Women of Courage Read online

  ‘Why?’

  She told the story of Sarah. It was true, it was safe, it was interesting. She could see him relax as he became absorbed. Amused at what Sarah had done, angry at her sentence, concerned at the way she might have been treated in prison. Thoughtful, too, about Jonathan’s response.

  ‘You say he disowned her in Parliament?’

  ‘More or less, yes. He didn’t just say he disagreed with what she had done, he said he wouldn’t even vote for female suffrage any more. Not if women did things like that.’

  ‘So he rejects the end because he doesn’t like the means?’

  ‘In a way. Even I don’t believe in smashing windows, James. You know that. But I can’t just denounce my own sister.’

  ‘No.’ He sipped his tea, his elbows on the table, gazing at her thoughtfully over the cup. ‘Always the lady bountiful.’

  She didn’t like that. ‘I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, you know that. Working among the poor, taking their children to my home. I’m not afraid, there’s no need to sneer. I just don’t think violence makes things better, that’s all.’

  ‘All right, all right, I know.’ He held a hand before his face, as though to defend himself from the vehemence of her response. ‘But she must be a powerful woman, your sister, to pick up a meat cleaver and slash a painting like that.’

  There was a twinkle of amusement in his eyes; whether at the thought of what Sarah had done, or herself, Deborah was not sure. She frowned. It did not seem funny to her.

  ‘Sarah’s not big or strong, if that’s what you mean. Just passionate and impulsive, I suppose. And rather unhappy, too, I think.’

  ‘That must run in the family, then. The passion, at least . . .’

  And not the unhappiness? ‘What do you mean, James?’

  He put his teacup down, smiled. ‘Well now, I seem to remember, in Dublin . . .’

  It was that beguiling, entrancing smile she remembered so well. Impulsively, she reached across the table and seized one of his hands in hers. There would never be a better time to tell him than now.

  ‘James. Listen to me, my dear. I came to tell you something.’

  ‘Is that a fact now?’ He glanced at his hand, surprised. She was gripping it tight, imprisoning it in her own. ‘Sure you’d best spit it out then.’

  ‘I am . . .’ His eyes were fixed on hers, quiet, waiting. She glanced over her shoulder, around the little dining room. The other customers were eating, reading. Three men near the door were talking quietly. No one seemed to be listening.

  ‘I’m pregnant, James.’

  Some animals have a little membrane that can move across their eyes, to clear them from dust or an outside intrusion they do not want. When they do this for a moment the eye appears clouded, opaque. Something similar happened to Rankin’s eyes as she watched them anxiously for his response. The sparkle faded. The pupils widened slightly and he seemed to go away from her inside himself. Into a dark pool of thought.

  Only for a second. Then a smile returned to his lips.

  ‘Well now. Congratulations.’ His left hand moved across the table, to stroke her hands which clung tightly on to his. ‘A new son to ride in the hunt at Glenfee. Or a daughter perhaps. Your husband must be pleased.’

  ‘I haven’t told him, James.’

  ‘Not told him? You came all this way across the water to tell me, and you haven’t told your husband?’

  Oh come on, James — don’t mock me now!

  ‘I can’t tell him, James.’

  ‘Why ever not? The man will be delighted, surely!’

  ‘Because . . .’ She glanced hurriedly round the room. The beautiful, olive-skinned boy was carrying a tray from the kitchen to the three men at the door. This is a mistake, I shouldn’t have told him here. She lowered her voice to an intense, nervous whisper. ‘Because he won’t sleep with me, James. He hasn’t once, not since he came back. It’s your baby and when I tell him about it he’ll know!’

  Rankin was silent. His left hand stroked hers absently while she gripped the fingers of his other hand tight and stared at him, beseechingly. He saw the pain in her face, the intensity, the ugly tense lines that go with anxiety and fear. It’s as though she is drowning, he thought, and clinging to me to save her.

  But I can’t swim.

  ‘How do you know it’s mine?’

  ‘Don’t be silly! There’s no one else.’

  ‘No. Of course not.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So what are you going to do ?’

  ‘What can I do, James? I’ve come to you. You’re the father!’

  ‘What do you think I can do, then?’

  ‘Help me! Take me in, find me a home. There’s nowhere else - I can’t go to the workhouse!’

  ‘Would you like any more, sir? Madam?’ The young waiter was standing by the table, looking at them with his beautiful, impassive eyes.

  ‘What? No, no, that’s all. Here, son, we’ve finished. Let me pay now.’

  He freed his hand from her grip, delved into his pocket, gave the boy some coins. When he had got his change, he stood up, pushed his chair in, and said: ‘This is a rotten place to talk. Come on, let’s go for a walk outside.’

  She had her little blue jacket but not a coat, and it was dark and cold in the street. She shivered, but he did not put his jacket round her as she had hoped. They set off, walking quickly towards the river and the Tower.

  ‘I told you, I haven’t got a place here. Only a filthy men’s lodgings which I’d be ashamed to let you see.’

  ‘But you’re the father, James! You’ve got to help. There’s no one else!’

  They stopped under a gas lamp by the walls of the Tower of London. Fifty yards to their right, the black waters of the Thames flowed dark and silently downstream. The gas lamp hissed above their heads, the wind blew cold around them. Deborah looked up into his face and saw not love or compassion but fear, anger, irritation.

  ‘How can I help, woman? Think now for a minute, will you! We discussed all this in Dublin, and you said you wanted to leave me then.’

  ‘Yes, but then I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘You understand the laws of nature — you knew it was possible, surely! But it’s not just the laws of nature you have to understand, it’s the laws of society. You’re a different class to me, Deborah. You could never live as I do. If you left your husband and came to me you’d lose all your money, your house, your son — and you’d live in one room with no carpets, and spend your day scrubbing cockroaches out of the bed. You couldn’t do it, woman! And, even if you could, I wouldn’t want you to. If that’s my son in your belly I’d rather he grew up rich, with a decent house, warm clothes, and a good education, not shivering in a slum as I did! And another thing . . .’

  ‘No more, James, please!’ She stared at him stunned, shaking. But he wasn’t listening to her. Perhaps he never had.

  ‘If I took in a woman like you, my work in the union would be over. Half the workers in the union would call me a fornicator and throw me out, especially the Catholic Irish. Look what happened to Parnell!’

  ‘James, you’re not Parnell, nor anything like him!’ She turned to walk away from him, towards the river, but he snatched her arm and held her back.

  ‘No, but the principle’s the same. Anyway, Deborah, I know it sounds harsh, but what I’m telling you is for the best in the long run, believe me! Go back to Glenfee, go back to your husband and make him sleep with you — you can do that surely, a pretty woman like you? Then he’ll think the child is his and bring it up with a silver spoon in its mouth, and maybe I’ll come over and see it some time. And we can meet . . .’

  ‘Why should we want to meet?’

  The words, to her, sounded bleak, cold as the unfeeling black river flowing silently past the embankment. To him, too, they sounded strange. He stopped for a moment, puzzled.

  ‘Why? Well, for old times’ sake, of course. And if your husband is as bad as you say . . . I thought you loved me.’

  ‘I t
hought so too, once, James Rankin.’ It was hard to get the words up, she was so choked with the tears that would have to come, soon, when she left him. But first — a vast flow of anger began to surge through her.

  ‘I don’t think you know the meaning of the word love, really, James, do you? It was all lust with you, wasn’t it — fornication, as your union colleagues would say! And they’d be right, too, if they said it now, when you won’t take me in. Because the difference between love and lust is whether you care for the other person, and the results of the time you spend together in bed! You don’t give a fig for that, do you — not even for your own child!’

  She snatched her arms out of his, and went away, half-walking, half-running, along the embankment, feeling the tears well up inside her. A policeman stopped and watched her go, but did nothing. After fifty yards she turned once and looked back, hoping perhaps that even now Rankin would change his mind and come after her. But he had not moved. He was still there, with his flat cap and warm jacket, under the gas light, watching. He had his hands in his pockets. The green silk scarf, which she had adjusted so maternally earlier when they had met, was fluttering loose in the cold wind.

  They watched each other for a long, cold moment.

  Then, very deliberately, he turned, hands still in his pockets, and walked slowly away . . .

  16

  FINGERS. DRUMMING on the desk. Thick, strong fingers with virile black hair growing on the backs of them. Fingers that were stronger than most men’s, twice as large as any woman’s. Martin Armstrong remembered how he had once bent back the fingers of a cheeky little whore who had dared to argue with him. It had been so easy. He had used perhaps a quarter of his strength, and almost at once her sinews had cracked and she had screamed with pain and agreed to do what he asked. He remembered how, afterwards, she had shuddered in terror as his powerful hands kneaded her breasts — his groin warmed at the thought of it.

  Now those same fingers drummed irritably on the desk in front of him, for once he wished they were smooth, soft, well-manicured, hairless like most men’s.

  My trouble comes from too much respectability, he thought. That, and greed.

  He had come from a family with little money and had studied hard to become a doctor. He had never been very successful in his profession. Although he had a private practice in Kensington he had few patients. So he had been forced to take a second post as Assistant Medical Officer in Holloway Prison. And here he had come into contact with prostitutes. And then he had hit upon the idea of opening a second, smaller surgery in Hackney, and specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases. For the first time in his life, he had begun to make money.

  He studied the market and discovered two things. Firstly, that the pimps and bawds — those who made the contacts and provided the premises — often made more money than the girls themselves. And secondly, that some men had distinctly peculiar tastes.

  He began to make use of both of these pieces of knowledge.

  Firstly, he made introductions. Men — sometimes patients, sometimes respectable married men whom he met in his club or through his wife — were secretly eager to meet the better class of whore but did not know how to go about it. For a price, Martin helped them. For a higher price, he made contacts for those who had unusual tastes. Bondage. Sado-masochism. The seduction of virgins.

  The desire for the last of these seemed to be confined largely to middle-aged men. It did not appeal particularly to Martin, but it was highly profitable — and a stroke of luck made him well-placed to supply the demand. He had recently been appointed Medical Officer to a number of charitable children’s hostels. The children in these places were there either because they had been abandoned by their parents; because they had run away from home; or, in some cases, because their parents were in prison. The girls were, therefore, from immoral backgrounds in the first place, and almost certain to lose their virginity before they knew they had it.

  But they had something unique to sell, and Martin knew men who wanted to buy it. So a deal was struck, and everyone profited.

  It all depended, Martin thought, on the gap between respectability and desire. Respectable women, it seemed to him, were unable to satisfy men’s sexual desire, and normally felt none of their own. Less respectable women — those from the backstreets, the gutter, servant girls, the criminal classes — apparently could, and did. It was strange, but true. There was something about respectability that created a demand for prostitution.

  And since respectable men had money, those who met that demand could grow rich.

  Martin had calculated that in a year, if all went well, he would be able to give up his post in the prison entirely. In two years like this, he thought, he would earn more than in ten years of respectable employment. In five years he might be rich enough to retire to the South of France...

  Greed, however, made him take risks. It had been tempting, but foolish, to take the expensive flats above his consulting rooms and use them to supply very rich, highly respectable customers. Men like Jonathan Becket, MP. But then, very respectable clients needed discreet and apparently respectable premises. How was he to know that the wretched man’s suffragette wife was to come snooping outside?

  Martin drummed his fingers on the desk again in frustration. The whole thing was a nightmare. Suffragettes, in his opinion, were the enemy of male freedom. They were the army of female respectability. They were puritans — they wanted all women to be respectable, frigid, and all men to be chaste, too. Christabel Pankhurst had said so, in a dreadful pamphlet she had written called The Great Scourge. Prostitution led to venereal disease, she said — over two thirds of all men contracted these diseases at one time or another. It was a war waged by men against women. The only solution was chastity for men, as well as women. Prostitution, lust, infidelity must be stamped out.

  Martin had read the pamphlet with fascinated horror. If these women got their way, his livelihood would be destroyed. It was true that venereal disease was widespread — he was a specialist in treating it. It was also true, in his opinion, that men needed sexual freedom precisely because respectable women were unable to satisfy them. In that case, men should stand up for their rights. It was feeble liberals, like Jonathan Becket, whom he most despised. The man had once voted for women’s suffrage in Parliament, and yet he was happy to use the services of a whore. Not only that, but he had come to Martin to plead for special treatment for his suffragette wife.

  The woman who would destroy them both, if she were set free . . . Out of self-righteousness and jealousy, nothing more.

  Martin drummed his fingers on the desk and tried to think clearly. What were his options?

  It all depends how long I can keep her in prison, he thought. Out of touch with her husband. And how much she really knows.

  Last time he had spoken to her he had been too shocked and angry to interrogate her carefully. He had been hugely embarrassed that a wardress had heard what she had said. Well, he would have to deal with that. But first I have to talk to Sarah Becket on my own, he thought.

  Without the wardress being present.

  The fingers on the desk stopped drumming. He sighed, pushed back his leather chair, and walked grimly towards the door . . .

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Becket.’

  ‘What? Oh no, not you! Get out, please. Leave me alone!’

  She was shocked, as Martin had expected, but at least she did not scream. That was a good sign. She had been sitting hunched at one end of her bed, shivering in the coarse serge prison dress with the arrows on it. Her hair was neatly combed but her face was pale, drawn. Shivering, he knew, was one of the consequences of starvation and inactivity.

  He sat down on the end of the bed, as far away from her as the cell allowed. I must try not to get her hysterical, he thought. If it is possible to have a rational conversation with this woman, that is what I want. He leant forward, folding his hands between his knees, and forced a smile.

  ‘I haven’t come to hurt you.’<
br />
  ‘Oh no? What about last night?’

  ‘That was the medical treatment. I warned you about it. So long as you continue to starve yourself it has to be applied.’

  It had been a grim business all the same. When he had come back to force feed her the wardresses had been, it seemed to him, unusually reluctant, and Sarah had screamed and tried to claw his face. Afterwards, she had vomited up almost as much as he had poured into her stomach so the whole thing had been pointless, except as punishment.

  ‘Treatment!’ she said. ‘You’re a torturer. You live in the Middle Ages.’

  Martin tried to keep the smile on his face. ‘It is that I have come to see you about. None of us like having to treat prisoners like that. If you would only co-operate it wouldn’t be necessary.’

  ‘Co-operate? With you?’ Sarah tried to laugh, but her throat hurt too much where the tube had rubbed it raw. Instead she stood up and turned to face the wall, with her back to him.

  Martin sighed. He felt an urge to seize the silly woman and shake her until her teeth rattled, but that would do no good. He said, as reasonably as he could: ‘If you would eat, you wouldn’t have to be fed.’

  ‘If men would treat women as human beings, I wouldn’t need to be in here at all!’

  This was not what Martin had come to talk about. He waited for a moment, collecting his thoughts. There was a clatter outside in the corridor as a wardress went past with a trolley.

  ‘Yesterday, Mrs Becket, you made a number of accusations against me. I have come to talk about those.’

  Silence. She did not turn round.

  ‘In the first place, you appear to believe I keep a — what is the word? — a brothel in the flats above my consulting rooms. Is that right? Did I understand you correctly?’

  She turned round to face him. Arms folded, she leaned against the wall under the high barred window. Her hair was hidden under the regulation mob cap and there was a mocking, sardonic smile on her bruised lips.