Ravenscliffe (53 page)

‘I have a jug of lemonade here, Anna,’ she said. ‘Can I pour you a glass?’

Anna hesitated. She preferred to go home, not to linger here, but she was parched, and there was ice in the jug too, crowding the surface of the lemonade and frosting the glass. She said: ‘Yes please, Mrs Powell-Hughes,’ because although she was always Anna, the housekeeper’s Christian name was not for public use; it simply hadn’t been mentioned, and the moment for asking had now long passed. Anna pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. The backs of her hands were flecked with white paint, and she scratched at it absently while the housekeeper poured a drink.

‘Still coming along well up there, is it?’ Mrs Powell-Hughes hadn’t been in since that first day; Anna had asked if the door could remain locked, so that the countess, when she returned, would be the first person to lay eyes on the finished work. To the astonishment and dismay of the upstairs maids, the housekeeper had agreed, and since the key to that room hung from the iron ring on her belt loop, no one so far had managed so much as a peek.

‘Mmmm.’ Anna took a long drink. ‘Oh my,’ she said, ‘that’s so good,’ then: ‘Do you ever have anything to do with Mr Blandford?’

‘The bailiff? Not much. He likes to see the household accounts, though what business it is of his I’d like to know.’

‘I need to give him this.’ Anna pulled an invoice from her pocket. ‘Bill for my materials.’

‘Well, his office is just across the way there.’

‘Yes, I know this. But I wondered, could you give it to him?’

This seemed an odd request and the housekeeper looked at her askance. Anna shrugged.

‘I don’t like him,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if he’s friend of yours.’

Mrs Powell-Hughes laughed. ‘He’s no one’s friend,’ she said. ‘The only person I ever saw him smile at was the late earl. He’s an odd one, but he’s a good bailiff, I will say that.’

Anna placed the bill on the table in front of her.

‘So, will you give this to him? I’d rather not have to do it myself.’

‘Of course I will, dear. I’ll send it across with the next set of accounts.’ She studied Anna for a moment, then said; ‘I must say, you don’t seem the type to be frightened off by a stern face.’

‘He’s bad man,’ Anna said. ‘I prefer not to deal with him.’

‘Bad?’

Anna nodded vehemently.

‘Is there something we should know?’ said the housekeeper. She spoke gently, picturing a dreadful physical assault in the shadows of Netherwood Common; occasionally, her preference for gothic novels invaded her common sense.

‘Well, it’s business matter, between him and Eve,’ Anna said.

‘Oh, I see.’ This didn’t seem half so interesting, but she
prodded again. ‘Well, evidently it’s upset you very much. What exactly has Mr Blandford done?’

Anna considered for a moment. Many months had passed, much water had flowed under the bridge, but still, Absalom Blandford’s treachery rankled in Anna’s loyal heart. She took another draught of lemonade, then told the housekeeper the full story.

H
enrietta had written to Emmeline Pankhurst all those months ago in her fit of pique, but it had been Christabel who replied. Her mother was temporarily indisposed, she had said, but she had thanked Henrietta for her letter and her support and included a long list of dates. These were of meetings of the Women’s Social and Political Union, to which Henrietta was cordially invited. All were in Manchester and Henrietta had attended none of them. Indeed, after her father’s death, she had felt so ashamed at what then felt like her childish defiance that she had burned Miss Pankhurst’s letter as an act of atonement, fancying that she could feel the late earl’s approval and relief as the sheet curled and blackened and, finally, disintegrated in the grate. However, there had been a pamphlet enclosed with the letter too, and this Henrietta had kept:
The Rights of Women: A Plea for Suffrage.
In it, Christabel Pankhurst set out her case so passionately, fluently and altogether admirably that Henrietta found that she couldn’t in all conscience destroy it. Instead, she had pushed it to the back of her bureau and from time to time she took it out and read its contents. She found herself very drawn to this cause, although there had been a time when, influenced by her parents
– in particular her mother – she had taken the opposite view: that politics was a male domain for good reason, and that a woman’s qualities, while no less valuable than a man’s, were better employed in the home. Of course, these days Henrietta was responsible, by default, for the smooth running of three collieries and an estate of twenty-five thousand acres. It was impossible to believe or to argue, either to herself or anyone else, that she lacked the particular acuity of thought or vision to make her own mind up about whom she would like to govern the country. And Christabel Pankhurst’s words, set out so forcefully in her pamphlet, perfectly articulated this burgeoning belief and fixed themselves in Henrietta’s mind as her own strongly held principles.

However, she had yet to contribute anything practical towards the cause. And then, one warm Saturday in June, as she strolled through Kensington Gardens with Thea on one arm and Tobias on the other, their attention was drawn by a gathering just inside the park by the Albert Memorial. A crowd had collected around an elegant young woman who appeared to be haranguing not the gathering in general, but one gentleman in particular. Her voice was raised and her colour was high, and although she had no podium or pedestal, she drew the eye and dominated the little scene.

‘And you believe, sir,’ she was saying, ‘that womankind falls into the same category as infants?’

‘In terms of the law of the land, madam, I do.’ The man’s voice was reasonable, in contrast with her own, which was distorted by indignation.

‘A woman may be a taxpayer, a homeowner, even – merciful heavens! – a queen, and yet we’re still unworthy of the right to vote?’

‘Thank you, madam, you state my position most succinctly.’ He smiled, and looked about him at the faces in the crowd; someone laughed, though most people avoided
his eye as if they weren’t yet quite ready to pledge their support either way.

‘Then, sir, you are a fool.’

This was a new voice. It came from the back of the crowd, and it was Henrietta. Tobias and Thea gawped at her in utter astonishment and the collection of spectators turned to face the newcomer to the debate, parting slightly so that the man at the front, who was now at the back, could see the foe. ‘What do you fear will happen if women are enfranchised?’ she said. ‘Do you think we will cease to be wives and mothers? Do you think we will stop loving our children, stop caring for our family members, simply because on polling day we have the same right as you to place a vote?’

She had a clear, clever, rational voice, and the man, a tall, bewhiskered, professional-looking chap with a silver-tipped walking cane, seemed rather taken aback. He rallied, however.

‘I think, madam, that loving your children and caring for your family is the greatest service a woman can perform for society,’ he said, and in the crowd there were nods and murmurs of approval. ‘And a dignified woman will always submit to her husband’s or her father’s judgement in all other matters.’

‘Or her brother’s,’ Tobias chipped in merrily, and Thea jabbed him hard in the ribs.

‘I denounce your assertions.’

This was the first woman again, and everyone turned back to her. Her eyes blazed and she spat out her words with contempt for his position.

‘It is false dignity if it is earned by submission. True dignity for women lies in revolt. We must shed the slave spirit and stand as equals with men, shoulder to shoulder.’

‘Women of the British colonies are citizens and voters,’ Henrietta said now, seizing the stage before he was able to interject. ‘But they haven’t ceased to be wives and mothers.
Instead, they have shared with their menfolk the democratic right to elect a government.’

‘A woman’s democratic rights are expressed through her husband, madam. This is the civilised way.’ The man brandished his cane at Henrietta, not to threaten her but to emphasise his point. ‘I will never concede this point of principle.’

‘Then, sir, you are to be pitied,’ Henrietta said. ‘Women will fight their way into every sphere of human activity and you and your kind, like the dodo and the dinosaur, shall become extinct. However, your demise will not be regretted, but celebrated.’

Across the crowd, the other woman, the first speaker, began to applaud. Toby and Thea joined in and this seemed to signal the end of the entertainment, so the spectators started to drift away. The man with the cane hissed ‘traitor’ at Toby as he passed, stomping out of the park on to Kensington Gore. Toby laughed with delight.

‘I say,’ he said. ‘You’re a dark horse, Henry. How did you manage to come up with all that?’

She didn’t answer, but instead walked over to her fellow combatant, who smiled warmly.

‘Eva Gore-Booth,’ the woman said, and held out a hand. She was tall and slender, with a beautiful mass of golden hair.

‘Henrietta Hoyland,’ said Henry. She judged, in that moment, that her title might be distracting.

‘You were quoting Christabel, I think?’ The young woman’s voice was cultured and well-bred, like Henrietta’s own.

Henrietta laughed. ‘I suppose I was, though it’s hard to know where her views end and mine begin.’

‘Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Hoyland. Will you perhaps join us this evening? A few like-minded souls in discussion: nothing too seditious.’ She delved into a bag and produced a scrap of paper onto which she scribbled an address. She handed it to Henrietta, smiled again, then took her leave.
She had a meeting at the House of Commons, she said; this unscheduled public debate had drawn her away from her principal purpose and made her late.

Henrietta, Thea and Tobias watched her go.

‘Well I never, Miss Hoyland.’ Toby said.

‘What a blast,’ said Thea. ‘Shall you go?’

Henrietta looked at the address. ‘Fetter Lane,’ she said, and looked at Toby. ‘Any the wiser?’ He shook his head.

‘Not my beat,’ he said. ‘The City, I think. You absolutely can’t go though, old thing.’

Beside him, Thea said, ‘Do what you like, Henry,’ and then, to Toby: ‘She can do what she likes. False dignity lies in submission, Tobes. True dignity lies in revolt.’ She punched the air and shouted her words upwards, into the sky.

Samuel Stallibrass, the family’s coachman in London, didn’t much like the idea of Lady Henrietta spending the evening in Fetter Lane; in his view Holborn was one of those perfectly respectable quarters of London that at nightfall changed, mysteriously and entirely, almost beyond recognition. Without the daytime activity of lawyers and journalists, without the professional, purposeful bustle of besuited, white-collared gentlemen, the narrow streets seemed somehow narrower, the shadows darker; menace hung in the air. Tonight, although it was mild, a steady rain fell on the cobbled streets and twice one or other of the horses lost their footing, a hoof skittering across the wet stone, making Mr Stallibrass anxious for Lady Henrietta’s safety. The address was Neville’s Court, an Elizabethan building in a turning directly off Fetter Lane. He drew up as close as he could to the entrance – which was not close enough, in his opinion – and dismounted. He was a tall man, well built and lavishly whiskered, and his face bore a
permanently forbidding expression, though a kinder-hearted fellow you wouldn’t find in all of London. His top hat glistened with rain. He opened the door of the carriage but his bulk in the doorway prevented Lady Henrietta from climbing down.

‘This is an unlikely place we’ve come to, m’lady,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mind telling you I’d rather we drove right on by.’

He spoke with the authority of a guardian and, indeed, this was the role in which he cast himself every time he sallied forth with a family member. He was particularly protective of the females, but still, times were many when he’d quite literally hoiked Tobias or Dickie off the pavement or out of a club and into the safety of his carriage. His special gift was to turn up just as drunken jollity deteriorated into belligerent unpleasantness. Now he stood, immovable as Nelson’s Column, in Henrietta’s way.

‘I don’t intend to linger in the dark, Samuel,’ she said. ‘And you may accompany me to the door, if you wish.’

‘That’s the very least I shall do, m’lady. Having accompanied you to the door, there I shall remain until you reappear.’

She laughed. ‘In the rain?’

‘In the snow, if the temperature should chance to plummet.’

‘Then I shall feel dreadful all evening, picturing you wet in the street.’

‘And I’m sorry for that, m’lady, but it can’t be helped. Those are my terms if you insist on this scheme.’

‘Oh Samuel,’ she said, leaving her seat so that he was forced to take her hand and help her down. ‘You sound just like my mother.’ He raised a huge black umbrella and held it over her head and then together they hurried towards the entrance to Neville’s Court, where a mildewed porter opened the door a crack and peered suspiciously at them.