London (162 page)

“It’s nothing, really,” she said.

“Tell me about him,” the old lady said quietly, and when Jenny looked surprised: “Out late and all dressed up on a Saturday night; then off with a straw hat and a parasol the next Sunday? Surely,” she continued, as Jenny looked up ruefully, “you can’t think me such a fool that I hadn’t noticed.”

So, haltingly, Jenny told her some of it. She said nothing about her brother and his family because that subject was forbidden, but she told her a little about Percy and his family, and her doubts.

“I couldn’t leave you, Mrs Silversleeves. I owe you so much,” she concluded.

“You owe me?” Esther stared at her, then shook her head. “Child,” she said gently, “you owe me nothing. I cannot possibly live many more years, you know. I shall be looked after. Now as to this Percy,” she continued firmly. “You only suppose he’s having second thoughts. If he loves you, nothing this Maisie says is going to affect him in the least.”

“But it’s his family.”

“Oh, damn his family!” said Mrs Silversleeves, surprising them both so much that they laughed. “Now,” she said, “is that all?”

It wasn’t. Every day the memory of the woman she had seen at her brother’s, the desolation of her own childhood, those last words of poor Lucy – “Don’t ever go back” – came to visit her. The stark reality was still, as far as Jenny could see, very plain. Marriage to Percy, some children perhaps: all right enough. But if Percy died, what then? A life like the poor folk in the East End? Probably not quite that bad, but hard. Very hard. Her brother had a point. She’d done well not to marry. She had the security of the Silversleeves house; a good character; some savings. After Mrs Silversleeves had gone, she knew she’d find a good position. A housekeeper even, or lady’s maid.

Young girls got married without a thought; women like Jenny didn’t, despite the fact that she longed to be loved and to live with Percy so much that it hurt.

The pains in her stomach had started a week ago. Sometimes they seemed like a knot. Twice she had been sick and she knew she was very pale. She was not surprised when Mrs Silversleeves said gently:

“Jenny, you don’t look very well. I’m going to call the doctor.”

If Mayfair had always remained a fashionable residential quarter, the area above Oxford Street had taken on a more professional air. Baker Street, on its western side, had been immortalized by Conan Doyle as the abode of his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, but Harley Street near its eastern edge had achieved world fame all on its own.

Harley Street: it was, so to speak, the Savile Row of the medical profession. The men who practised in Harley Street were no ordinary doctors, but the most eminent specialists and were usually granted the title of “Mr”, rather than “Dr”. They also had the reputation for being rude – for the simple reason that they could get away with it. After all, if a man is only treating you for the common cold, you need not put up with much nonsense; but if he is going to cut a piece out of your liver, you normally prefer to humour him.

With some apprehension, the following week, Jenny made her way down Harley Street until she reached the door which a brass plate announced was the sanctum of Mr Algernon Tyrrell-Ford.

The Silversleeves’s family doctor had not been able to find anything seriously wrong with her; but he had confessed to Mrs Silversleeves that, had Jenny been able to afford it, he would have sent her to a specialist just to make sure. Esther had been adamant. “Of course she must go!” she said. “Refer all the bills to me.” And despite Jenny’s protests she had sent her there in the carriage.

Mr Tyrrell-Ford turned out to be a large, portly and brusque gentleman. He ordered her sharply to undress and then examined her. It left Jenny feeling awkward and humiliated.

“Nothing wrong with you,” he stated bluntly. “I’ll write to your referring doctor, of course.”

“Oh,” she said weakly. “That’s nice.” She tried to mumble more thanks; but he did not seem interested. Then, just as she was nearly dressed he casually remarked: “You know you can’t have children, I suppose.”

She stared at him in horror for a moment. “But why not?” she managed at last.

Seeing no point in wasting words which such an insignificant woman could not possibly understand he merely shrugged. “It’s the way you’re made,” he said.

Percy had suggested by letter that they should meet at Tower Bridge and she had agreed. She understood it was his way of saying that he hoped the place would bring him luck.

Now that she knew what to do it was almost a relief. When she had told Mrs Silversleeves, the old lady was not sure. “He might not mind, Jenny,” she had suggested. But Jenny had known better. “He told me he wants a family,” she explained. “I know Percy. If I tell him the truth now, he’ll say it doesn’t matter. But it does.” The old lady had sighed.

Though it was summer, it was a dull day. As she had expected, he was waiting for her in the middle of the bridge, just as he had before. She gave him a smile, linked her arm in his in a friendly way, and then began to walk, leading him instinctively to the southern side, as if she were returning him to his own territory. They walked a little way down Tower Bridge Road then turned right towards London Bridge Station where there was a little tea shop where they could sit down.

“What’s it to be, then?” he asked.

“Just a cup of tea,” she said quickly, so he ordered tea and for a minute or two they talked about nothing at all, until the tea was poured.

“So,” he said again, looking at her meaningfully this time. “What’s it to be, Jenny?”

“I’m sorry, Percy,” she said slowly. “I’m so flattered, I mean, really honoured, Percy. You’re such a kind friend. But I just can’t.”

He looked shaken. “Is it something Maisie . . .”

“No,” she cut in. “It isn’t that. I don’t care about her. It’s my fault. I like going out with you very much, Percy. I’ve really enjoyed it. But I’m happy where I am. I don’t want to get married. Not to anyone.” She had thought of telling him there was someone else, to make it more final, but she knew that was absurd.

“Maybe,” he said, “I can persuade you to change your mind.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think we ought to meet for a while.”

“Well,” he began, “we can still . . .”

“Percy,” she cut him short quite sharply with a little show of cruel impatience that she had been practising in her mind for days. “I don’t want to marry you, Percy. I never did and I never shall. I’m sorry.” And before he knew what was happening, she walked out.

She walked quickly back towards Tower Bridge. She was just about halfway across when she noticed that a ship was approaching from upstream and that the bridge was about to open. She was already hurrying down the northern side when she thought she heard a cry, far behind her.

Percy had been running. For a moment or two he had been so stunned in the shop that he had forgotten to pay for the tea and had been called back. Then he had run as fast as he could back towards Tower Bridge. He saw her from the approach road, cried out, “Jenny!” and was just running out on to the great bascules when a burly policeman stopped him.

“Sorry, you can’t go now, lad,” he said. “Bridge is up.” And as he spoke, Percy saw the road ahead begin to tilt before his eyes as Arnold Silversleeves’s mighty mechanism went smoothly into operation.

The raising of Tower Bridge was an awesome sight. It happened about twenty times a day. To Percy it seemed as if the road before him rising up like a huge, hundred-foot wall blocking out the light, severed him with majestic finality from the one he loved.

“I’ve got to cross now!” he shouted foolishly.

“Only one way to do it, son,” the policeman said, and pointed up to the walkway which ran along the top. With a cry of anguish Percy ran towards the nearby southern tower.

He ran, panting and puffing, up the two hundred steps and more. Gasping he raced across the iron walkway that seemed to stretch before him like an endless, iron tunnel. Then he charged down the iron staircase in the northern tower to the other roadway.

There was no sign of Jenny. She had simply vanished. There was only the grim, old Tower of London behind the trees on the left, and on the right, the silent grey waters of the Thames.

Percy wrote to Jenny three times after that. None of the letters was answered. Maisie introduced him to another girl, but nothing came of that. As he looked out from his window to the faraway ridges across London, he still felt mournful.

1911

Helen Meredith had never felt so excited in all her life. Of course, she was used to being smartly dressed. Like most girls of her class, she was expected to put on a coat and white gloves even for a walk in Hyde Park. She was a child, to be dressed and treated accordingly. But not today. As she gazed at herself in the glass in her long white dress, with her sash of purple, white and green, she felt so proud: she was dressed exactly the same as Mummy. And they were going to march together, side by side in the Women’s Coronation Procession.

The Edwardian era, though unforgettable, had only lasted a decade. Already well into an over-indulged middle age when his mother, old Queen Victoria died, King Edward VII had been showing signs of being unwell for some time, and his death the previous year had not been entirely unexpected. Now, after a suitable period of mourning, his son George V – correct, monogamous and dutiful – was to enjoy his coronation with his devoted wife Mary.

On Saturday 17 June, the weekend before the royal event, the Suffragette movement had decided to hold a coronation procession of their own. It was going to be huge.

There was no question that in the last three years, the Suffragette movement had made astonishing advances. Some of the tactics of its members had seemed outrageous, some rather cunning. Their ploy of chaining themselves to railings in public places, for instance, not only brought publicity, but allowed them to make lengthy and well-prepared speeches while the police had to saw through the chains. Discovering that if they walked on the pavements they could be arrested for obstruction, they took to walking with their placards in the gutters at the edge of the roadway where the police were powerless to stop them. When some of their more enthusiastic members had broken windows because the government refused to see their deputations, they were arrested. When they went on hunger strike in prison, many people thought it unjustified. But when there were well-documented reports of policemen assaulting and even beating demonstrating women, and of brutal force-feeding in jails, there was public disquiet. It was not just publicity that the movement had achieved. A detailed plan for moderate legislation had been prepared and a truce on all illegal acts had been called while the government considered it.

But above all, the years had brought supporters. With their headquarters in the Strand and their own publishing house, the Women’s Press in Charing Cross Road, the movement was now large and professional. All over the country, affiliated organizations had sprung up. And today, symbolically marking the start of the new reign, the movement was going to demonstrate to all the world that it had come of age.

“Come on,” her mother said with a smile. “We march together.” Helen felt great pride as they set off together for Sloane Square underground station.

Lying immediately west of the walled grounds of Buckingham Palace and just below Knightsbridge at the eastern end of Hyde Park, Belgravia which belonged to the rich Grosvenor family, had been developed by Cubitt into a series of streets and squares of white stucco houses. Architecturally undistinguished, they were large, grand and expensive. The grandest of all was Belgrave Square. Then, running westward, the long rectangle of Eaton Square with the more modest Eaton Terrace, to which Violet had moved after Colonel Meredith’s death, at its western end. Sloane Square, which marked the border between Belgravia and the start of Chelsea, lay only a short walk away, and contained an underground station.

As the two Suffragettes walked through this fashionable quarter some of the other inhabitants looked at them with disapproval. Helen had never experienced such a thing herself.

“People are glaring at us,” she whispered to her mother. She never forgot her mother’s reply.

“Really?” Violet smiled airily. “Well I don’t mind. Do you?”

To Helen this seemed so free, so wonderful and so funny that she burst out laughing.

“I think that they all look terribly silly,” said Violet gaily as they entered the underground.

The procession, when they emerged on the far side of Westminster, was like nothing Helen had ever seen in her life. The Suffragettes had learned that the way to disarm criticism that they were unwomanly was to dress with great care. The women, in their tens of thousands, were all wearing long dresses, mostly white, and could have been taken for matrons, or their daughters, from the strictest days of republican Rome. The only exception was the figure riding a horse near the front and dressed as Joan of Arc, whom the movement had adopted as their own saint. There were deputations and floats not only from all over England but from Scotland, Wales, and even India and other parts of the empire. The whole procession was four miles long. It would wind its way from the City, past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and on to Hyde Park and the great rally – tickets all sold out long ago – in the Royal Albert Hall.

“And remember,” her mother told her, before the huge procession moved off, “our cause is just. You must be prepared to fight for a noble cause, Helen, my child. We are marching for our country, and for a better future.”

Although she never forgot these words, nor the amazing sight of thousands of women with their white dresses and sashes and banners, it was the extraordinary sense of marching that the girl remembered. Marching in unison, marching for a cause, marching side by side with her mother, into the new world.

There were other signs in these years that a new age was dawning. When, for instance, in the year that King Edward VII died, Halley’s comet was seen it was treated as a simple, scientific event. More significant, perhaps, was the development of the motor car.