A Mad, Wicked Folly (13 page)

John escorted me to Temple Church, and I waited in the
vestibule for a few moments while he walked back to the
carriage. I pinned the
deeds not words
badge that Lucy
had given me on my lapel and left the church. I walked
along the Strand and past the Royal Courts of Justice, and
as the girl in the band had said, I saw the notices for the
WSPU headquarters chalked upon the pavement. Many
people walked around them, as though the markings
would somehow contaminate their shoes.

I followed the arrows pointing the way, and fell in
behind a group of women—two older women and a teenage girl—headed in the same direction. Even though I
was going to the headquarters to meet Sylvia Pankhurst
and sign up to work on the mural, I was curious about
the WSPU. I found that I was eager to see what they were
about, how it all worked.

Clement’s Inn turned out to be an old chancery inn that
had been turned into flats and offices. The headquarters
were in the basement and resembled a busy office space,
not unlike my brother’s publishing company. The first
room I stepped into was a visitors’ entrance. Boxes of leaflets and pamphlets were laid out on a table, and a woman
sat at a desk, talking on a candlestick telephone. The group
I came in with made a beeline to a table filled with goods
and began selecting postcards, badges, and banners for
purchase. Another woman sat behind the goods table waiting to take their money.

A dapper gentleman with thinning hair, perhaps in
his late thirties, came forward from the back of the room.
“Can I help you?” he asked me.

“Yes, um, I’m interested in signing up to help Sylvia
Pankhurst with her mural. I’m told this is the place to
come.”

“Yes, indeed. Well, that’s lovely! Come through. She
should be along any moment. I’m Frederick PethickLawrence. I manage the headquarters here and keep things
running smoothly, as it were.”

“Is Jane not available?” asked Mr. Pethick-Lawrence.
“She’s better with mechanical things than I am.”
The woman shrugged. “Haven’t seen her yet.”
“Feel free to look around while you wait,” he said to
me, and then hurried off to help.
I stood in the foyer, feeling slightly awkward and out
of place. Everyone else seemed to have a job to do. The
telephone rang often, and the clicking sound of typewriter
keys accompanied by laughter drifted in from the back.
Women floated in and out of the room carrying boxes filled
with leaflets. More women came in the front door, filling
the place up. I went to the back of the room and waited in
a dark hallway between two rooms. One on the left looked
to be a newspaper office. A huge stack of newspapers titled
Votes for Women
teetered precariously near the door. Men
and women leaned over broadsheets spread out on tables.
Other people sat at tables cutting things out with scissors
or typing. I saw Mr. Pethick-Lawrence patiently helping
the frustrated girl unstick her typewriter.
The room on the right was much calmer. Here a group of
young women sat stitching letters to banners and talking.
I felt a prick of jealousy and loneliness. Their camaraderie
reminded me of the relationship I used to have with Lily
and a few of the other girls at school.
A teenage girl by the window looked over and smiled
at me. I was about to step inside and introduce myself
when one of the other women stood up and stretched, and
I saw the signature red hair and steel spectacles of Sophie
Cumberbunch, my lady’s maid.
Gone was the somber dress she had worn at home. Now
she was dressed in a tailor-made suit, but instead of the
jaunty pinstripe seersucker or somber face cloth of most
tailor-mades, hers was bottle green. Knotted around her
neck was a man’s tie printed with peacock feathers. On
one lapel was a green-and-purple enameled badge. Her
bright-red hair was gathered in a braided knot at the nape
of her neck, and a small straw boater trimmed in yellow
ribbons sat at a jaunty angle on her head. She was as colorful as a stained glass window.
I backed out of the room so fast that I collided with Mr.
Pethick-Lawrence coming out of the newspaper room.
“My word!” he exclaimed.
“Sorry!” I stumbled away from him and dodged through
the scrum of people in the visitors’ entrance, ignoring the
cries of
I say! Watch out!
and shot outside. I didn’t look back
to see if anyone was following me. I walked away from
Clement’s Inn as fast as I could without actually breaking
into a run.
Thoughts clashed around my mind. What was
Cumberbunch doing there? She had told my mother she
would be at Liberty right now. What if she saw me? I was
filled me with so much anxiety that I felt I might start tearing at my hair. I could almost feel Aunt Maude’s terriers
nipping at my ankles.
“Queenie!” I heard a voice call out in front of me. Lucy
Hawkins was coming down the pavement. She was wearing the same face-cloth tailor-made suit she had worn
the day I met her, although she had swapped the hideous
hat for an equally ugly cloche. Today she was wearing a
full-length apron, upon which were written mottoes and
meeting times.
“Well, this is a turnup,” she said. “The way you acted
at the police station, I didn’t expect to see you anywhere
around here. What gives?”
“Must you insist on calling me
Queenie
?”
“I don’t mean anything by it,” she said cheerfully,
swinging her arms as she walked. “It’s cute. It suits you.”
I’d heard Americans were brash and forward. That was
certainly true of Lucy Hawkins.
“I can’t stop,” I said. “I have to go.”
“I can see that.” She fell in step beside me. “Where’s the
fire?”
I glanced at her. “Pardon?”
“Where are you running to? Or running from?”
“I’m just late for something.” I sped up. There wasn’t
enough distance between me and Clement’s Inn for comfort yet. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in
prison.”
“Early release. I think they needed the space for some
shadier characters. But forget about me. What happened
to you?”
“They let me go straightaway.”
“Well, that’s good. But why are you here? Did you give
that donation you were talking about?”
“I want to sign up to help with the mural, but I can’t
wait for Sylvia Pankhurst. I have to be somewhere.”
“Really? You’re going to help?” Lucy lifted her hands,
placing them on her cheeks as she said this, eyes widening
in mock surprise.
“Yes, so you see I’m willing to do the
heavy lifting
after
all,” I said.
Lucy could dish the sarcasm, but she didn’t rise when it
was directed at her. “Don’t worry about catching Sylvia. I’ll
tell her you’re coming. Just go to Avenue Studios at seventy-six Fulham Road whenever you can. She’s there every
day from sunup to late in the night. She’s only at Clement’s
Inn for a little while on Mondays.”
I could barely focus on Lucy’s words; my mind was still
racing with the fear that Cumberbunch had seen me. “Are
you acquainted with a woman in the sewing room? She has
red hair and wears spectacles.” I understood this was an
awkward thing to ask, but I had to know.
Lucy looked at me, puzzled. “Sophie? I know her, sure;
why?”
“Does she help with the mural?”
“No, she mainly sews banners and helps sell papers
and whatever else we need. Why do you ask?”
“Never mind.” I was relieved , but then I realized
Sophie Cumberbunch might prove to be an ally. Mamma
would never knowingly employ a suffragette, so she had to
be sneaking. If Sophie wouldn’t help me, then I’d threaten
to tell on her.
“Well, then, just pop in and help when you can. Maybe
I’ll see you there.”
Lucy had turned to go when I called out, “Wait! Just one
more thing. Are there any churches near the studio?”
Lucy scrunched up her nose as though I had asked
her if there were any dead mice lying about. “Churches?”
She shrugged. “I suppose. It is England, after all. Land of
churches on every corner. Why?”
“Do you know the name of one?”
“I’ve seen one called All Saints, if that helps you.” She
looked at me oddly.
“It does.”
“All right, then. Far be it from me to cast aspersions on
the devout. Hope to see you there.”
I left Lucy and headed back toward Temple Church,
passing the time in Lincoln’s Inn Gardens until John would
collect me. I sat on a park bench and thought again about
Cumberbunch. She had to be a secret suffragette. There
was no way in heaven Mamma would knowingly employ
such a radical. Perhaps Cumberbunch wasn’t as much of a
creature of my mother’s as I had thought.

MY MOTHER WASTED
no time tasking Cumberbunch to
make an assessment of my wardrobe and a list of things
I would need. As my mother had pointed out, I would be
making my debut in June, so my youthful ankle-length
skirts were no longer appropriate. Nor could I keep wearing my mother’s gowns. So the next morning I had to go
through my clothing with Cumberbunch.

“I don’t really care much for fashion,” I said to
Cumberbunch. “I’m not one of those girls who feels the
need to swan about all done up like a maypole.”

“Hmm, is that so?” Cumberbunch said. She was pulling skirts and blouses out of my wardrobe and arranging
them in piles on the bed. She was all business now—such a
contrast to her carefree demeanor and dress at the WSPU
headquarters.

“I don’t want a dress that requires one of those long
corsets,” I said. “I wore one of my mother’s on Friday and I
don’t wish to repeat that experience.”

“S-bend corsets are going out of fashion,” she said. “I
can make a ribbon corset for you, Miss Darling. You’ll wear
it around your middle, and it’ll be more comfortable. I’ll
get some boning tape and ribbons at Liberty.

Liberty, my Aunt Fanny,
I thought.
More like a quick side
trip there and then off to the WSPU headquarters.
“You go to Liberty a lot, it seems,” I said, watching
her carefully. She was folding one of my shirtwaists and
paused. “You know you can place an order. Mrs. Fitzhughes
can telephone it in for you.”
“That’s very kind,” Cumberbunch said quickly. “But I
prefer to look at the goods before I make my selection.” She
surveyed the things on my bed. “You have a lot here that I
can recut to make new garments. Do you like tailor-mades?
The jacket and skirt with a shirtwaist? That will give you
the practicality you’re looking for. And they aren’t cumbersome to wear.”
“I liked the green one I saw you—” I snapped my mouth
shut. “I mean, I liked one I saw on a girl once.”
Cumberbunch blinked. “I  .  .  . all right.” She looked
taken aback for but then she shook her head. “Here, wait
a moment. I have something in my room that might do for
you.” She went away and came back a few moments later
with a tie in her hand. “I make these ties from offcut fabrics I find. This one would suit you well, I think.” She held
out a tie patterned with a repeating design of navy and
green plants, red strawberries, and golden birds.
I took it from her and went over to my mirror and
held it up under my chin. I had never seen anything like
it. The birds and the flowers mixed with the red berries
created an artistic pattern that was reminiscent of the PreRaphaelites. The blue of the bird’s wings and the flowers
brought out the blue in my eyes.
I wanted it. I wanted to wear it more than anything.
And I wanted to wear it on Thursday when I met Will.
“What would I wear it with? I don’t have a tailor-made.”
“You have an older brother?”
“Yes, why?”
“Any chance he’s left his school chest behind?”
“If he has, it would be in the attic.”
“Let’s go have a look,” Cumberbunch said.
We trooped up the two flights of stairs to the attic. I
searched around and found the trunk under the window
next to Freddy’s old rocking horse and my dollhouse, which
was the worse for wear after I had decided to decorate the
walls with inky scribbles when I was eight. My mother had
not been amused.
Cumberbunch opened the lid, rummaged around in the
chest, and pulled out a shirt and a collar, setting them to
the side. She handed a blue flannel jacket to me. “Try those
on. There are several jackets, summer and winter fabric, in
here, all sorts of colors. I can do a lot with those.”
I removed my blouse and put the shirt and jacket on.
I went over to a hall mirror, which my mother had pronounced old-fashioned, relegating it to the attic forever. I
looked ridiculous. I laughed. “This will never do. It’s miles
too big.” I spun around to show her, holding my arms out
to my sides. The jacket fell to the middle of my thighs, and
the sleeves hung over my hands. “My brother is tall. Even
when he was at school he was tall.”
“Never mind. That’s what I’m here for.” She came over
and looked at the jacket carefully. Then she pinched in
the sides and secured them with pins from a cushion tied
around her wrist. “Nip this in a bit here.” She folded up the
hem so the jacket hit just above my hips. “We’ll shorten it
to here. See, it will fit you a treat. This is how I get a lot of
my clothes. From reach-me-downs on Petticoat Lane in the
East End. Can’t afford new.”
I looked in the mirror again, and suddenly I could
see the possibilities. Many tailor-made jackets had puffy
sleeves, which I had always thought fussy. This one, being
a boy’s, did not, but the way Cumberbunch altered it made
it look very feminine. It was almost cheeky, as if I were
saying,
I could fit right in with the blokes, but I prefer not to
.
“You’re very good at this,” I said.
“Thank you, miss.” She attached the collar and then slid
the tie around my neck, wrapping a long end twice around
a short end, and then looping it through to create a knot.
“There.” She stepped back. “I can let the hem down on that
silk russet skirt you have. A tailor-made skirt is only meant
to be just below the ankle, so there’s heaps of room in the
hem.”
I untied the tie and then tried it myself.
She knelt on the floor and began pinning the bottom of
the jacket.
“Do you think you could have this done by Thursday?”
“I don’t see why not.” She looked like she wanted to ask
me why, but it wasn’t her place to ask, and I certainly didn’t
volunteer any information.
Cumberbunch stood up, fished around in the trunk,
and pulled out my brother’s straw boater. She reached up
and placed the hat on my head and smiled at me in the
mirror. “How do you feel about fashion now?”
I adjusted the hat, cocking it forward. I couldn’t wait for
Will to see me in this new outfit. What would he think of
it? What would he think of
me
in it? “I changed my mind,”
I said. “I like it.”