On the face of it, they all agreed, there was nothing about ^ the Emergency Powers Bill to which any reasonable person could object. It was the Government's clear duty to be fully prepared to deal with the effects of any future earth tremors, and with the localized wreckage of the Midsummer tremors still to be seen, no one could pretend that the danger did not exist. But they could not help noticing that the Prime Minister had avoided too precise a definition of 'national emergency'. Once the Bill became an Act, it could be an all-purpose weapon.
None the less, the Bill was necessary and everybody knew it, so it had the nation's support. It did, however, create a climate favourable to firm government, and even in many minds (whether consciously or not) to the authorities' cutting red tape, taking short cuts and not being too squeamish about traditional liberties. So the effect on the by-election was marked; after the Prime Minister's statement, Quentin White had to begin hiring larger halls for his campaign meetings and the funds seemed to be forthcoming.
It was at this strategic moment that Ben Stoddart stepped in. Two days after the statement, Stoddart publicly threw the whole weight of his Anti-Pagan Crusade behind White's candidature. Two days after that, he appeared with White on the same platform. The meeting was packed out and had nation-wide TV coverage. There was little trouble from hecklers, both because the rest of the audience was hostile to the few who raised their voices and because two coachloads of visibly tough young Crusader arrived at the hall an hour in advance 'to give a hand with the stewarding’.
Next morning the 'stewards' were still in the constituency and reported for duty to White's committee rooms. They were sent out canvassing and within days the nickname 'stormtroopers' was being bandied about – not always, as Dan sourly observed, with disapproval.
Only once did the unspoken threat of their presence manifest in actual violence. A fiery young man who was well known locally as an active witch heckled persistently at one of the open-air Crusader meetings and was set upon by the stewards. The hospital had to put five stitches in his left cheek and four dangerously high inside his right thigh. Ben Stoddart issued a public reprimand to the stewards for 'over-enthusiasm' – a reprimand so mild that it was virtually an endorsement. After that there was no more trouble from hecklers.
The by-election remained national news, a focus for the whole anti-witch controversy. One side-effect was to introduce controversy, for the first time, into the Emergency Powers debate in the Commons. A group of members who had already declared their support for White's campaign introduced an amendment which would empower the Government to ban public religious gatherings of a pagan nature. The amendment, legally imprecise, was patently unacceptable as it stood, and the Government was able to secure its withdrawal by pointing out that the Bill in any case would give them all the necessary powers to forbid gatherings of any category that seemed undesirable in the context of any given crisis; but the tone of the debate had already changed. A small minority of MPs of various parties now began to voice criticisms of the Bill, on the grounds that the powers it gave would be open to abuse. What had looked like a quick and easy passage suddenly became hotly argued. The Government were worried; they had no doubt of a majority, but the debate was prolonging itself and they had hoped to avoid the imposing of a guillotine which would be psychologically regrettable.
On 24 July, Quentin White was returned with a 1832 majority over his nearest opponent in a four-cornered fight. The Liberal candidate lost his deposit. While the other two had hedged, he had been the only one to condemn the witch-hunt unequivocally. An hour after the result was declared, all his front windows were smashed.
Felicity Holroyd was not a brave woman. Barely one metre fifty-five tall, and very thin, she had to rely on quick wits and a sense of humour to control her classes; even so she had to put up with a certain amount of what her more awe-inspiring colleagues would have called gross impertinence. Her small face with it unnaturally large eyes gave her an air of vulnerability which simply invited teasing. What saved her from complete indiscipline was her gift of communicating her passionate love of her subject – English literature – to the most unpromising children. It might take her five minutes to get a class settled and reasonably quiet; but once launched, she held them, till the bell surprised them and her. She had had a chance, a year or two back, of a post with a distinguished grammar school in the South, but to her friends' surprise she had preferred to stay with very run-of-the-mill Wolverhampton comprehensive where she had started teaching nine years earlier. 'Any fool can stuff Shakespeare into a bright kid's head,' she had explained. 'But get these semi-literate telly-addicts enjoying him and life's worth while.'
That she had a remarkable proportion of them enjoying him – and enjoying many others from Austen to Yeats -she knew from the gratifying exam results; but more personally, for her, from her daily hour at the desk of the school library. The library was in her charge, and no one knew better than she who borrowed what and what they said about it when they brought it back.
But this evening she sat at that desk in a white rage, glad for once that a fine hot evening had thinned out her customers. Her anger was as much against herself as against the headmaster. She remembered the interview that afternoon with shame. She had stammered a protest, it was true; and given a few minutes she might have pulled herself together and made that protest a reasoned one. But the headmaster's phone had rung even as he brushed the protest aside and she had been left standing there, not knowing what to do, while he became involved in what was obviously going to be a long conversation. After a while he had put his hand over the mouthpiece, given her a quick lofty smile, said, 'See to it, will you, Felicity?', and returned to his conversation without waiting for an answer or even looking for her reaction.
And she (oh, you bloody coward) had stood for another second or two indecisively, before walking out and shutting the door behind her, the list in her hand. It lay on the desk before her now. All works by T. C. Lethbridge, Gerald Gardner, C. G. Leland, C. A. Burland, Doreen Valiente, Israel Regardie… ‘Miss?'
She forced her attention to the boy standing waiting at the desk; she had not even noticed him arrive. 'Sorry, Don, I was dreaming What is it?'
The lanky sixth-former put a book on the desk. 'I brought back The Sea Priestess – I didn't quite get all of it but it was terrific. Have we got the other one, Moon Magic?… Claire say it's not quite as good but I'd like to read it anyway.'
Felicity answered before thinking: 'By all means – I agree with Claire, actually, but if you liked The Sea Priestess it's still…' She broke off, suddenly realizing.
'Miss – you all right?'
The irrelevant thought came to her, unreasonably inflaming her anger: He couldn't even take the trouble to put them in alphabetical order… She picked up the list, so fiercely that she almost tore it. 'I'm sorry, Don. You can't have Moon Magic. Or anything else by Dion Fortune.'
'But, miss-why?'
Claire Evans joined Don, drawn away from her shelf-browsing by the unwonted sharpness in the teacher's tone. Felicity looked up at them. Don, Claire, the inseparables – two of her favourites; she had been midwife to their blossoming minds, their probing intelligence; even indirectly to their love.
'Are you two busy for an hour?'
Surprised by the question, they glanced at each other and said, 'No, miss,' together.
Felicity knew she was breaking the rules by involving them in her own anger against the headmaster but she could not help herself. 'You see this list? It contains all the authors the headmaster considers to be dangerously pagan-oriented. I've go to remove them all from the school library shelves and lock them in a cupboard. I suppose I'm lucky I haven't got to make a bonfire of them in the playground…Will you give me a hand?'