“Hello, Richard,” she said to Daddy, who hovered behind me and Caroline Black. We were all three standing awkwardly in the doorway, stepping from side to side and peeking around each other, as if trying to look at an animal at the zoo. The two wardresses stood on either side of the doorway like sentinels.
“For God’s sake, Kitty, haven’t you been eating?” Daddy said.
I flinched, and Caroline Black shook her head slightly, the primroses fluttering on her hat. I wished he had said something else instead of blurting out the first thing that popped into his head, but I felt sorry for him too-he looked so strained and uncomfortable.
Mummy didn’t seem bothered, though, but smiled as if he had told a joke. “If you saw what we get as rations, you wouldn’t eat either. I cracked my tooth on a bit of gravel in my bread the other day. It’s rather put me off.”
“Mummy, I wrote to you,” I said quickly, “but the letter was returned.”
“We’re not allowed letters for the first four weeks,” Mummy said. “Caroline could have told you that. And how much did you raise during self-denial week? A good amount, I hope.”
“I-I don’t remember,” I whispered.
“You don’t remember? Of course you do. It was only four weeks ago, and you’ve a good memory for figures. Or are you embarrassed that it wasn’t much? I don’t mind-I didn’t expect you to raise what I would have. How much did you get-ten pounds?”
I bowed my head. I had raised barely a tenth of that. I had been meant to ask neighbors and visitors for donations, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead I had given up all my pocket money for a month, and Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Waterhouse had given me a few shillings. I had come to hate that collecting card.
“Did you know,” Caroline Black said, “that some women ate only brown bread and gruel for the whole week, in tribute to you lot in here? They donated the money they saved from eating a‘prison diet’ to the WSPU!”
She and Mummy laughed, Caroline Black showing her side tooth.
“How is Mrs. Pankhurst?” she asked. “Have you seen her?”
“We’re a bit worried,” Mummy said. “She didn’t come to exercise yesterday, nor to chapel this morning. I do hope she isn’t ill.”
“I saw her,” I declared, pleased to be able to say something useful.
“Saw her? When did you see her?” Mummy demanded.
“Just now. A few cells down.”
Mummy and Caroline Black gazed at me with delight. Our wardress, however, frowned.
“How did she look?” Mummy asked eagerly. “What was she doing?”
“She was knitting.”
“Did she say anything?”
“No, but she smiled at me.”
“Stop this at once!” our wardress cried. “You’re not to talk about such things. I should march you right out of here.”
“That’s good news,” Mummy declared, ignoring the wardress. “Knitting, was she? Just like me.” She glanced at the wool on her stool and laughed. “The thing I’m worst at they’re forcing me to do. By the time I leave I’ll be an expert, at knitting socks, anyway.”
“Are those for you?” I had a hard time imagining Mummy wearing gray socks with red stripes.
“No, no! They’re for male prisoners. Something to keep us busy. Otherwise it really is agonizingly dull in here. I thought at first I might go mad. But I haven’t. Oh, and I’ve got my Bible to read.” She pointed at a shelf that held two books as well as a tin plate and cup, a wooden salt cellar, a piece of yellow soap, and a small brush and comb. “And look what they’ve given us!” She held up the other book. I squinted at the title: A Healthy Home and How to Keep It. “I’ve read it cover to cover. And d‘you know what it tells us-sleep with your window open at night!” Mummy looked up at the small barred window high above her head and began to laugh again. Caroline Black joined her.
“Kitty,” Daddy said quietly.
To my relief, Mummy stopped laughing.
“Have you learned your lesson in here?” Daddy asked.
Mummy frowned. “What do you mean by lesson?”
“Enough is enough, now. When you get out we can get back to normal.”
“That rather depends on what you mean by normal.”
Daddy did not reply.
“Are you suggesting that I give up the fight when I’ve got out?”
“Surely you’re not going to continue.”
“On the contrary, Richard, I think prison has been the making of me. Oddly enough, dullness has made me into a rod of iron. ‘That which does not defeat me makes me stronger.’ That’s Nietzsche, you know.”
“You read entirely too much,” Daddy said.
Mummy smiled. “You didn’t think that when you first met me. Anyway, when I get out I will have far too much to do to read.”
“We’ll discuss this when you are back home,” Daddy said, glancing at Caroline Black. “You can’t be expected to think properly in here.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. It’s a decision I make. It has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me-I’m your husband!”
“Pardon me, Richard, but nothing I’ve done in my little life has had any significance whatsoever until I joined the WSPU.”
“How can you say that in front of Maude?”
Mummy looked at me. She seemed genuinely puzzled. “What about Maude?”
“Are you saying having a child has not been significant?”
“Of course it has. Maude is the reason I’m sitting in this prison cell. I’m doing this so that she will be able to vote.”
“No, you’re doing it so that you can swan about town, feeling self-important, making silly speeches and neglecting your home and family.”
“I do feel important,” Mummy replied. “For perhaps the first time in my life I have something to do, Richard. I’m working! I may not be optimistic like Caroline and the Pankhursts that we’ll see suffrage voted in in my lifetime. But our work will one day lead to it. Maude will see those results, even if I don’t.”
“Oh, climb down from your soapbox!” Daddy cried. “You claim to be doing this for your daughter. Have you ever asked Maude what she thinks of you leaving her all alone like this? Have you?”
Five sets of eyes turned on me. Daddy’s were furious, Mummy’s curious. The two wardresses inspected me without interest. Only Caroline Black’s doglike brown eyes showed any sympathy. I turned red. My stomach was aching.
I took a step backward and then another, and before I knew it I had turned and started to run. “Hey! Stop!” I heard a wardress shout. I continued to run along the gangway, back along the route we had taken-down the stairs, through the courtyard, and along a corridor, accompanied the whole way by shouts from women in gray uniforms, who never managed to catch up with me. I reached a door, opened it, ran to the bench, and fell into Lavinia’s arms.
“Oh, my poor dear,” Lavinia said, patting me on the back as I sobbed. “There, now. There, now. It’s just as well I came. I suppose.”
Richard Coleman
When we got back from Holloway I went straight to Kitty’s morning room, where she keeps her books. There I saw just how far she has fallen into the black pit that is this cause.
I had been planning to find and burn the Nietzsche, but instead I burned every handbill, every newspaper, every banner, I could lay my hands on.
MAY 1908
Albert Waterhouse
Poor Richard. I didn’t think I would ever be embarrassed for the chap, but I am. I always said his wife would be a handful.
He and I were on the roster to roll the cricket pitch tonight, and were just walking over to the heath when we saw her. I must say I’m glad Trudy has never asked for a bicycle. Kitty Coleman was riding along merrily, her dress rising to her knees as she pedaled. I caught a good glimpse of an ankle-and a fine one it was too-before I managed to look away.