“Do you think he would welcome that?”
“I think any man would want to know if his house is morally threatened.”
“Will you stay for tea?” Kitty said it pleasantly enough, but her words implied that she thought I might wish to go.
I did wish to go. “I will not stay to tea,” I said, standing up. “I will not set foot in this house while she is here. Good-bye, Kitty.” I turned and walked out. Kitty did not follow me, and it was just as well that the impertinent maid was not in the hallway to see me out, or I don’t know what I might have said to her.
One of the unfortunate consequences of being of what I would call a definite disposition is that occasionally I am caught in a dilemma. I had no qualms about cutting off contact with Kitty if necessary, but I could not say the same for my son and granddaughter. After all, it is not their fault that Kitty is morally lax. However, I was reluctant to involve Richard in what, as Kitty herself reminded me, are women’s affairs.
Nonetheless, I did feel he should know something of his wife’s impropriety-if not about her decision to take Jenny back, then at least about her friendship with a dubious woman. I invited him over one evening on his own, under the guise of discussing something about his late father’s property. The moment I saw him, however, I knew I would not say a word to him either about Jenny or about Caroline Black. He was glowing, even after a day at work, and I was reminded of how he looked when he and Kitty had returned from their honeymoon.
So that is how it is, I thought frankly. She has taken him into her bed again so that she can do what she likes outside of it.
She is no fool, my daughter-in-law. She has come a long way since the day Richard first introduced her to me, a slight, gawky girl from the provinces wearing dresses two years out of fashion. I do not like to play games, and as I looked at my son now, I knew that she had outplayed me.
Richard Coleman
This year we will be staying at home for New Year’s.
FEBRUARY 1907
GertrudeWaterhouse
Oh, dear-I have just returned from one of Kitty Coleman’s At Homes with such a headache.
In January something happened that I had always dreaded might one day. Kitty Coleman changed her At Homes to Wednesday afternoons so that she could attend some sort of meeting in Highgate on Tuesdays. (At least that means she will not be coming to my At Homes!) Now I have felt obliged to go-not every week, I should hope, but at least once or twice a month. I managed to get out of the first few, saying I had a chill, or that the girls were unwell, but I couldn’t use that excuse every time.
So today I went along, taking Lavinia and Ivy May with me for support. When we arrived the room was already full of women. Kitty Coleman welcomed us and then flitted across the room without making introductions. I must say it was the loudest At Home I have ever attended. Everyone was talking at once, and I am not sure anyone was actually listening. But I listened, and as I did my eyes grew big and my mouth small. I didn’t dare say a word. The room was full of suffragettes.
Two were discussing a meeting they were to attend in Whitechapel. Another was passing around a design for a poster of a woman waving a sign from a train window that read “Votes for Women.” When I saw it I turned to my daughters. “Lavinia,” I said, “go and help Maude.” Maude was serving tea across the room, and looked as miserable as I felt. “And don’t listen to what anyone around you is saying,” I added.
Lavinia was staring hard at Kitty Coleman. “Did you hear me, Lavinia?” I asked. She shook her head and shrugged, as if to shake away my words, then made a face and crossed the room to Maude.
“Ivy May,” I said, “would you like to go downstairs and ask the cook if she needs help, please.”
Ivy May nodded and disappeared. She is a good girl.
A woman next to me was saying she had just been speaking at a rally in Manchester and had rotten tomatoes thrown at her.
“At least it wasn’t rotten eggs!” another woman cried, and everyone laughed.
Well, almost everyone laughed. A few women like myself were very quiet, and looked just as shocked as I felt. They must have been Kitty’s old friends who came to the At Home expecting pleasant conversation and Mrs. Baker’s excellent scones.
One of them, less timid than me, finally spoke. “What is it that you speak about at these rallies in Manchester?”
The tomato woman gave her an incredulous look. “Why, for women to have the vote, of course!”
The poor woman turned bright red, as if she herself had been hit by a tomato, and I was mortified for her.
To her credit, Caroline Black came to her rescue. “The Women’s Social and Political Union is campaigning to have a bill brought before Parliament that would allow women the right to vote in government elections, just as men do,” she explained. “We are rallying the support of women and men all over the country by speaking publicly, writing to newspapers, lobbying MPs, and signing petitions. Have you seen the WSPU’s pamphlet? Do take one and read it-it is so informative. You can place a donation for it on the table by the door when you go. And don’t forget to pass on the pamphlet when you are done-it is really surprising how much life there is in a little pamphlet when you hand it on to others.”
She was in her element, speaking so smoothly and gently and yet also forcefully that several women indeed took away pamphlets and left coins by the door-myself included, I am ashamed to admit. When the pile of pamphlets reached me, Caroline Black was watching me with such a sweet smile on her face that I had to take one. I could not bring myself to hide it down the back of the sofa as I might have liked. I did that later, at home.
Kitty Coleman did not take the floor in quite the same way as Caroline Black, but she was still in an excited state, her eyes glittering, her cheeks flushed, as if she were at a ball and had not stopped dancing once. She did not look entirely healthy.
I know I should not say this, but I wish she and Caroline Black had never met. Kitty’s transformation has been dramatic, and undoubtedly it has pulled her out of the bad way she was in, but she has not gone back to her old self-she has changed into something altogether more radical. Not that I was greatly enamored of her old self, but I prefer that to her present state. Even when she is not at her At Homes with suffragettes everywhere, she still talks incessantly about politics and women this and women that till I want to cover my ears. She has bought herself a bicycle and goes around even in the wind and rain, getting grease marks all down her skirts-if they are not already covered in chalk from all the signs she has been drawing on pavements about meetings and rallies and such. Whenever I find her crouched somewhere with a bit of chalk, I cross the road and pretend not to see her.
She is never at home now in the afternoons, but always at a meeting, and neglects poor Maude shamelessly. Sometimes I think of Maude as my third daughter, she is at our house so often. Not that I am complaining-Maude is very thoughtful, helping me with tea or Ivy May with her schoolwork. She sets a good example for Lavinia, who I am sorry to say never seems to take it up. It is very peculiar that one daughter can have a mother who pays her no attention and yet turns out well, while the other gets all the attention in the world and yet is so difficult and selfish.
It was a relief to leave Kitty’s At Home. Lavinia seemed eager to come away as well. Back home she was very kind to me, sending me off to bed to nurse my head while she insisted on making supper. I don’t even mind that she burned the soup.
Jenny Whitby
Lord, I hope these At Homes don’t last. Since the missus switched ‘em to Wednesdays I’m run off my feet. At least I’ve got Maude to help-though I don’t know that she’ll stick it. The whole afternoon she looked like she wanted to bolt, even when Lavinia came to keep her company.