Break of Dawn (37 page)

‘Looking for you.’ His glare intensified. ‘I knew if there was trouble you’d be in the thick of it.’

He made her sound like a common delinquent. Stiffly, she said, ‘There were precautions taken to avoid any injury to the people inside the buildings. We wrapped the stones in paper and tied them with string, and we tapped them against the glass and then dropped them through the holes. We didn’t throw them as such.’

If he hadn’t been so furious Kane could have smiled, but the sight of Sophy teetering on the edge of falling under the stamping hooves had taken any amusement out of the situation. ‘How ladylike,’ he said with scathing sarcasm. ‘And do you think it will be reported like that in the papers tomorrow?’

Sophy matched him glare for glare. ‘How do I know? They print what they want to print. You know that as well as I.’

‘And how would it have helped further the cause of women’s liberation if you had got yourself trampled to death by a horse?’

‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ He had no right to speak to her like
this. He was as bad as the magistrates who refused to treat suffragettes as political prisoners when they were arrested, and instead labelled them common criminals. There was talk of hunger strikes in protest from those currently in detention. ‘I’m standing up for what I believe in, that’s all. If I was a man, you’d think that was perfectly all right.’

‘I hate to point out the obvious, Sophy, but you
aren’t
a man.’ He’d deftly steered her into a side road as they had been speaking. ‘And while you may not think so, I agree absolutely with women having the same rights and privileges as men regarding the political system, but breaking windows and acting like children is not the way to get sympathy for the cause. You’ve been a part of taking the establishment theatre by storm with some of the taboo subjects you’ve tackled, and I admire you for that. But this, this is foolishness.’

Sophy drew herself up, visibly bristling. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’

‘Oh yes, you do. I’m speaking as your agent rather than your friend. You’re a working woman, not a high society debutante. If you get arrested, even if it’s just one night in a cell, it will be sufficient to damage your chances of future employment once the reason for the missed performance is known. By all means support the cause, but not by being directly involved in the sort of fool-hardiness that happened today. Most of the militants are able to do what they do because they have a husband or a father who supports them. You do not.’

Kane watched her considering his words. He wondered what she would say if he told her he didn’t give a damn about her damaging her career compared to her safety. There were going to be casualties soon, everyone was saying so. He hadn’t known a moment’s peace since she had thrown herself into this suffragette business. Her golden-red hair was hanging in tendrils around her face, and the scene she’d been involved in as he’d arrived had put rosy colour in her cheeks. She looked as though she’d been thoroughly kissed rather than breaking windows, and his body was as hard as a rock in response to the thought.

Determined not to give Kane the satisfaction of acknowledging he had a point, Sophy tossed her head. ‘I shall do what I think best,’ she declared icily.

‘Which means?’

‘Exactly what I said.’

And with that he had to be content.

It was only the following week that the incident occurred which was to influence the direction of the rest of Sophy’s life, although she didn’t know it at the time. She had been to a late-night party thrown by one of the actors who was celebrating his thirtieth birthday, held at a supper club close to the theatre. It was two in the morning and she was getting into a cab with another member of the cast, when a woman appeared out of the shadows of a nearby shop doorway, saying, ‘Spare a penny or two?’ before stopping abruptly. With a shock, Sophy realised she knew the heavily pregnant, poorly-clad creature. Harriet Crawford had been one of the actresses working at the Lincoln when she had first started in the business, and more than once they had shared tea and toast at each other’s lodgings before a show.

As Harriet made to turn swiftly away, Sophy sprang after her. ‘Wait. Harriet, wait!’ She caught the other woman’s arm, and it was then she realised that in spite of Harriet’s distended stomach, the rest of her was as thin as a rake. ‘What are you doing here like this?’

Harriet kept her head averted as she muttered, ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘You – you’re sleeping rough?’ Sophy knew it went on, of course. Londoners were becoming increasingly aware of the problem of the homeless and unemployed. Many of them congregated on the Embankment at night, making it an unpleasant place. The men and women who crowded the area were attracted there because they knew it offered a chance of food and shelter. The Salvation Army was reported as feeding as many as seven hundred vagrants every night and providing some shelter during the early hours of the morning. There had been talk that the police at Scotland Yard, which was only a few yards away from the squalor, should disband
the queues, but this only drove the men and women further afield into shop doorways and dark alleys.

Harriet shook her arm free. ‘I’d better go.’

‘No, wait.’ She couldn’t let Harriet go like this. Throwing caution to the wind, Sophy said, ‘Come home with me for a meal. You could do with something to eat, couldn’t you? And a bed for the night? It’s all right, there’s only me and my housekeeper and she’s a dear soul.’ She kept talking as Harriet collected a pitifully small bundle from the shadows before walking with her to the cab, feeling that if she stopped, the other woman would take flight. Once in the cab, Harriet said not a word. It wasn’t until they had dropped the other actress off at her lodgings that Harriet said, ‘I heard about Toby. I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you.’

They continued in silence, Harriet shrunk in a corner of the seat, her thin cotton dress and stained jacket doing nothing to hide the mound of her stomach.

Sadie had gone to bed, but came downstairs when she heard them in the kitchen. She bustled about, setting a crusty loaf and a pat of butter on the table before frying some eggs, sausages and bacon, and making a pot of tea. Harriet ate as though she was starving, which she probably was. There followed a story which was only too common, a litany involving casting couches, broken promises, licentious actor-managers and finally being thrown out of her lodgings when she became pregnant, lost her job and couldn’t pay her rent. The father of her baby was a married man who wanted nothing to do with her; in fact, he had threatened violence if she approached him again. The baby was due in a few weeks and it was clear that rather than go in the workhouse, Harriet would do something desperate.

Sophy and Sadie talked far into the night once Harriet had had a bath and washed her hair and was tucked up in bed fast asleep in one of Sadie’s voluminous flannelette nightdresses. The next morning, Sophy told her that she was welcome to stay until after the baby was born and she could find a job of some kind to support herself and the child once she was fit again. She could
help Sadie in the meantime, Sophy said gently when Harriet burst into tears of gratitude, and she would be company for the older woman. She was away at work for so much of the time and Sadie got lonely.

Sophy had a luncheon appointment with Kane that day. A new restaurant had opened recently on the Strand and the food was reported to be wonderful. He hid his surprise at finding a heavily pregnant Harriet in residence when he called to pick Sophy up, and was charmingly polite and gentle to the embarrassed woman, making conversation as though he had only seen her the other day rather than some thirteen years ago.

Once in the cab, Sophy told him Harriet’s story and how she had come across her the night before. ‘And so I couldn’t just let her leave today,’ she finished. ‘She really wants to keep the baby and she’s done with the theatre. If she and Sadie get on, the answer might be for her to stay on with us. Sadie is getting older, and although she won’t admit it, she feels her age. We’ll just see how things pan out over the next little while.’

Kane stared at her. ‘You’re a remarkable woman.’

Something in his eyes made her blush. To hide her discomfiture, she looked out of the window as she said, ‘Not really. I’m just very aware that, but for the grace of God, and – and you too, that could be me. When I came to London I was very naive, I had no idea it was such a predatory place. I suppose all big cities are the same, but the entertainment business seems especially so – for women, that is.’

Telling himself not to make too much of her acknowledgement of the part he’d played, Kane said, ‘You would never have found yourself in Harriet’s position. You are too strong, too principled.’

‘My mother did.’ She hadn’t meant to say it and yet she had been wanting to since she had returned from Sunderland. She felt differently about her mother now; she felt she understood Esther better after the talk with her uncle. She still couldn’t completely dispel the feeling of embarrassment, but now she knew her mother had wanted her, that she’d been prepared to give up her life on the stage for her, the hurt had gone.

Her eyes returned to Kane. Not for the world would she have admitted to herself that this was some kind of test, but she found she was holding her breath as she searched his craggy features. The cornflower-blue eyes held their normal warmth and no vestige of shock showed on his face. Quietly, he said, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Strangely, she didn’t. He had passed the first hurdle with flying colours, she didn’t want to say anything which might change that. Nevertheless, she nodded. ‘My grandfather was a vicar and my mother was brought up very strictly. She rebelled and ran away to come to London when she was fifteen years old. She wanted to go on the stage . . .’

She kept nothing back. She related the misery of her childhood, the time her aunt had beaten her half to death, which had been the catalyst for the change in her relationship with Patience and their going away to school, the revelation which had brought her following in her mother’s footsteps to the capital, even the last conversation she’d had with her uncle in the New Year.

She finished as they arrived at the restaurant. Kane had taken her hand part-way through the story but had listened without saying a word. Now he said, very softly, ‘I am glad your aunt and uncle are dead because I would have wanted to kill them with my bare hands for what they did to a sensitive little child. And when I called you remarkable just now, I didn’t know
how
remarkable.’

Sophy gulped in her throat, telling herself she couldn’t cry, not here, not now. His reaction was all she had wanted Toby’s to be. The doorman standing outside the restaurant saved her by walking to the kerb and opening the cab door.

The restaurant’s interior was the very latest thing and had already had personages such as Winston Churchill as its clientele, but Sophy was oblivious to her surroundings as she followed the waiter who led them to their table for two. She was drawing on all of her acting ability to maintain a pose of calm composure.

Kane ordered her favourite cocktail which she sipped as she studied the menu, and gradually her thudding heart returned to its normal beat. They ordered the food and a bottle of wine, and
then Kane leaned forward. ‘I am honoured you have confided in me,’ he said gently, ‘and I will support you in all you want to do for Harriet. I know how easy it is for girls such as her to lose their way. May I tell you something now? Something I have not talked about with anyone else. It does not reflect well on me, I warn you.’

Sophy stared at him in surprise. She knew a little of his background, how he had lost his brothers and mother to the smallpox, and then his father’s death a few years later which had provided him with the wealth to forge the life he had built for himself. ‘I am sure nothing you could say could make me think any the less of you.’

‘Do not be too hasty.’ He smiled, but it didn’t crease the lines at the corners of his eyes and Sophy realised he was nervous.

As he began to talk, she became aware that she was hearing some of his own bitter truths – the pain of losing his brothers and mother in one fell swoop – his anger and feelings of rejection as his father took to the bottle – his dissolute youth and then the meeting with Ralph’s sister and its terrible outcome . . .

‘America was my salvation,’ Kane said soberly, ‘although I cursed it many times in those two years grubbing in the dirt under a blazing sun. But I got to know myself, the good and the bad. Maybe that’s what every man needs.’

‘And then you came back to England and invested your money in the theatres and travelling company.’ Sophy had been silent throughout, fascinated by this insight into a man who had the reputation of being a mystery.

‘Just so.’ This time Kane’s smile was real. She hadn’t been disgusted or repulsed by what he’d revealed, but then he should have known she wouldn’t be. Sophy understood the variables of human nature; he felt as though she had been born older than her years in that sense.

They had eaten their first course while he had been speaking, now their waiter arrived with the galantine and side dishes they had ordered.

The conversation was light and inconsequential for the rest of the meal. In truth, they both felt somewhat overwhelmed at the
direction the day had taken, but when Kane dropped her off at the theatre later that afternoon they both knew their relationship had undergone a subtle change. Kane drove away in the cab elated, feeling he was a step nearer to achieving his goal of persuading Sophy to see him in a different light, that of suitor rather than friend. Sophy was disturbed and confused. Kane’s revelations had highlighted the conundrum at the heart of her association with him, the impossible task of reconciling her heart and her head.

Harriet’s baby was born at the end of the second week of a blazing hot September when the newspapers were buzzing with the fact that Lord Northcliffe, the owner of
The Times
, had claimed that Germany was rapidly preparing for war with Britain. The furore caused by Kaiser Wilhelm’s II interview with the
Daily Telegraph
the previous year, in which he expressed more than usually indiscreet opinions on foreign affairs, mentioning the secret talks which had apparently taken place between Russia, France and Germany on finding a way to end the Boer War and to ‘humiliate England to the dust’, had just calmed down. King Edward VII, in full German military uniform and accompanied by Queen Alexandra, had enjoyed an official visit to Berlin at the beginning of the year, during which he and the Kaiser had reaffirmed their friendship and pledged to work for lasting good relations between their countries. Great Britain didn’t want to hear anything to the contrary. The Kaiser was the King’s nephew, after all, and everyone knew blood was thicker than water.