“But… how long would you be in-in prison?”
“I don’t know. Possibly up to three months.”
“Three months! What will we do?”
“You? You’ll be fine. There is something I want you to do for me, though.”
Maude gazed at me eagerly.
Even before I pulled out the collecting card and began to tell her about self-denial week-a campaign drive the WSPU was initiating to raise money-I knew I was doing the wrong thing. As her mother I should be comforting and reassuring her. Yet even as her face fell I continued to explain that she should ask all our neighbors as well as any visitors to place donations in the card, and that she should send it to the WSPU office at the end of the week.
I don’t know why I was so cruel.
Dorothy Baker
As a rule I don’t involve myself in this family’s comings and goings. I arrive at half-seven in the morning, I cook for them, I leave at seven at night-six if the supper’s a cold one. I stay out of the way, I don’t have opinions. Or if I do I keep them to myself. I have my own little house, my grown children with their dramas-I don’t need more. Not like Jenny, who given half a chance pokes her nose into every story going. It’s a miracle she’s not had it cut right off.
But I do feel sorry for Miss Maude. I was going home the other evening through a thick fog when I saw her walking just ahead of me. I’d never seen her in Tufnell Park before. She’s got no reason to come over here-her life goes in other directions, north and west toward Highgate and Hampstead, not east toward Tufnell Park and Holloway. That’s to be expected of a family of that class.
The streets here are not so rough, but all the same I didn’t like to see her on her own, especially in that pea-soup. A person could disappear for good in one. I felt I ought to follow to make sure she came to no harm. It was clear enough where she was headed. Can’t say I blame her-I’d have done the same in her shoes, though living near it as I do, I don’t feel much draw to see it. But then, I don’t have family inside. My children act out their dramas within the bounds of the law.
Miss Maude found her way there easy enough-even with the fog and the strange streets she’s got a level head on her. When she got there she stopped and stared. The look of the place when it loomed out of the fog must have thrown her. The Castle, they call it round here. True enough it resembles one, with a big arched entrance and stone towers with ramparts. Most peculiar for a prison. My children used to play knights and maidens in front of it, when they dared. There are also rows of little windows set in a brick wall far back from the road, where the prisoners must be.
Then we both got a surprise-blow me if that Black woman wasn’t marching up and down in front of the entrance. She’s a little thing, but she wore a long gray coat that flapped round her ankles and made her look taller. She was singing this:
Sing a song of Christabel’s clever little plan
Four and twenty suffragettes packed in a van
When the van was opened they to the Commons ran
Wasn’t that a dainty dish for Campbell-Bannerman?
Asquith was in the treasury, counting out the money
Lloyd George among the Liberal women speaking words of honey
And then there came a bright idea to all those little men
“Let’s give the women votes,” they cried, “and all be friends again.”
Then she turned to the little windows and shouted, “Chin up, my dear-you’re halfway through now. Only three weeks to go! And we have so much to do when you come out!” Her voice hardly carried in the fog, though-don’t know how she thought anyone inside would hear her.
Miss Maude had seen enough-she turned and ran. I followed but my running days are long over and I lost sight of her. It was dusk now, and I began to worry. The shops were closed, and soon there wouldn’t be any decent people out on the street for her to ask directions of.
Then I turned a corner and she was rushing out of the fog toward me, looking very frightened.
“Miss Maude, what on earth are you doing out here?” I said, pretending not to know.
“Mrs. Baker!” She was so relieved to see me that she clutched my arm.
“You should be at home,” I scolded, “not wandering the streets.”
“I’ve been… for a walk and got lost.”
I looked at her. There was no point in being coy. “Wanted to see where she is?”
“Yes.” Miss Maude hung her head.
I shuddered. “Grim place. I’ve never liked having it on my doorstep. Here, you!” I called to a passing figure.
“Hallo, Mrs. Baker.”
“Miss Maude, this is Jimmy, my neighbor’s son. See her to the Boston Arms, will you, Jimmy? She’ll know her way from there.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Baker,” Miss Maude whispered.
I shrugged. “It’s not my business,” I said. “Not a word of this to anyone. Take care how you go in the fog.”
I keep my word.
MARCH 1908
Simon Field
It’s chucking down, so our Jenny lets me in from the rain. Mrs. Baker don’t say nothing when she sees me-just grunts. Makes me a soft egg, though.
“Lord,” our Jenny says, looking out of the window while I sit at the table eating. “What a day to be visiting prison.”
“Who’s going to prison?” I ask.
Mrs. B. bangs a pot of water onto the range and gives our Jenny a look. Jenny ignores her-she says whatever she likes.
“The master and Miss Maude. They ain’t been able to visit till now-them suffragettes can’t have visitors the first four weeks. First it were to be just the master, but I heard‘em arguing and Miss Maude got her way, bless her. She misses her mum. Though heaven knows why, the woman were hardly round before anyway.”
“That’s enough, Jenny,” Mrs. B. says.
“It don’t matter-it’s just Simon.”
“What doesn’t matter?” Maude has come down the stairs, and is standing with her arms clutched over her stomach. She looks peaky to me.
Our Jenny and Mrs. B. both turn quick to look at her. “Nothing, Miss Maude,” our Jenny says. “You had enough to eat?”
“I’m not much hungry, thanks.”
“Terrible luck, getting the curse on top of the rain on your visiting day.”
Maude looks at me then glares at our Jenny.
“For pity’s sake, Jenny, leave the girl alone!” Mrs. B. don’t often shout. “Get upstairs and clear away the dishes.”
Our Jenny runs off. I’ve enough sense not to say nothing ‘bout the curse. “Hallo” is all I says.
“Hello.”
Hard to imagine Maude’s ma in prison-who ever thought she’d end up there? When I first found out from our Jenny, I let it slip real casual one day to Mr. Jackson Mrs. C. were in Holloway. He jumped like someone’d pinched him.
“Good Lord. Why is she there?”
I didn’t really know why, to be truthful. “Women’s things, sir.”
He stared at me so hard I had to say something more. “You know, them women what goes round on bicycles, chalking signs on the pavement and shouting at rallies and that.”
“You mean suffragettes?”
“I suppose so, sir.”
“Good Lord,” he said again. “Prison is a terrible place for a woman. I hope she is not being mistreated.”
“Probably no more’n anyone else in prison, sir. My cousin got out after six months with nothing worse’n flea bites.”
“That is not much comfort, Simon.”
“Sorry, sir.”
I want to say something to Maude now, but can’t think of nothing that would help. Then there’s a knock at the back door, and Livy comes in dripping wet, and there ain’t much chance for me to get a word in. Maude don’t look too happy to see her. Livy rushes over and gives her a big hug. She sees me over Maude’s shoulder but don’t say nothing. She’s been funny with me ever since I kissed her. That were over a year ago and she ain’t been the same since. Our pa were right, I guess.