Cat panted, gasped for breath. She strained every muscle, cursed them with every foul word she had ever heard coming from the mouth of a street hawker. The man at her head glanced at the man by the trolley. They nodded to one another. Her head was let go momentarily, but then The Crow took over, gripping her skull hard, pressing her thumbs cruelly into the pressure points at Cat’s temples. She screamed. When she opened her eyes, the men were upon her: one held a thin rubber tube, the other attached a funnel to the far end of it. Cat didn’t understand. She squeezed her teeth together again, thought that in this way she would beat them. But the tube was pushed into her nose. Into one nostril, uncomfortable at first, alien, and then excruciating. Like a knife stabbing behind her eye. She screamed, her mouth wide open at last, surrendering, but they stuck to their course. The tube was pushed in ever deeper. She felt it at the back of her throat and she gagged, her mouth filling with acid. She couldn’t breathe, her eyes bulged with panic as she choked, coughed, gasped little snatches of precious air. ‘That’s it. Ready,’ the man manoeuvring the tube announced curtly. His colleague poured the gruel into the funnel. For five minutes, which felt like a lifetime to Cat, he poured, watched the stuff trickle down the tube, poured again. When the tube came out at last it left a sticky wet dribble of milky slime in her throat, which trickled into her lungs. Her nose bled profusely as the tube slithered out, and her mouth tasted of blood and bile. They left her on her side, filthy and coughing. Deep, ragged coughs to clear the muck from her lungs. The pain in her head and chest was astonishing. She coughed for hours. She coughed for weeks and weeks. ‘Same again at teatime then, petal?’ The Crow said, sweetly. ‘That’s enough,’ one of the men snapped sternly. ‘There’s an anti-emetic in the mixture, but check on her in half an hour. If she has vomited at all, let me know and we will repeat the procedure.’ Cat lay in misery, in outrage and pain; every bit as violated as if she’d been raped. Same again at teatime.
‘Cat?’ There’s a gentle knock at the door, rousing her from the waking nightmares that beset her. ‘Cat, are you awake?’ It’s Hester’s voice, soft and quiet. Cat blinks, looks around her, finds it is still dark. She has no idea what the hour might be.
‘Yes, madam,’ she says, and then clears her throat. It feels raw and rough, as though the men with their tube really have been back to see her.
‘May I come in?’ Hester asks, and Cat has no idea how to answer her. Then there’s a rattling, a joyful little grating sound, and the door is open. Cat’s legs have gone to sleep. She struggles to her knees, turns her body, grips the edge of the door and feels the push of air through the gap. Light blooms behind her closed eyelids. She can’t tell if it’s Hester Canning’s little candle lamp, or relief, joy, liberation. ‘Oh, Cat! Your poor hands!’ Hester says, setting the candle on the dresser and helping Cat to stand. The skin across her knuckles is tattered and bloody.
‘Please. Please don’t lock me in again,’ Cat says. She’s not sure how many nights it has been, since the first time. Perhaps only two or three; perhaps more.
Hester’s eyes are full of pity. ‘Nobody even knows I’ve got this key. It opens every door in the house,’ she says, holding it loosely in her palm. ‘Come – come and sit on the bed. I’ll wash your hands for you. Oh, you have so many splinters!’
‘I can do it, madam. There’s no need,’ Cat says, flatly. She won’t let Hester make amends for this. Won’t let her forgive herself. There’s an awkward silence. Hester wraps her dressing gown more tightly around her, tucks the ends of the belt away neatly, nervously.
‘Was it so very awful? In gaol, I mean?’ Hester asks. Cat stares at her, wonders how to explain.
‘It was,’ is all she says in the end, the words little more than a croak.
‘Cat, I have always wondered… what was your crime? Why did they imprison you?’ Hester asks. As if here, in the dark, here in her servant’s room, she is no longer in her real world. She can ask things she would never normally ask, because the rules are not the same. Cat smiles a bleak little smile.
‘Everybody wants to know,’ she says. ‘Two months I was locked away, and my friend Tess and others with me. And for what? Obstruction.’
‘Obstruction?’
‘That was the charge. We had intent to cause a breach of the peace as well, they said. I had half a brick in my pocket, but that was for later. I hadn’t thrown anything at the time of my arrest, but they found it in my pocket, and they knew what it was for. And I would have done it.’ She tips her chin up defiantly. ‘Through the window of the milliner’s shop on West Street, that was my intention. It had the most lovely, huge plate-glass window; all the fine feathery hats inside on fake ladies’ heads. Hats the likes of Tess and I would never have cause to wear. I wanted to smash it. I would have done it!’
‘Hush, Cat! We mustn’t be heard,’ Hester whispers. ‘But you didn’t throw it?’
‘I didn’t get the chance. Six o’clock, that was meant to be when we would all split up, go to our various target areas and wait. When Big Ben struck the half hour, we would attack. But first, in the afternoon, we went to a Liberal Party meeting. We had placards to hold, and we were to shout slogans as loudly as we could, so that everybody who’d gone to hear the speakers inside would hear us too, since we weren’t allowed in to ask our questions, or make our demands. There were twelve of us, all the active duty girls from our branch of the WSPU. And Tess. Tess, my friend. She didn’t want to be on active duty, but I made her. I made her.’ Cat pauses, takes a long, shuddering breath and shuts her eyes. It’s unbearable to think of it. ‘We had strict instructions. There’s no law against doing what we were doing, as long as you stay in the street. If you step onto the pavement, they can call it obstruction, and cart you away. Standing in the street to shout a slogan is no crime. Standing on an empty pavement not a yard away to shout a slogan is a crime. How fair and reasonable the law is! So the policemen who turned up, they began to herd us. I didn’t realise at first what was happening. The officers linked arms and moved towards us, just ever so slowly. A half a step at a time for twenty minutes or more. Until we had no choice but to fall under their feet, climb onto each other’s shoulders or step up onto the pavement. So we did the latter, and we were arrested. Each last one of us.’
‘You were gaoled for months for that?’ Hester says, incredulously.
‘See now what a violent miscreant you have in your employ?’ Cat asks, bitterly.
Hester stares at her with wide eyes, robbed of words. In the end, she looks away, gets up and goes to the window, though there is nothing to see outside it but a solid black sky.
‘I scarce know what is right or fair any more, Cat. But that you should be gaoled for that small crime is not right. Not right at all,’ she says, unhappily.
‘We were beaten in gaol, madam. Beaten and… handed out worse treatment than I know how to describe to you! And now… and now I am a prisoner again! Do you see? Can you understand – I can’t bear it!’