dream and let me wake up.”
But she knew that her plea was the fantasy and the nightmare was the truth.
When her storm of crying was finally exhausted she rose to her feet and straightened her clothes. Rinsing her face at the sink, she measured out Dora’s laudanum into a small glass as the kettle boiled on the range. Squaring her shoulders, she ascended the stairs with the freshly made tea and her mother’s medicine on a tray.
Dora was half sitting up in bed. “Mary, darling, I thought I heard voices. Isn’t Father home yet?”
There was the slight slurring of her words which Mary had become used to, even while telling herself she was imagining it.
“Yes, we have had some visitors,” she agreed. “Here, Mother, take your medicine while I pour the tea.”
She watched surreptitiously, making sure that her mother drank it all. Dora lay back on the pillow, exhausted by even this small effort. Bracing herself once more, Mary began to tell her mother, as gently as possible, the dreadful news.
***
1877
Mary was deep in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park when Alice’s head popped round the door. “Miss,” she whispered, “The Master’s coming.”
With muttered thanks Mary stowed the book under the cushion on her chair and picked up her embroidery. Even as she did this she silently berated herself for her cowardice. It was ridiculous that she should be pretending to Daniel that she was not studying. She just couldn’t face another evening of the silence that felt like a tangible, disapproving presence every time she raised the subject of going back to college.
“You are much cleverer than I am,” Violet had said on one of her clandestine visits, “surely you don’t need Daniel’s permission to take up your place again and get qualified?”
But it seemed that she did. It was humiliating but true. She sometimes couldn’t believe that she now found herself in the situation that her parents had deemed completely unacceptable for her contemporaries. Richard had always been such an advocate of education for all. After Dora’s gradual fading away, though, Mary felt so alone, so rudderless. Dora’s had been such a quiet, such an undramatic death, as if all the drama had taken place on the Epsom racecourse that day and left no room for any other. Mary was sure her real wish had been to join Richard and what little will to live she had left died with his death.
So Daniel’s constant attention, which gradually turned to courtship, had been such a balm, such a lifeline. She had talked about going back to college but she now realised how easily he had diverted her. As soon as she was out of mourning, they had married, with Violet and her parents their entire wedding party. Violet had never been entirely sanguine about the marriage but was won over by Daniel’s undoubted charm.
At first, Mary had taken some pleasure in rearranging the house to suit them, and with Alice’s help she had spring-cleaned the big front bedroom which had been Richard and Dora’s. Together she and Alice had moved the big dark furniture about until it all looked quite different and she and Daniel had moved into it after their marriage.
Daniel had been in lodgings near the bank so he brought little in the way of appurtenances with him. His parents lived in Scotland, he said, and his mother’s ill health precluded them from coming to the wedding. Mary was disappointed, as she had looked forward to meeting her new relations. She had hoped that with her marriage she might gain another family, having so tragically lost her own. Daniel promised that they would visit his parents one day, but it had become one more subject that she was reticent to raise, due to his taciturn rebuffs.
With memories of her own happy childhood, she had hoped that they might soon have children of their own, so coyly referred to as ‘the patter of little feet’ by Alice, but the monthly bloodstained cloths in the bucket had finally silenced Alice’s optimism on the subject. Much of an age, the two young women had lived in the same house for a decade, and had few secrets from each other.
Alice’s young man, Anthony, was in the army, but they were planning to be married on his next leave. They had been betrothed for two years, and his mother, a widow, had told Alice that they would be welcome to share her home. Mary was pleased for Alice, but knew how much she was going to miss her.
However, Anthony was one of the many British soldiers who had been sent to India the previous year to prepare for the forthcoming visit of the Prince of Wales. The Queen, of course, was now Empress of India, and whilst appreciating the importance of the Prince’s visit, which was constantly discussed in the newspapers, Mary was occasionally irritated to hear Alice talking as if Anthony was personally responsible for the success of this event. But Mary was guiltily relieved that he would not be home for some time and did not really begrudge Alice this consolation. She was conscious of how much Alice’s loyalty and support had come to mean to her.
She looked up with a smile as Daniel entered the room.
“Hello, darling, how were things at the bank today?”
“Much the same as every other day,” replied her husband tersely, crossing the room and standing with his back to her looking out of the window.
Mary’s heart sank. Something was wrong. She tried to think what could possibly have upset Daniel. A knock at the door, and the moment of revelation was delayed by Alice’s entrance with a tea tray. Supper in the Parson household was served later than was currently fashionable, so Daniel liked to have tea as soon as he arrived home. Husband and wife waited in silence as Alice poured the delicate Earl Grey beverage that Daniel insisted upon. She handed them each a cup and then threw an anxious glance at Mary before exiting.
“So,” said Daniel. “And what has my clever wife been up to today?”
Mary remembered the same phrase in her father’s mouth, spoken with such love and pride to her mother, and wondered fleetingly how the same words could sound so contemptuous.
“Oh, nothing much,” she answered with a laugh that sounded false even to her own ears. “I went shopping in the town this morning, but nothing unusual, really.”
“Yes,” replied Daniel. “I was told that you had been seen in the town. Talking to your spinster friend the school teacher.”
Indignation welled up in Mary, feeling like a pressure in her chest.
“I had no idea that my movements were being monitored, Daniel. I did indeed meet Violet and we did take refreshment together.”
Finally turning to face her, Daniel replied: “I will not have you being seen talking to such a person. You are my wife now, and a woman who disregards her obligations to her sex such as this teacher person is not a suitable friend for you.”
Mary could barely believe her ears. “Daniel, Violet is my closest friend. My parents were as fond of her as I am, and in any case I am certainly not having you dictate to me who I can see or not see.”
She turned to leave the room and was startled as he grasped her by the upper arm and turned her to face him, pushing his face close to hers.
“On the contrary, my dear wife, you will do exactly as I tell you. I forbid you to see this woman again, and if you do not agree I shall forbid you to leave this house except in my presence.”
“Don’t be absurd,” gasped Mary, trying and failing to pull away from him. “What are you going to do – keep me prisoner in my own house?”
“I think you mean my house,” replied her husband.
“Let me go,” Mary ordered. “You are hurting me, and you know perfectly well that Father left this house to me. I really cannot believe that you are behaving in this loutish fashion.”
Wresting herself from his grasp she tried once more to leave the room, only to reel back clutching her cheek as he hit her across the face.
“Understand this, Mary,” he snarled, backing her against the closed door. “Whether you like it or not, you are my wife. Which means that this is now my house, as much my property as you are. You will not ask that woman, or indeed anyone, into the house without my permission. You will not leave the house without my permission. If you disobey me I will inform the police and have you brought back like a common vagrant. And as for this,” he picked up her copy of Mansfield Park, which had fallen to the floor in the scuffle, “the only place for it is there.”
He threw the book on the fire and stood back watching the pages curl and catch light. “I am going out. I will be back at seven thirty. Tell Alice supper will be served then. And please tidy yourself. I do not like to see my wife so dishevelled.”
Mary sank back into her chair, holding her breath until she heard the front door slam. As she rose shakily to her feet, Alice came hurtling through the door.
“Oh, Miss Mary, I heard, I heard it all. What are you going to do? It was dreadful. I was so frightened. I thought he was going to murder you.”
Mary reached out to hold her hand, wondering whether it was to give or receive comfort.
“Alice,” she whispered, “Alice. What have I done? Is this a temporary insanity or have I married a monster? Did he only marry me for gain? I thought he loved me. But how could he..?”
Overcome with despair she wept in Alice’s arms, her servant and friend crying with her. Eventually straightening up, she took Alice by the shoulders and wiped their mutual tears away, trying to laugh.
“What a couple of frights we look. Come, Alice, let’s get his Lordship’s supper. We don’t need another scene tonight.”
Or indeed ever, she thought, as they went into the kitchen. Shaken and hurt though she was, she realised that her main emotions were indignation and pure rage. If there was one thing she was certain of it was that she had never been anybody’s chattel, and it was not a role she was about to undertake now. Perhaps in her loneliness she had been deceived into mistaking avarice for love, and charm for sincerity, but it had just been made crystal clear to her what the position was and she was not going to hanker after what might have been.
For better or for worse, she thought grimly, she would find a way out of this. Somehow, Daniel was going to find out that Mary had not been brought up to be anyone’s property, and she was not going to start now. Chopping parsley with angry vigour, she began to plan.
“Alice, I shall need your help tomorrow. As soon as Mr Parson has gone to the bank, I must take the tram into town and go to speak to Mr Dyson, Father’s solicitor. He will tell me what I must do. It was he who explained to me that Father had left this house to Mother, and eventually to me. But I need to make quite sure that what Daniel said was nonsense. Then I shall enrol at college again whatever he says. I swear that I will never let him hit me again. I have perhaps not exerted myself enough or he would surely have never spoken or acted toward me in such a fashion.”
“You know I’ll do anything to help, Miss, but do go and tidy up now,” urged Alice. “He’ll be back soon. I’ll carry on here.”
Seeing the sense of this, Mary ran upstairs and quickly straightened her dress and combed back her hair, which had fallen out of the heavy plait she habitually wore round her head. Pinching her cheeks to restore the colour she glanced down at the street and saw Daniel on the other side of the road, talking to a young girl.
They were laughing together in an unquestionably familiar way. The girl looked across at the house, and Mary drew back into the shadows. As she watched, she saw Daniel hand what appeared to be money to the girl, who nodded and walked off. Daniel turned and made for the house.
Mary ran rapidly down the stairs, calling to alert Alice, and began to lay the dining room table for supper. As she struggled to control the pounding of her heart she came face to face with a truth that she had hitherto not acknowledged. She was afraid of her husband. And with that realisation came a determination that she would not be cowed.
“I am,” she told herself firmly, “an educated, independent woman, living in England in the nineteenth century. It would be absurd to let Daniel or any other man think he can subjugate me. Tomorrow I shall put an end to this. Tonight, however, I must play the submissive wife.” Hearing his key in the lock, she forced a smile on to her face, and went into the hall to greet him.
***
1878
The room was so dark. She had drawn the curtains back, which enabled a chink of light to peep through, but she didn’t want to risk waking Elizabeth. Quietly, she crossed the room and looked down at the sleeping baby, thumb contentedly tucked into her mouth, her little lace cap framing her face. Mary crept back to the chair by the window, careful to make no noise.
A roar of laughter rose from downstairs, making her jump. She knew Daniel had asked some of his friends round to the house this evening. She had watched them arrive from her window, and guessed it was another gaming party. No doubt Evangeline was holding court, in her dual role as hostess and servant. Mary sometimes wondered which the woman enjoyed most -taking Mary’s place both in Daniel’s bed and at his table, or acting as Mary’s jailer.
Elizabeth started awake as one of the men burst into a drunken song, his voice joined almost immediately by Evangeline’s. Mary quickly picked up her daughter and buried her face in Elizabeth’s chubby neck, pacifying them both. As she rocked the baby gently back and forth she wondered how soon she would hear from Alice. Dear Alice. How would she have managed these last months without her? Alice was her only real link with the outside world now.
She remembered so well her shock and disbelief when she returned on that fateful morning from Mr Dyson’s office to find Daniel waiting for her with the news that he had dismissed Alice: “And, as you have so blatantly disobeyed my orders, you shall now go to your room until I call you.”
With this he had literally forced her up the stairs and pushed her into the bedroom that had been hers when a child, at the back of the house. She had listened to the key turning in the lock with growing horror. Her mind was still reeling from what Mr Dyson had told her. That her property now belonged absolutely to Daniel. That by her marriage she had lost her right to own anything. She had stared at her father’s lawyer with incredulity.
“But why,” she stammered, “Why did I not know any of this?”
Mr Dyson shrugged noncommittally. “I can only imagine that your father had no presentiment of such a situation occurring, Mrs Parson. He could hardly have envisaged his own unfortunate early death. The house was, of course, entailed to your dear mother, with instructions that it should pass to you on her demise. Both these events happened much sooner than anyone could have imagined. I hesitate to seem critical, but your father did have some slightly odd ideas regarding the ability of your sex to manage financial affairs and suchlike. I would suggest that you return home and concentrate on pleasing your husband, my dear, which is, after all, your duty. Your husband is quite within his rights to forbid you to leave his house. I fear your father was remiss in not explaining to you the obligations and responsibilities that a wife has to her husband.”
Rising to her feet, Mary held Mr Dyson’s gaze for a long moment. “And does my husband have no such obligations to me, Sir?”
Mr Dyson also stood. “Mrs Parson, as far as I can tell, you are fed and clothed and housed. Those are your husband’s obligations, and these he has obviously fulfilled. Forgive me, I have other appointments.”
Thus dismissed, Mary arrived home stunned and totally unprepared for the terrible events that awaited her. She had little memory of those first days, locked in her room, her only visitor the ubiquitous Evangeline, insolent and surly, who she recognised as the woman she had seen talking to Daniel in the street. It was as if she had entered into a black space and was unable, physically or emotionally, to pull herself out.
Then, one evening, lying on her bed, she had heard a noise under the window. Crossing to see what had caused it, she found Alice below.
“Oh, Miss,” came the whispered voice, “Am I pleased to see you! I thought he’d murdered you.”
Alice. Her path back into the sane world. Under her window every evening whispering, planning, bringing her hope. A promise of escape, somehow. Then the shock of realising that her constant nausea was not solely due to her unhealthy imprisonment, that her tender breasts and thickening body heralded something quite different. How glad she would have been three months earlier. How ironic that this should happen now.
Evangeline must have noticed the signs and told Daniel. He finally appeared at the door of her prison.
“So I believe that I am finally going to have a son? I had thought you incapable even of that. I want your word that you will not leave the house without my permission.”
She gave it. What else could she have done? For a time a semblance of normality resumed. In spite of the ever watchful Evangeline, Elizabeth, now released from her room, was able to pass notes to Alice via various tradesmen and endeavour to assure her friend that she thought all might eventually turn out well. That Daniel might become a better father than he was a husband had been her fantasy.
Then one long day and night of pain. At some point Evangeline was sent to fetch the midwife, then Dr White. Finally, through the mists of exhaustion, the baby crying, Dr White’s triumphant voice: “It’s a beautiful, healthy little girl.”
The feel of Elizabeth at her breast. A joy she had not imagined. “I shall never be alone again,” she thought as she drifted into sleep.
Waking to hear Daniel’s voice: “A girl. A snivelling brat. You couldn’t even manage to give me a son.”
And so the nightmare began again. But now she had someone to live for.
***
1879
Mary sometimes wondered what sixth sense had made her keep Dora’s jewellery hidden away in the box at the back of her wardrobe. She had simply not wanted to wear any of her mother’s pretty things. It was too soon, too raw, such a potent reminder of the effervescent personality that had once been her mother. Richard had been such a generous and loving husband. Every anniversary, great and small, had been remembered with a ring, or a bracelet, or a brooch, usually set with her mother’s favourite rubies or garnets. Their glittering colours represented Mary’s path to freedom.
So she made her plans. While Daniel was at the bank and Evangeline at the shops, Mary penned and passed notes to Alice through the kitchen window, thrusting her head and shoulders as far out as possible so as to breathe in the friendly fresh air. She often thought that only her concentration on the future stopped her incarceration in the house from driving her insane. That and her baby daughter.
She knew that she and Elizabeth must have money to live on while she finished at college. She also knew that Dora would have entirely approved of her jewellery being sold for this purpose. She had already transferred most of it into Alice’s trusty care, along with some of her father’s books and a couple of miniatures she was reasonably certain Daniel would not miss. She was aware that Evangeline pilfered from the house regularly and that he never noticed. Thankfully, only Mary, the rightful owner, was familiar with every item in this house where she had grown up.
Alice and her Anthony had been married for several months and Alice was expecting a child of her own. She was waiting daily for news of Anthony. Her young husband’s regiment was in South Africa and some of the stories filtering back were very worrying. Her mother-in-law, Mrs Devlin, in whose house they now lived, was the only person, apart from Violet, who knew Mary’s story. Alice had rightly believed she would be sympathetic. Anthony had told Alice about his father’s penchant for ale and his treatment of his mother. She knew that one of the reasons he had enlisted was to flee a domestic scene that he found totally unpalatable. Mrs Devlin had assured Alice that Mary and Elizabeth would be welcome to stay with them. So a date for their escape was set.
Evangeline’s daily habit, as Mary knew well, was to partake of a large glass of gin in the afternoon and then doze off on the bed she shared with Daniel. Listening at the door, Mary waited until Evangeline’s heavy breathing signalled her unconscious state, and then she slipped into the drawing room. In a paper in her pocket she had the four doses of laudanum that were left after Dora’s death. Hands shaking and heart pumping she poured them into the decanter of brandy from which Daniel and Evangeline habitually drank from after supper. Quickly shaking the decanter so the powder was absorbed she ran back up to her room.
That evening she left the house that had once been such a happy home to her. Creeping away like a thief in the night she knew that she was unlikely ever to be able to return. And she understood that in the eyes of the law she was now a criminal. As she was a runaway and disobedient wife Daniel had every right to set the police to look for her. But she did not think he would. Bitterly, she thought that now he possessed everything that rightly belonged to her, he would be glad to be rid of her and his daughter.
The following day Mary enrolled again at college, uplifted by the welcome some of her old tutors gave her. At last a new and better life began for her and her child. Alice cared for Elizabeth during the day and when her own son, John, was born, the house became full of love and laughter. Anthony wrote to say he was well and how pleased he was that Alice and his son had such company, which removed Mary’s last doubt about the arrangement. Alice, Mrs Devlin and the children formed Mary’s new family.
Her only worry was that when she qualified and began to teach, as was her intention, she would see even less of her daughter. Violet was typically pragmatic when told of Mary’s concerns.
“Such a worrier! You are doing the very best that you can. The most important thing you can do for Elizabeth is to make sure that she never falls into the same trap that you did.”
“At least no-one’s going to marry her for her property,” replied Mary ruefully.
Violet fixed Mary with a stern gaze. “That is not what I meant, as you well know. Mary, you and I have better brains than most of the men in our lives. Yet we exercise our intelligence only by permission of our fathers or brothers or husbands. They can lock us up like animals, as Daniel did to you, on nothing more than a whim. I have just read this.” She handed Mary a rather battered book. “Someone gave me a copy when I was at college and told me not to let my parents see it. Mary, to my shame I forgot all about it until recently. You must read it. It just …” She paused, searching for words: “It makes you realise how wrong everything is. I mean, you, of all people, are aware of that. But instead of trying to alter things, most women just go on hoping that their masters will take care of them. It doesn’t even occur to them that it might be possible to change anything. Read it, Mary. It’s important. For you and for Elizabeth.”
Moved by her friend’s passion, Mary took the book and placed it in her reticule. The following evening, Elizabeth in bed and her duties done, she began to read the book, published 90 years earlier, that was to revolutionise her life once more.
***
1882
Mary let herself into the house and stood listening quietly for a moment, a smile curving her mouth. She loved hearing the children’s chatter as they helped Alice and Mrs Devlin (known as Granny by everyone, Mary included) in the kitchen. And the wonderful smells! Granny had a copy of Mrs Beeton’s ‘Book of Household Management’ that had belonged to her mother, and she and her daughter-in-law enthusiastically tried out many of the recipes: “Though on a rather smaller scale,” laughed Granny.
Granny remembered her mother helping Mrs Beeton when she started the soup kitchen from her own house in Pinner in a desperate attempt to try to ameliorate the poverty she saw around her. “I had moved here by then and Anthony was just a baby but I know my mother thought she was a wonderful person and that it was tragic when she died so young. Only twenty eight years old. Mr Beeton gave Mother the book as a ‘thank you’ for her help when his wife died and I shall give it to Alice when I go.”
Sniffing appreciatively, Mary was just putting her hat on the hall stand when Elizabeth and John came bursting out of the kitchen door and she was engulfed in hugs.
“Well,” said Alice, coming up behind them as she wiped her hands on her capacious apron, “You can’t complain at that welcome. So how did it go today? Are they coming round tonight?”
“Yes, they certainly are!” replied Mary, her face alight with eagerness, “I talked to the two new teachers today and they will be here at seven o’clock. It is getting easier – I don’t know whether that is because more women are becoming aware or I am getting better at explaining what we are trying to do.”
“Bit of each, probably. Is Violet coming?”
“Indeed she is.”
“Right, then, children,” said Alice, “Off you go to set the table. We’ll be eating early tonight.”
The children bustled off importantly.
“And are we going out when we’ve talked to our guests?” asked Alice.
“I am,” said Mary “but – oh, Alice, you don’t have to come.”
The sound of Mrs Devlin’s voice made both women turn. “Of course she doesn’t have to. Any more than you do. Or Violet. But of course she will. As I would if I was a bit younger. Anyway, someone has to stay with the children. So don’t be daft, Mary. We all believe in this, not just you, my dear. Come along, supper is ready.”
Helping to carry through the dishes Mary reflected, not for the first time, how important Granny had become to her. Born into a middle class family, daughter of a successful coal merchant, Granny had grown up, as she had herself, in a liberal and caring home. Her marriage to Henry, a clerk in her father’s office, had been approved by everyone and to begin with was happy enough. Granny wasn’t even sure when the marriage started to ‘go downhill’, to use her own phrase. But Henry had increasingly come home late smelling of drink and behaving in an aggressive fashion toward her.
It was only when the marriage had deteriorated alarmingly and she had begun to dread his arriving home that she told her father of the situation. Anthony was nearly ten by this time, and Granny had begun to be frightened for them both. Henry was still the person she had loved and married when he was sober but those periods were becoming increasingly rare.
Granny’s father had bought their house as a wedding present and he still owned it. He gave Henry an ultimatum: “Stop drinking or leave my house.”
Granny said that she believed Henry had tried. Until the night he got himself into a fight in the East End. The police found his body. A knife through his heart. Granny said it was through hers too. But she was free of the fear. And so was Anthony. Alice knew Granny’s story. Knew she would help Mary. Knew a natural ally. She had been so right. Mary thanked heaven every day of her life for these two women.
The three of them, together with Violet, had so much to talk about nowadays. Mary Wollstonecraft’s book had galvanised Mary as it had Violet. Alice laughingly declared she had been unable to get beyond the first page, but Granny’s interest, coupled with the enthusiasm and teaching skills of Mary and Violet, had ensured that she had absorbed a lot of Mrs Wollstonecraft’s ideas. Many long periods of discussion had finally been summed up by Alice.
“It’s quite a long book with quite a long title, really, just to say that we’re as good as any man in the land, isn’t it?”
Stopped in their tracks, the other three women looked at each other and then at Alice. Simultaneously they burst into laughter, making Elizabeth and John, happily playing with building bricks at their feet join in with great gurgles of joy.
“Alice,” said Violet, “You have just summed up ‘The Vindication of the Rights of Women’ in a most succinct and enviable way.”
“But,” reflected Alice thoughtfully, “If my Anthony ever comes out of the army and comes home to live, what’s he going to think about all this? Because though it all seemed quite obvious to me once I started to think about it, most men treat their women reasonably well and would think that this is a lot of fuss about nothing.”
Granny looked at her daughter-in-law sternly. “Alice, I promise you that Anthony will not think that. I have never said anything detrimental about his father to him. But he knows how different our story might have been. And I am quite sure he is aware how easily what happened to Mary could have happened to us.”
“And,” added Mary firmly, “if anyone, whatever their sex, feels like that, then we must change their thinking. No woman should have to be reliant on goodwill instead of proper rights. I am beginning to realise that we have to take a stand. The only thing that is going to make a difference to the position of women is to get the law of our land changed. Fifteen years ago John Stuart Mill tried to get parliament to give women the vote. Hardly any of his fellow MPs supported him. I was only sixteen at the time and simply didn’t understand how important it was. Alice, of course we know that your Anthony is a lovely, generous man, but all your rights depend on him, even down to your liberty, as you and I well know. That is not as it should be – at the moment a pet dog has about as much legal standing as we do!”
Mary was starting to recognise that although society might well condemn her for what it would deem revolutionary thoughts, she was buoyed up by knowing with absolute certainty that her parents would have wholeheartedly agreed and approved.
Supper was finished, the cooks praised, the table cleared, the dishes dealt with and the children bedded just before Violet arrived. Their guests were due soon after.
“My turn tonight,” she declared. The others nodded. That they had developed an effective strategy was proved by their growing circle of converts. Converts from both Violet and Mary’s schools. Educated, thinking, single women.
They took it in turns to tell their visitors Mary’s story. Keeping it both as simple and as horrendous as it was. Not ever revealing that the victim was in the room with them. They were all conscious that Daniel could appear and legally march Mary and Elizabeth back to their imprisonment in his house, so they were careful to hide her identity whilst highlighting the dreadful injustices of a system that most of their listeners had never questioned.
Then they sent them away with a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s book and an outline of the progress that was currently being made. And waited for the carefully chosen women to come back to them. Which they nearly always did.
As a result of these efforts they now had a group of fifteen like-minded women who were constantly bombarding parliament as well as every well-known person in the country with letters decrying their ‘inferior’ status and insisting that the law must be changed. They were beginning to get answers, even though many of them amounted to ‘know your place’. But there were stirrings of interest.
The evening proved to be interesting. The two young teachers were receptive and asked a number of discerning questions. One had been forced to work as a governess for several years before resuming her college course. The death of her father had left her unable to afford to continue, as, although on a scholarship, she still had to find the virtually impossible sum of twenty pounds a term. There was almost no way that she could earn enough to save so large a sum except in such a post. And only then, as she confided to her new friends, by never going home to see her mother or spending anything on herself at all.
Mary greatly admired the girl’s single-minded determination and felt that she would be a definite asset to their cause. At the end of the evening they were reasonably certain that they had two more converts.
As soon as their visitors had left, Alice, Violet and Mary donned their outdoor clothes and picked up the baskets that Granny had ready in the kitchen. “Be careful,” she warned, “stay together. Promise me.”
Stepping out into the London fog they were only too happy to make such a promise. Granny knew that it was her memories of Mrs Beeton’s soup kitchens that had inspired them to look at the hardship that was still everywhere around them. And to try and help improve things in some small way. So she felt a measure of responsibility for their safety on their nightly missions, even though they assured her that they were grown women and made their own decisions.
It was not long before they saw a shadowy figure beckoning to them.
“Cathy,” Mary called softly.
The child motioned them into an alleyway. Silently they followed her. Through a doorway into a deserted warehouse. They had been here before. Like little ghosts the children appeared.
Without a word the women distributed the contents of the baskets. The children devoured the food hungrily, eyes darting back and forth over the crusts of bread. A small boy dropped a piece of bread and expertly kicked aside the rat that swooped on it. The women stoically refused to shudder. They were getting used to it.
“Where is Anna?” asked Alice in a whisper.
The boy gave a non-committal shrug. Gradually, without noise, the children began to dissolve back into the night. As the women turned to go, Mary felt a tug at her skirt. Cathy put a finger to her lips and pulled her over to the corner of the building. She pointed to a bundle of rags.
“I fink she’s bad, Miss. It was the gent wot comes in the carriage. Mr Fred took the money and brought ‘er in here when ‘e’d finished.”
With a stifled cry, Mary dropped to her knees and pulled back the rough covering. The child’s face was chalk white but her skirt was red with the blood that had seeped through the rags from the lower part of her body. A large figure loomed out of the fog.
“What’s going on ‘ere? You leave my girl alone.” The man pushed Mary aside.
“Please, let me help her,” she gasped.
“She don’t need no ‘elp. She’s my daughter. Get out of ‘ere.” With that he hoisted the child over his shoulder. “And before you think of making even bigger fools of yourselves, let’s be clear. She’s thirteen years old. What she does is what I tell her to do. And it’s legal. Now get out of my way.”
As he exited with the child, Cathy emerged from the shadows and ran after him. Mary became conscious that Alice was crying quietly. She put her arm round her and looked over her head into Violet’s eyes.
“How are we ever going to make a difference? How can we fight all this?”
Violet was on the verge of tears herself. “Anna is never thirteen. Probably not even ten. But she’ll lie for him or he’ll kill her. Come on. We won’t make a difference by giving up.”
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