CHAPTERIIIA DEPUTATION TO THE PRIME MINISTERThroughoutthis month of January, 1909, I became convinced that I should be justified in offering myself as a member of the next deputation to the Prime Minister to demand the removal of women’s disabilities to the Parliamentary franchise. I became a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and on January 28 I wrote to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence offering myself for the deputation. I did not tell anybody but her of my decision. On the 30th I received her answer, accepting my offer.On February 24 I went up to London from Homewood, without telling mother of the plan and actually without saying good-bye to her, as she went out to the village before I started. I wrote her the following letter at King’s Cross Station, but did not post it till later in the day:—“Wednesday, February 24, 1909.“My Angel Mother,—I don’t know whether I shall post this to you or see you first. I want to have a letter ready.“Don’t be startled or afraid. I have something to tell you which—with the help of recent presentiments—you, I know, are half expecting to hear.“If you ever see this letter it will mean that after joining the deputation I have been arrested and shall not see you again until I have been to Holloway. For months I have been planning this letter to you, but now that the time has come, it is not any easier to write for that. Of course, my hope has been all along that I should be able to take you into my confidence, that I should have the perhaps all-undeserved yet heaven-like joy of knowing that though you could not share all my views, yet that you would understand why I held them, and, granted these, you would further understand my action and the great sacrifice which I know it means to you. My darling Muddy, you will never know, I trust, the pain it is to have to do this thing without your sympathy and help—with, on the contrary, the certainty that it shocks you and hurts you and makes you suffer in numberless ways. Hardly a day has passed but what I have tried to feel my way with you, tried to convert you—not to my theoretic views, difference there does not matter, but to my intended conduct in connection with them. Every day I have failed. If I decided to do this thing, absolute secrecy was necessary, for, the whole of these police regulations being arbitrarily ordered and special to the case, they would never arrest me, not, I mean, unless I really broke the law, if they knew who I was. Unless I had your sympathy and understanding, it was, of course, hopeless to count on your secrecy. I had two alternatives, to give up the plan, or to keep it and deceive you about it. I chose this last. For your sake I have tried never to tell you an actual lie in words. I have not done this, and that is, perhaps,why you have your suspicions. But to my conscience that is no easier. It was my intention to deceive you, and I have deceived you, and, for all practical purposes, successfully. Once the intention is to deceive, it seems to me not to make any difference how it is done.“You will be angry. If it could be only that. But you will be hurt through and through. As I write the words their meaning is acute in my mind and heart. You will hardly care to know, but I must tell you what has decided me to take this torturing step.“Prisons, as you know, have been my hobby. What maternity there lurks in me has for years past been gradually awakening over the fate of prisoners, the deliberate, cruel harm that is done to them, their souls and bodies, the ignorant, exasperating waste of good opportunities in connection with them, till now the thought of them, the yearning after them, turns in me and tugs at me as vitally and irrepressibly as ever a physical child can call upon its mother.“The moment I got near the Suffragettes the way to this child of mine seemed easy and straight. But I knew the temptation to think this must make me doubly sure of my ground. I have felt from the first that I could not take this woman’s movement merely as an excuse for Holloway. I have waited till my conviction was genuine and deep at every point, and till the opportunity occurred for facing the police regulations in a way possible to my whole nature, temperament, conscience. There are several other things which the Suffragettes do, which I would not and could not do.“I finally made up my mind in about the middle of January, and soon after wrote to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. Enclosed is her answer. I had not recently been seeing them, or going to meetings, or in any way specially communicating with them. I took the decision entirely on myself, in no way consulted her nor asked her advice; even had they not accepted me in the deputation I should have joined outside.“About the physical discomforts part of Holloway, don’t be distressed for that. These are already nothing to what they were. And I am such a muff, what remains of hardship will be wholesome for me—really ‘reformatory’ for me as imprisonment seldom is to others. If I could only know that you will help me face it, it would be nothing to me. It’s my journeying after the hobby that sucks up my soul like a tide, my Nile sources, my Thibet, my Ruvenzori. If you, my splendid Mother, will only help me in spirit that the little spark of Sven Hedin shall not fail in me. I am no hero, but the thought of other travellers’ much worse privations on that road will, I believe, fizzle up my flimsy body enough for what is necessary, and if only I knew you were helping me in your heart I should not, could not, fail, Muddy darling.“You can’t forgive me now, but perhaps you will some day. Whatever you feel towards me, whatever I do, I shall still be always“Your most loving and devoted“Con.“The account papers, tradesmen addresses, wages paper, are in the lift-up place of desk on dining-roomwriting table. I expect I shall be away from you a month. The others will cling round you. If I were going a trip abroad you would not resent the separation. In my little warm cupboard nest in Holloway my only thought of the outer world will be of you. I shall try anyhow to get back to you to-night.“Con.”I went to 4, Clement’s Inn, lunched there with Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Christabel, Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Tuke; Miss Neal came too. She kindly undertook to post my letter to mother and buy me a brush and comb and toothbrush in case we should be sent to the 1st Division.I had a cracking headache and felt quite dazed. They kindly put me to lie down in the upstairs rest room boudoir, where Mrs. Pankhurst and Christabel had remained hidden from the police on October 14, 1908.At about six o’clock we had supper. I ate next to nothing. Miss Elsa Gye, who had been summoned by telegraph to come and assist me through the Deputation, was at supper. She was a delightful girl, young and fresh-looking. I had been told that she was just engaged to be married, and I felt it was horrible that she should risk weeks of imprisonment solely because of me.I had disguised myself by doing my hair in an early-Victorian way, so that the police, if on the look out for me, should not recognise me and so be tempted not to arrest me; for people whose relatives might make a fuss effectively are considered awkward customers.At about seven Miss Gye and I set out and hailed a taxi. I found I had left my ticket behind for the Caxton Hall Meeting. So I flew back to Clement’s Inn to get it. It was a raw, cold night, but I had been advised to dispense with my muff and boa, as these, I was told, would almost certainly be torn to shreds “in the hustling”; this gave one a rather gruesome warning of what was to be expected from the handling of the police. We were each given a copy of the resolution which was to be put to the meeting. As we drove to Caxton Hall, it suddenly struck me that I had not sufficiently learnt up my part. “What does one have to do?” I asked. “I suppose I must do something to show that I mean business.” “Oh, no,” my companion answered, “you needn’t bother about what you’ll do. It will all be donetoyou. There is only one thing you must remember. It is our business to go forward, and whatever is said to you and whatever is done to you, you must on no account be turned back.” That seemed to me at the time, and has seemed to me ever since, to be the essence of our militant tactics. I afterwards heard it yet better summarised by Mrs. Pankhurst: “Our demand is just and moderate. We press our cause reasonably and in a law-abiding spirit, but in such a way that we give the Government but two alternatives—either to do us justice or to do us violence.” My companion also told me that if the police became too violent, I could cut matters short and ensure instant arrest by the semblance of making a speech or collecting a crowd round me for that purpose, since these offences constituted a breach of thepeace. Miss Gye and I sat in the body of the hall, we had on the “Votes for Women” sashes and were to join the Deputation unostentatiously as it left the building.The appearance of the Deputation on the platform was remarkable for the look of dignity and pathetic earnestness of the members, many of them white-haired, and one or two young and pretty girls.[3]The speeches seemed to be very much to the point. I could hardly listen to them for the distracting thought of when my mother would hear about me and what she would think and feel; but I had no wish to shirk, and never for a moment did I doubt that I had done right.Footnote:[3]The Deputation was composed of our leader Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Miss Daisy Solomon, Mrs. Vans Agnew Corbett, Miss Una Dugdale, Miss Madeline Petre, Miss E. H. Chesshire, Mrs. Caprina Fahey, Miss M. Barnet, Miss Margaret Davies Colley, Miss Margaret E. Rodgers, Miss Mary Allen, Miss Ellen Pitman, Miss Maud Freeman, Mrs. Katherine Richmond, Miss Mary Lethune, Miss M. Adair Roberts, Miss Leslie Lawless, Miss Caroline Townsend, Mrs. Tyson, Miss M. Tyson, Miss Ainsworth, Mrs. Lamartine Yates, Miss M. E. Thompson, Miss Helen Kirkpatrick Watts, Miss Kate Walsh, Miss Sara Carwin, Mrs. Saul Solomon, who was not eventually arrested, and Miss Elsa Gye and myself brought the number to twenty-nine.Many friends had seen and not recognised me, at which I was delighted. Others did recognise me, and seeing I had the sash on, which meant the Deputation, they looked immensely surprised.Presently the Deputation came down from the platform, formed up in couples, headed by Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, and marched out of the hall. Miss Gye and I joined in behind the sixth or seventh couple. We were thirty women in all. By thistime I had a feeling of exhilaration that the moment for my own independent action had come at last. I had a vague notion that I should have to encounter physical difficulties, but since I had merely to meet them and endure them, knowing that I could lay no claim to overcoming these by physical powers of which I was deficient, the way from that moment seemed plain and easy. I felt proud to be one of the active ones at last, to be the companion of these women in particular, whom I had watched on the platform, and to know that the Deputation was headed by one of our leaders who had first revealed the woman’s movement to me.The following resolution was put to the meeting and carried with acclamation: “That this Parliament of women expresses its indignation that while every measure in the King’s Speech vitally affects the interests of their sex, and while heavier financial burdens are to be laid upon woman tax-payers, the Government have not included in the programme for the session a measure to confer the Parliamentary vote upon duly qualified women. The women here assembled call upon the Government to introduce and carry into law this session a measure giving votes to women on the same terms as to men.“A Deputation is hereby appointed, to whom is entrusted the duty of forthwith conveying this resolution to the Prime Minister at the House of Commons and eliciting his reply.”A copy was then handed to each member of the Deputation.Of all the undesirable possibilities before me, I dreaded most lest by some horrible twist of fate theleaders of the Deputation should be refused admittance, and I, if recognised, should have the lonely privilege thrust upon me of being received. I had never made a regular speech, and two attempts I had made at narrating my experiences of the previous October to a village audience had not been reassuring. My own point of view was definite enough, but I did not feel equipped to speak for others. When deciding to go on the Deputation I had, however, taken stock of my representative character and asked myself for which group of women I should stand, what was my atom’s share in this movement if I did not strain after any vicarious office but merely added my own personal weight to the scale? Without doubt I myself was one of that numerous gang of upper class leisured class spinsters, unemployed, unpropertied, unendowed, uneducated, without equipment or training for public service, economically dependent entirely upon others, not masters of their own leisure, however oppressively abundant that might seem to the onlooker. In a class where property runs with primogeniture, the first-born, if a female, is overlooked. In a class the whole status of which is based on property, on wealth to live at ease and in luxury, property is only dealt out to women, if at all, after male relatives have been served first, and then, as a rule, in much less proportion. Posts of honour and remuneration are barred to them in nearly all professions, in even those few they are allowed to enter. They remain almost invariably without honour of titles or lands or wealth, even where their services have been sought. Posts of Government are exclusively for men, with the soleexception of the Sovereign. Trained to luxury and untrained to remunerative work, they are for the most part dependents from childhood to the grave. A maiming subserviency is so conditional to their very existence that it becomes an aim in itself, an ideal. Driven through life with blinkers on, they are unresentful of the bridle, the rein and the whip, uncritical of the direction in which they are driven, unmindful of the result to others as well as to themselves of their maintainer’s beliefs and policy, whatever they may be. The bride at the sacred ritual of her marriage festival hears from her husband the words, “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” She knows at the time and she learns yet more intimately as life goes on that those words have no practical bearing, and that at her husband’s death the greater part of even that property which had been seemingly made over to her during his lifetime will pass from her hands at the wane of her lonely existence, when she needs it most, into those of her son or some more distant relative. The literal, practical, interpretation of that husband’s vow—yes, of the vow even of good and well-intentioned husbands—most usually is: “With this ring I thee bind, with my body I thee control, with none of my worldly goods I thee endow.” As a widow more often than not she sinks, because of her financial position, to a social state out of touch with all her past life. But at least the wives, the widows, generally have children through whom their powers of service to their families and to the community in general are to a certain extent developedand recognised, and which give them a certain insight into the realities of existence. They also have known well-being and vicarious honour through their husbands. But to the single woman, the old maid of later years, the paralysing worship of incapacity dominates life, the chain of limitations and restrictions is but seldom broken, and never overcome save by exceptional force of character or ability. Even then how often it is only the beating of wings against unyielding and maiming bars; freedom, if attained, rendered useless by lack of preparation in the competition against trained and privileged beings of the male sex, and the vain ambition ends in a seeming mutiny, nothing more—a distortion, an abnormality, an untidiness of creation.I could stand indeed for the superfluous spinster, but who would listen to a messenger from this mute array, who cares for the blind, the lamed, the maimed and the dumb? The fearful unnecessity of their disablement awakes no pity, no heart softens at thought of them, no politician would feel his conscience pricked by the narration of their grievances. A yoke so submitted to, so uselessly endured, can claim no reverence of martyrdom. But before condemning those who submit to it, I wish that our critics could realise what it means to be born under this yoke and then try to shake it off.It is easy to see that if women are to appeal effectively to a modern parliament for the rights of liberty and representation which so long have been recognised among men, it must be through the working women, the bread-winning woman. Her situation is easily comparable to that of the working-class man who quite recently has had himself to fight in order to win his denied claim to freedom, a fact which he, and others for him, still remember. The aristocracy, the landed proprietor, the middle-class trader, each in turn was driven to claim and fight for these same rights. But their struggle was of long ago, their security in this right has remained unshaken for so many generations that they have clean forgotten what it would mean to be without it. It is by the side of the most recent victors that women must put in their claim. With this class, the working-class women, though at all times at one with them in point of sympathy from theoretic understanding of their troubles and needs, I was not in direct touch and laid no first-hand experiences that I could share with them. I read the petitions of factory workers, of the sweated home workers, of the professions—teachers, nurses, medical women—with respect and whole-hearted sympathy, but how could I stand for them when I was not equipped to represent them?This was my state of mind until, walking from Holloway to the City in one of our Suffragette processions, I heard for the first time with my own ears the well-worn taunt “Go home and do your washing.” This awoke in me a magic response. Since the days of my earliest childhood washing had held great charm for me, and as a result I had revered the washers exceptionally. In my youth, the pursuit was associated exclusively with laundry-workers, but in later years I realised that, except in that small proportion of houses where servants are kept, every woman is a laundrymaid,and that in every house throughout the land, or indeed throughout the world, the cleaning and the washing are done mainly by women, by wives and mothers, their girl children or women servants. Washing, the making clean that which had been dirty, and making the crumpled and uncomfortable things smooth, was my hobby. I was an amateur scrubber and laundry-woman in the same spirit as other unemployed females dabble in water-colour drawings or hand embroidery. But much as I personally enjoyed occasional experimenting in the craft, it was easy to imagine how irksome the occupation might become if one were driven to it week by week with no release, under unsuitable conditions, without the necessary equipment, in a small house or single room, surrounded by children, with a stinted water supply, inadequate firing utensils, a weary body and a mind distraught as to how to exist from day to day. From the moment I heard that “washing” taunt in the street, I have had eyes for the work of the washers. If there is one single industry highly deserving of recognition throughout the world of human existence and of representation under parliamentary systems, it surely is that of the washers, the renewers week by week, the makers clean.I determined, if I should find myself the solitary representative of the Deputation and its untrained spokeswoman, I should point to the collars and shirt fronts of the gentlemen who received me and claim the freedom of citizenship for the washers. As I stepped out from Caxton Hall, through the grime of a foggy February evening, I caught sightof white collars here and there in the crowd, like little flashing code-signals beckoning to us across the darkness. The gnarled hands, the bent backs, the tear-dimmed eyes of those that had washed them white seemed to cry out, “Remember us. Don’t be afraid to speak for us if you get through to the presence of those who know nothing, heed nothing of our toil.” I said in my heart, “I shall remember, and I shall not be afraid in their presence.”We had scarcely stepped into the street before we found ourselves hedged in by a∧shaped avenue of police, narrowing as we advanced. They asked no questions, said nothing, but proceeded to close upon us from either side. My companion and I kept together. Very soon all breath seemed to have been pressed out of my body, but remembering the order of the day, “Don’t be turned back,” I tried to hold my ground even when advance was out of the question. Miss Gye, however, soon realised the situation and pulled me back, saying, “We are not yet in Parliament Square; we must manage to get there somehow; let’s try another way.” The police had forced themselves between the ranks of the Deputation, keeping them apart and trying also to sever the couples, but Miss Gye and I managed to regain hold of each other. I had not been able to reconnoitre in the morning as I had intended. The whereabouts of Caxton Hall was unknown to me, and in the darkness I felt quite at sea as regards direction. We soon got clear of the police and found ourselves in a friendly crowd who half hindered, half pushed, us along. But I was already so incapacitated by breathlessness I could not lift my chest and head.I had repeatedly to stop, and, but for the kindly assistance of my companion and an unknown man and woman of the crowd, I should have been unable to get any further. The main body of the Deputation had made for the strangers’ entrance of the House of Commons, near the House of Lords. I saw none of them again until we met in the police station. In Parliament Square we soon became entangled in a thick crowd, some of them friendly, as many not, the great bulk curiosity-mongers. Miss Gye and I were, of course, recognisable as members of the Deputation by our sashes, and though at first whenever the police or the crowd pushed us apart she managed to return to me, we eventually got completely separated and lost sight of each other. My two stranger friends in the crowd, however, not being marked by badges were always returning to my help. The occasion most literally turned out to be one for “deeds, not words.” Being doubled up for want of breath, I could scarcely see where I was going, but my instinct led me to avoid the police in every way that I could. They were placed about in twos and threes in no apparent special formation, but now and then one came to a whole line of them, standing shoulder to shoulder. I was during most of the time physically incapable of speech. I only twice was able to express myself in words, on both occasions when I was lifted off my feet and relieved of the toil of dragging my own body. First when the crowd wedged me up against a policeman, I said to him: “I know you are only doing your duty and I am doing mine.” His only answer was to seize me with both his hands round the ribs, squeeze the remainingbreath out of my body and, lifting me completely into the air, throw me with all his strength. Thanks to the crowd I did not reach the ground; several of my companions in more isolated parts of the square were thrown repeatedly on to the pavement. Another time a policeman turned me round and, holding my arms behind me, drove me ahead of him for several yards at a great pace. So that his violence would not land me on to my face I exerted what pressure I could to steady my feet. No doubt this looked very “violent” on my part to some of the crowd who jeered and booed. I said to them, in gasps: “You ask women to behave in a womanly way; do you think this is treating them in a manly way?” Twice again I was thrown as before described. I offered no resistance to this whatever, and being of light weight for my size, I feared that I was becoming a specially desirable victim for the experts in this line. Each time I was thrown to a greater distance and the concussion on reaching the ground was painful and straining, though in each case the crowd acted for me as sort of buffers. When seized for the throw there is also a feeling of wrenching throughout the body. But I gained in the direction of the House nevertheless, always assisted by the crowd. The stranger woman in particular, a German lady who was tall, well-built, and of considerable strength, had managed to keep near me. Three times, after each of the “throws,” she came to my help and warded off the crowd while I leant up against some railings, or against her shoulder to recover my breath. Several times I said to her, “I can’t go on; I simply can’t go on.” Sheanswered, “Wait for a little, you will be all right presently.” At the time and ever since I have felt most inexpressibly grateful to this stranger friend.I was goaded on most of all, perhaps, by the fear that I should be taken off by an ambulance—I heard that some were about—and, if so, that all I had achieved so far would have to be faced again, probably with renewed difficulty. Flashes of vivid light and the sound of a slight muffled explosion came about from time to time. I did not know what these were, they added to the sense of incomprehensibleness and general confusion. It was only towards the end of the day I realised that they were the newspaper photographers’ flashlights. The irony of their attentions seemed great.It was cheering to find that in spite of everything I had gained ground and was quite near to the House. The police were now far less numerous, standing only in small groups of twos and threes. Several of these to my surprise let me pass quite close by them unmolested. The prospect of actually entering the House seemed now not unattainable. My utterly dishevelled condition, my inability for want of breath to stand upright or to string more than two words together at a time, should have enhanced the nightmare of possibly being admitted to the presence of the Prime Minister. But strange to say that fear had left me. The instinct for achievement engendered by the rebuffs of the police, the indignation aroused by the fact that such treatment of a deputation of voteless citizens had been deliberately ordered and sanctioned by the Government, had for the moment cured all fears as to my personalinadequacy as a spokesman. I found myself at the gates of the members’ entrance. No crowd was near and only two policemen stood, ordinary wise, at either side of the gate. They did not seem to be noticing me. I straightened my back to assume as much of a normal appearance as possible. I passed through the gate. At this the policeman nearest to me turned and seized my arm. Expecting to be thrown as before, I tried to hold my ground and said, “Please let me pass,” or words to that effect. Another policeman promptly took me by the other arm and I was led off at a great pace. The effort to try and realise what was happening seemed to use up the last remnant of physical power at my disposal. I supposed I was being led away, as I had been warned was sometimes done as a means of disheartening the women, to some distant and lonely street. But there was nothing of roughness or insult in the attitude of the police who held me. I thought perhaps I had fainted or fallen without knowing it and that they were ambulance men. I felt unable to cope with the problem, my eyes shut and my head fell forward. We seemed to be going a long way. “How shall I ever get back from here,” I wondered. Presently there was an alteration in the sounds of our footsteps and in the gestures of the men. I opened my eyes and looked up. Close in front of me, over a doorway, was a blue lamp with the words “Police Station” printed upon it. I knew then that I had been arrested. The discovery was positively life-giving. To think that it was over, that the struggle would not have to begin all over again! I was able to lift my headand walk fairly easily; the crushing sense of failure was gone. When anticipating events, and trying to prepare myself for the various stages of the ordeal before me, I had supposed that one of the worst moments would be this of being actually “had up,” when I should find myself in the police station and know the first step towards prison had been taken; that there could be no going back. When it came to actual experience, Cannon Row police station had all the attractions of a harbour after a storm. From the moment I set foot inside this domain of the police nothing could exceed their courtesy and even sympathy. In a large, nondescript kind of waiting room I was taken up to a table at which a policeman sat making entries in a ledger. I was asked my name, address, age, vocation, etc. I wondered whether I was the only one that had been arrested, but presently two more of the Deputation came in. The delight at seeing again some of my companions was very great; it was only then I fully realised how the isolation from the others had added to the toil and gruesomeness of the struggle in Parliament Square. We were taken up to a large sort of club room, in which there were billiard tables. Several of the Deputation were already there. We were eager, of course, to hear each other’s experiences. I quickly realised that I had had an unusually good time of it. Several of them had been thrown on to the ground, some kicked, one had had her thumb dislocated, another had a sprained ankle. One had her face streaming with blood from a blow on the nose. Before long Mrs. Pethick Lawrence joined us. It was a curious sensation on seeing her, of mingleddelight that she was with us again, and indignation that a woman such as she is should have been arrested. The word quickly went round that we were to conceal as best we might our various injuries. It was no part of our policy to get the police into trouble. Except where they were given definite orders to the contrary, they did their best for us, and whenever they themselves controlled the situation their good will towards us was most marked. I remember that the most difficult thing to disguise was the wounded nose of Miss Dugdale, when a policeman came up to inquire whether any were hurt or if a doctor were wanted for us.It was here, at Cannon Row, that I first tasted the delights of that full, unfetterd companionship which is among the greatest immediate rewards of those who work actively in this cause. No drudgery of preliminary acquaintanceship has to be got through, no misdoubting inquiries as to kindred temperaments or interests. The sense of unity and mutual confidence is complete and begins from the first unhesitatingly. It was most noticeable, as it had been to me before when a mere looker-on, that this unity, so far from tending to produce uniformity of type, had the very opposite effect, it enhanced individuality. One felt like so many different bolts and cranks and wheels of a machine, each bringing a different quality to serve a different purpose for the smooth working of the whole. For the first time in my life I felt of some use; since we all were so different from each other, it seemed we could each contribute something to the general solidarity of experience, of opinion, of conduct.The throwing about had brought on an aggressive cough which at first checked my ardour to brisk up with my companions. I found refuge in a distant bow window where there was a seat, and where I managed to allay the worst of my cough. Presently a wardress appeared. I asked her if we might have a glass of water for myself and one other woman who had a badly hurt ankle. She was most kind and quickly brought several glasses. I wrote a letter to my mother, reassuring her as to our having got through all right, assuming that some account of the way the women had been treated would appear in the press the next morning, and knowing how great would be her anxiety in consequence. As I recovered from the excessive spasms of the cough, I was able to talk to some of my companions. I felt, for about the fiftieth time since I had come in touch with the W.S.P.U., ashamed of myself in their presence. They were drawn from many different grades of society. Several were women of considerable intellectual gifts, a good many were from the leisured class, some belonged to the working class. Most of them could look back on lives of much more useful service to the community than I could boast, many had made sacrifices greater than my own to join the Deputation, several were running much graver risk, physically, in facing the hardship of prison than I incurred. Some had to face a situation in their homes more distressing even than my own. My little share of difficulty and sacrifice, of risk and dread, which had completely filled my horizon for so many weeks, seemed insignificant enough now. Time passed very slowly, but ratherfrom intensity of interest, acuteness of minute observation, than from boredom. We were to be detained until the House of Commons rose. At last at about eleven the light in the Clock Tower went out and our good friend, Mr. Pethick Lawrence, appeared and bailed us out for the night. One by one we again passed before a seated head constable and his book, and were handed an official paper requiring us to appear at Bow Street the next morning.I had made no arrangements as to where I should spend the night, my chief concern having been to keep secret my share in the day’s proceedings till they were over. I felt stunned and cold as ice. I was in a sense, of course, satisfied and glad that, at least, I had shared what the other women had endured, but for the first time during that day it had come before me forcibly that, not only the Government, but the general public too were to a great extent responsible for the official treatment of the Deputation. I shuddered when I remembered the crowd of curiosity mongers, most of them “respectable” looking people who had treated the whole thing as a kind of cock-fight, and who took sides with the baiters or the baited, according to their apparent likeliness of victory. It was revolting, the kind of thing I could not have believed of a London crowd unless I had myself witnessed it. It made me feel ashamed to the marrow of my bones.[4]Footnote:[4]I met a lady, Winifred, Lady Arran, in July, 1911, who told me that she had been in Parliament Square and had seen our Deputation. She saw and recognised me. “But,” she said, “you seemed not to realise that all the men in the crowd were for you.”I took a four-wheeler and made for my youngest sister’s house in Bloomsbury Square. On the way, by as it seemed a strange coincidence, I passed my eldest sister, who was just emerging from a theatre with a friend. I stopped and spoke to her. She apparently did not notice my dishevelled condition or suspect that I had been with the Deputation. She told me that she too was staying in Bloomsbury Square. Arrived there, I found my hostess in bed. I asked her if she could put me up. “You’ve been with the Deputation?” she asked. “Yes.” “You’ve not been arrested yourself?” “Yes.” Her look of mingled sympathy and satisfaction was life-giving, I shall never forget it. Both my sisters were immensely kind and helpful. The house was full and I shared a bed with my eldest sister. All night she kept her strong arm round my heart and steadied my throbbing body which, owing to the attentions of the police, continued to shake all night. Several times in the night my sister said with great distress, “Oh! Con, you are not fit to go to prison;” but she of course, was thinking only of the physical side of things. We were able to discuss what best could be done to comfort Mother. Neither of my sisters ever tried to persuade me to take advantage of any possible way out from imprisonment if it should be offered at the trial. They knew my decision could only have been taken after deep and prolonged consideration and for reasons good enough in my estimation to outweigh all those against.
Throughoutthis month of January, 1909, I became convinced that I should be justified in offering myself as a member of the next deputation to the Prime Minister to demand the removal of women’s disabilities to the Parliamentary franchise. I became a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and on January 28 I wrote to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence offering myself for the deputation. I did not tell anybody but her of my decision. On the 30th I received her answer, accepting my offer.
On February 24 I went up to London from Homewood, without telling mother of the plan and actually without saying good-bye to her, as she went out to the village before I started. I wrote her the following letter at King’s Cross Station, but did not post it till later in the day:—
“Wednesday, February 24, 1909.“My Angel Mother,—I don’t know whether I shall post this to you or see you first. I want to have a letter ready.“Don’t be startled or afraid. I have something to tell you which—with the help of recent presentiments—you, I know, are half expecting to hear.“If you ever see this letter it will mean that after joining the deputation I have been arrested and shall not see you again until I have been to Holloway. For months I have been planning this letter to you, but now that the time has come, it is not any easier to write for that. Of course, my hope has been all along that I should be able to take you into my confidence, that I should have the perhaps all-undeserved yet heaven-like joy of knowing that though you could not share all my views, yet that you would understand why I held them, and, granted these, you would further understand my action and the great sacrifice which I know it means to you. My darling Muddy, you will never know, I trust, the pain it is to have to do this thing without your sympathy and help—with, on the contrary, the certainty that it shocks you and hurts you and makes you suffer in numberless ways. Hardly a day has passed but what I have tried to feel my way with you, tried to convert you—not to my theoretic views, difference there does not matter, but to my intended conduct in connection with them. Every day I have failed. If I decided to do this thing, absolute secrecy was necessary, for, the whole of these police regulations being arbitrarily ordered and special to the case, they would never arrest me, not, I mean, unless I really broke the law, if they knew who I was. Unless I had your sympathy and understanding, it was, of course, hopeless to count on your secrecy. I had two alternatives, to give up the plan, or to keep it and deceive you about it. I chose this last. For your sake I have tried never to tell you an actual lie in words. I have not done this, and that is, perhaps,why you have your suspicions. But to my conscience that is no easier. It was my intention to deceive you, and I have deceived you, and, for all practical purposes, successfully. Once the intention is to deceive, it seems to me not to make any difference how it is done.“You will be angry. If it could be only that. But you will be hurt through and through. As I write the words their meaning is acute in my mind and heart. You will hardly care to know, but I must tell you what has decided me to take this torturing step.“Prisons, as you know, have been my hobby. What maternity there lurks in me has for years past been gradually awakening over the fate of prisoners, the deliberate, cruel harm that is done to them, their souls and bodies, the ignorant, exasperating waste of good opportunities in connection with them, till now the thought of them, the yearning after them, turns in me and tugs at me as vitally and irrepressibly as ever a physical child can call upon its mother.“The moment I got near the Suffragettes the way to this child of mine seemed easy and straight. But I knew the temptation to think this must make me doubly sure of my ground. I have felt from the first that I could not take this woman’s movement merely as an excuse for Holloway. I have waited till my conviction was genuine and deep at every point, and till the opportunity occurred for facing the police regulations in a way possible to my whole nature, temperament, conscience. There are several other things which the Suffragettes do, which I would not and could not do.“I finally made up my mind in about the middle of January, and soon after wrote to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. Enclosed is her answer. I had not recently been seeing them, or going to meetings, or in any way specially communicating with them. I took the decision entirely on myself, in no way consulted her nor asked her advice; even had they not accepted me in the deputation I should have joined outside.“About the physical discomforts part of Holloway, don’t be distressed for that. These are already nothing to what they were. And I am such a muff, what remains of hardship will be wholesome for me—really ‘reformatory’ for me as imprisonment seldom is to others. If I could only know that you will help me face it, it would be nothing to me. It’s my journeying after the hobby that sucks up my soul like a tide, my Nile sources, my Thibet, my Ruvenzori. If you, my splendid Mother, will only help me in spirit that the little spark of Sven Hedin shall not fail in me. I am no hero, but the thought of other travellers’ much worse privations on that road will, I believe, fizzle up my flimsy body enough for what is necessary, and if only I knew you were helping me in your heart I should not, could not, fail, Muddy darling.“You can’t forgive me now, but perhaps you will some day. Whatever you feel towards me, whatever I do, I shall still be always“Your most loving and devoted“Con.“The account papers, tradesmen addresses, wages paper, are in the lift-up place of desk on dining-roomwriting table. I expect I shall be away from you a month. The others will cling round you. If I were going a trip abroad you would not resent the separation. In my little warm cupboard nest in Holloway my only thought of the outer world will be of you. I shall try anyhow to get back to you to-night.“Con.”
“Wednesday, February 24, 1909.
“My Angel Mother,—I don’t know whether I shall post this to you or see you first. I want to have a letter ready.
“Don’t be startled or afraid. I have something to tell you which—with the help of recent presentiments—you, I know, are half expecting to hear.
“If you ever see this letter it will mean that after joining the deputation I have been arrested and shall not see you again until I have been to Holloway. For months I have been planning this letter to you, but now that the time has come, it is not any easier to write for that. Of course, my hope has been all along that I should be able to take you into my confidence, that I should have the perhaps all-undeserved yet heaven-like joy of knowing that though you could not share all my views, yet that you would understand why I held them, and, granted these, you would further understand my action and the great sacrifice which I know it means to you. My darling Muddy, you will never know, I trust, the pain it is to have to do this thing without your sympathy and help—with, on the contrary, the certainty that it shocks you and hurts you and makes you suffer in numberless ways. Hardly a day has passed but what I have tried to feel my way with you, tried to convert you—not to my theoretic views, difference there does not matter, but to my intended conduct in connection with them. Every day I have failed. If I decided to do this thing, absolute secrecy was necessary, for, the whole of these police regulations being arbitrarily ordered and special to the case, they would never arrest me, not, I mean, unless I really broke the law, if they knew who I was. Unless I had your sympathy and understanding, it was, of course, hopeless to count on your secrecy. I had two alternatives, to give up the plan, or to keep it and deceive you about it. I chose this last. For your sake I have tried never to tell you an actual lie in words. I have not done this, and that is, perhaps,why you have your suspicions. But to my conscience that is no easier. It was my intention to deceive you, and I have deceived you, and, for all practical purposes, successfully. Once the intention is to deceive, it seems to me not to make any difference how it is done.
“You will be angry. If it could be only that. But you will be hurt through and through. As I write the words their meaning is acute in my mind and heart. You will hardly care to know, but I must tell you what has decided me to take this torturing step.
“Prisons, as you know, have been my hobby. What maternity there lurks in me has for years past been gradually awakening over the fate of prisoners, the deliberate, cruel harm that is done to them, their souls and bodies, the ignorant, exasperating waste of good opportunities in connection with them, till now the thought of them, the yearning after them, turns in me and tugs at me as vitally and irrepressibly as ever a physical child can call upon its mother.
“The moment I got near the Suffragettes the way to this child of mine seemed easy and straight. But I knew the temptation to think this must make me doubly sure of my ground. I have felt from the first that I could not take this woman’s movement merely as an excuse for Holloway. I have waited till my conviction was genuine and deep at every point, and till the opportunity occurred for facing the police regulations in a way possible to my whole nature, temperament, conscience. There are several other things which the Suffragettes do, which I would not and could not do.
“I finally made up my mind in about the middle of January, and soon after wrote to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. Enclosed is her answer. I had not recently been seeing them, or going to meetings, or in any way specially communicating with them. I took the decision entirely on myself, in no way consulted her nor asked her advice; even had they not accepted me in the deputation I should have joined outside.
“About the physical discomforts part of Holloway, don’t be distressed for that. These are already nothing to what they were. And I am such a muff, what remains of hardship will be wholesome for me—really ‘reformatory’ for me as imprisonment seldom is to others. If I could only know that you will help me face it, it would be nothing to me. It’s my journeying after the hobby that sucks up my soul like a tide, my Nile sources, my Thibet, my Ruvenzori. If you, my splendid Mother, will only help me in spirit that the little spark of Sven Hedin shall not fail in me. I am no hero, but the thought of other travellers’ much worse privations on that road will, I believe, fizzle up my flimsy body enough for what is necessary, and if only I knew you were helping me in your heart I should not, could not, fail, Muddy darling.
“You can’t forgive me now, but perhaps you will some day. Whatever you feel towards me, whatever I do, I shall still be always
“Your most loving and devoted
“Con.
“The account papers, tradesmen addresses, wages paper, are in the lift-up place of desk on dining-roomwriting table. I expect I shall be away from you a month. The others will cling round you. If I were going a trip abroad you would not resent the separation. In my little warm cupboard nest in Holloway my only thought of the outer world will be of you. I shall try anyhow to get back to you to-night.
“Con.”
I went to 4, Clement’s Inn, lunched there with Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Christabel, Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Tuke; Miss Neal came too. She kindly undertook to post my letter to mother and buy me a brush and comb and toothbrush in case we should be sent to the 1st Division.
I had a cracking headache and felt quite dazed. They kindly put me to lie down in the upstairs rest room boudoir, where Mrs. Pankhurst and Christabel had remained hidden from the police on October 14, 1908.
At about six o’clock we had supper. I ate next to nothing. Miss Elsa Gye, who had been summoned by telegraph to come and assist me through the Deputation, was at supper. She was a delightful girl, young and fresh-looking. I had been told that she was just engaged to be married, and I felt it was horrible that she should risk weeks of imprisonment solely because of me.
I had disguised myself by doing my hair in an early-Victorian way, so that the police, if on the look out for me, should not recognise me and so be tempted not to arrest me; for people whose relatives might make a fuss effectively are considered awkward customers.
At about seven Miss Gye and I set out and hailed a taxi. I found I had left my ticket behind for the Caxton Hall Meeting. So I flew back to Clement’s Inn to get it. It was a raw, cold night, but I had been advised to dispense with my muff and boa, as these, I was told, would almost certainly be torn to shreds “in the hustling”; this gave one a rather gruesome warning of what was to be expected from the handling of the police. We were each given a copy of the resolution which was to be put to the meeting. As we drove to Caxton Hall, it suddenly struck me that I had not sufficiently learnt up my part. “What does one have to do?” I asked. “I suppose I must do something to show that I mean business.” “Oh, no,” my companion answered, “you needn’t bother about what you’ll do. It will all be donetoyou. There is only one thing you must remember. It is our business to go forward, and whatever is said to you and whatever is done to you, you must on no account be turned back.” That seemed to me at the time, and has seemed to me ever since, to be the essence of our militant tactics. I afterwards heard it yet better summarised by Mrs. Pankhurst: “Our demand is just and moderate. We press our cause reasonably and in a law-abiding spirit, but in such a way that we give the Government but two alternatives—either to do us justice or to do us violence.” My companion also told me that if the police became too violent, I could cut matters short and ensure instant arrest by the semblance of making a speech or collecting a crowd round me for that purpose, since these offences constituted a breach of thepeace. Miss Gye and I sat in the body of the hall, we had on the “Votes for Women” sashes and were to join the Deputation unostentatiously as it left the building.
The appearance of the Deputation on the platform was remarkable for the look of dignity and pathetic earnestness of the members, many of them white-haired, and one or two young and pretty girls.[3]The speeches seemed to be very much to the point. I could hardly listen to them for the distracting thought of when my mother would hear about me and what she would think and feel; but I had no wish to shirk, and never for a moment did I doubt that I had done right.
Footnote:[3]The Deputation was composed of our leader Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Miss Daisy Solomon, Mrs. Vans Agnew Corbett, Miss Una Dugdale, Miss Madeline Petre, Miss E. H. Chesshire, Mrs. Caprina Fahey, Miss M. Barnet, Miss Margaret Davies Colley, Miss Margaret E. Rodgers, Miss Mary Allen, Miss Ellen Pitman, Miss Maud Freeman, Mrs. Katherine Richmond, Miss Mary Lethune, Miss M. Adair Roberts, Miss Leslie Lawless, Miss Caroline Townsend, Mrs. Tyson, Miss M. Tyson, Miss Ainsworth, Mrs. Lamartine Yates, Miss M. E. Thompson, Miss Helen Kirkpatrick Watts, Miss Kate Walsh, Miss Sara Carwin, Mrs. Saul Solomon, who was not eventually arrested, and Miss Elsa Gye and myself brought the number to twenty-nine.
Many friends had seen and not recognised me, at which I was delighted. Others did recognise me, and seeing I had the sash on, which meant the Deputation, they looked immensely surprised.
Presently the Deputation came down from the platform, formed up in couples, headed by Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, and marched out of the hall. Miss Gye and I joined in behind the sixth or seventh couple. We were thirty women in all. By thistime I had a feeling of exhilaration that the moment for my own independent action had come at last. I had a vague notion that I should have to encounter physical difficulties, but since I had merely to meet them and endure them, knowing that I could lay no claim to overcoming these by physical powers of which I was deficient, the way from that moment seemed plain and easy. I felt proud to be one of the active ones at last, to be the companion of these women in particular, whom I had watched on the platform, and to know that the Deputation was headed by one of our leaders who had first revealed the woman’s movement to me.
The following resolution was put to the meeting and carried with acclamation: “That this Parliament of women expresses its indignation that while every measure in the King’s Speech vitally affects the interests of their sex, and while heavier financial burdens are to be laid upon woman tax-payers, the Government have not included in the programme for the session a measure to confer the Parliamentary vote upon duly qualified women. The women here assembled call upon the Government to introduce and carry into law this session a measure giving votes to women on the same terms as to men.
“A Deputation is hereby appointed, to whom is entrusted the duty of forthwith conveying this resolution to the Prime Minister at the House of Commons and eliciting his reply.”
A copy was then handed to each member of the Deputation.
Of all the undesirable possibilities before me, I dreaded most lest by some horrible twist of fate theleaders of the Deputation should be refused admittance, and I, if recognised, should have the lonely privilege thrust upon me of being received. I had never made a regular speech, and two attempts I had made at narrating my experiences of the previous October to a village audience had not been reassuring. My own point of view was definite enough, but I did not feel equipped to speak for others. When deciding to go on the Deputation I had, however, taken stock of my representative character and asked myself for which group of women I should stand, what was my atom’s share in this movement if I did not strain after any vicarious office but merely added my own personal weight to the scale? Without doubt I myself was one of that numerous gang of upper class leisured class spinsters, unemployed, unpropertied, unendowed, uneducated, without equipment or training for public service, economically dependent entirely upon others, not masters of their own leisure, however oppressively abundant that might seem to the onlooker. In a class where property runs with primogeniture, the first-born, if a female, is overlooked. In a class the whole status of which is based on property, on wealth to live at ease and in luxury, property is only dealt out to women, if at all, after male relatives have been served first, and then, as a rule, in much less proportion. Posts of honour and remuneration are barred to them in nearly all professions, in even those few they are allowed to enter. They remain almost invariably without honour of titles or lands or wealth, even where their services have been sought. Posts of Government are exclusively for men, with the soleexception of the Sovereign. Trained to luxury and untrained to remunerative work, they are for the most part dependents from childhood to the grave. A maiming subserviency is so conditional to their very existence that it becomes an aim in itself, an ideal. Driven through life with blinkers on, they are unresentful of the bridle, the rein and the whip, uncritical of the direction in which they are driven, unmindful of the result to others as well as to themselves of their maintainer’s beliefs and policy, whatever they may be. The bride at the sacred ritual of her marriage festival hears from her husband the words, “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” She knows at the time and she learns yet more intimately as life goes on that those words have no practical bearing, and that at her husband’s death the greater part of even that property which had been seemingly made over to her during his lifetime will pass from her hands at the wane of her lonely existence, when she needs it most, into those of her son or some more distant relative. The literal, practical, interpretation of that husband’s vow—yes, of the vow even of good and well-intentioned husbands—most usually is: “With this ring I thee bind, with my body I thee control, with none of my worldly goods I thee endow.” As a widow more often than not she sinks, because of her financial position, to a social state out of touch with all her past life. But at least the wives, the widows, generally have children through whom their powers of service to their families and to the community in general are to a certain extent developedand recognised, and which give them a certain insight into the realities of existence. They also have known well-being and vicarious honour through their husbands. But to the single woman, the old maid of later years, the paralysing worship of incapacity dominates life, the chain of limitations and restrictions is but seldom broken, and never overcome save by exceptional force of character or ability. Even then how often it is only the beating of wings against unyielding and maiming bars; freedom, if attained, rendered useless by lack of preparation in the competition against trained and privileged beings of the male sex, and the vain ambition ends in a seeming mutiny, nothing more—a distortion, an abnormality, an untidiness of creation.
I could stand indeed for the superfluous spinster, but who would listen to a messenger from this mute array, who cares for the blind, the lamed, the maimed and the dumb? The fearful unnecessity of their disablement awakes no pity, no heart softens at thought of them, no politician would feel his conscience pricked by the narration of their grievances. A yoke so submitted to, so uselessly endured, can claim no reverence of martyrdom. But before condemning those who submit to it, I wish that our critics could realise what it means to be born under this yoke and then try to shake it off.
It is easy to see that if women are to appeal effectively to a modern parliament for the rights of liberty and representation which so long have been recognised among men, it must be through the working women, the bread-winning woman. Her situation is easily comparable to that of the working-class man who quite recently has had himself to fight in order to win his denied claim to freedom, a fact which he, and others for him, still remember. The aristocracy, the landed proprietor, the middle-class trader, each in turn was driven to claim and fight for these same rights. But their struggle was of long ago, their security in this right has remained unshaken for so many generations that they have clean forgotten what it would mean to be without it. It is by the side of the most recent victors that women must put in their claim. With this class, the working-class women, though at all times at one with them in point of sympathy from theoretic understanding of their troubles and needs, I was not in direct touch and laid no first-hand experiences that I could share with them. I read the petitions of factory workers, of the sweated home workers, of the professions—teachers, nurses, medical women—with respect and whole-hearted sympathy, but how could I stand for them when I was not equipped to represent them?
This was my state of mind until, walking from Holloway to the City in one of our Suffragette processions, I heard for the first time with my own ears the well-worn taunt “Go home and do your washing.” This awoke in me a magic response. Since the days of my earliest childhood washing had held great charm for me, and as a result I had revered the washers exceptionally. In my youth, the pursuit was associated exclusively with laundry-workers, but in later years I realised that, except in that small proportion of houses where servants are kept, every woman is a laundrymaid,and that in every house throughout the land, or indeed throughout the world, the cleaning and the washing are done mainly by women, by wives and mothers, their girl children or women servants. Washing, the making clean that which had been dirty, and making the crumpled and uncomfortable things smooth, was my hobby. I was an amateur scrubber and laundry-woman in the same spirit as other unemployed females dabble in water-colour drawings or hand embroidery. But much as I personally enjoyed occasional experimenting in the craft, it was easy to imagine how irksome the occupation might become if one were driven to it week by week with no release, under unsuitable conditions, without the necessary equipment, in a small house or single room, surrounded by children, with a stinted water supply, inadequate firing utensils, a weary body and a mind distraught as to how to exist from day to day. From the moment I heard that “washing” taunt in the street, I have had eyes for the work of the washers. If there is one single industry highly deserving of recognition throughout the world of human existence and of representation under parliamentary systems, it surely is that of the washers, the renewers week by week, the makers clean.
I determined, if I should find myself the solitary representative of the Deputation and its untrained spokeswoman, I should point to the collars and shirt fronts of the gentlemen who received me and claim the freedom of citizenship for the washers. As I stepped out from Caxton Hall, through the grime of a foggy February evening, I caught sightof white collars here and there in the crowd, like little flashing code-signals beckoning to us across the darkness. The gnarled hands, the bent backs, the tear-dimmed eyes of those that had washed them white seemed to cry out, “Remember us. Don’t be afraid to speak for us if you get through to the presence of those who know nothing, heed nothing of our toil.” I said in my heart, “I shall remember, and I shall not be afraid in their presence.”
We had scarcely stepped into the street before we found ourselves hedged in by a∧shaped avenue of police, narrowing as we advanced. They asked no questions, said nothing, but proceeded to close upon us from either side. My companion and I kept together. Very soon all breath seemed to have been pressed out of my body, but remembering the order of the day, “Don’t be turned back,” I tried to hold my ground even when advance was out of the question. Miss Gye, however, soon realised the situation and pulled me back, saying, “We are not yet in Parliament Square; we must manage to get there somehow; let’s try another way.” The police had forced themselves between the ranks of the Deputation, keeping them apart and trying also to sever the couples, but Miss Gye and I managed to regain hold of each other. I had not been able to reconnoitre in the morning as I had intended. The whereabouts of Caxton Hall was unknown to me, and in the darkness I felt quite at sea as regards direction. We soon got clear of the police and found ourselves in a friendly crowd who half hindered, half pushed, us along. But I was already so incapacitated by breathlessness I could not lift my chest and head.I had repeatedly to stop, and, but for the kindly assistance of my companion and an unknown man and woman of the crowd, I should have been unable to get any further. The main body of the Deputation had made for the strangers’ entrance of the House of Commons, near the House of Lords. I saw none of them again until we met in the police station. In Parliament Square we soon became entangled in a thick crowd, some of them friendly, as many not, the great bulk curiosity-mongers. Miss Gye and I were, of course, recognisable as members of the Deputation by our sashes, and though at first whenever the police or the crowd pushed us apart she managed to return to me, we eventually got completely separated and lost sight of each other. My two stranger friends in the crowd, however, not being marked by badges were always returning to my help. The occasion most literally turned out to be one for “deeds, not words.” Being doubled up for want of breath, I could scarcely see where I was going, but my instinct led me to avoid the police in every way that I could. They were placed about in twos and threes in no apparent special formation, but now and then one came to a whole line of them, standing shoulder to shoulder. I was during most of the time physically incapable of speech. I only twice was able to express myself in words, on both occasions when I was lifted off my feet and relieved of the toil of dragging my own body. First when the crowd wedged me up against a policeman, I said to him: “I know you are only doing your duty and I am doing mine.” His only answer was to seize me with both his hands round the ribs, squeeze the remainingbreath out of my body and, lifting me completely into the air, throw me with all his strength. Thanks to the crowd I did not reach the ground; several of my companions in more isolated parts of the square were thrown repeatedly on to the pavement. Another time a policeman turned me round and, holding my arms behind me, drove me ahead of him for several yards at a great pace. So that his violence would not land me on to my face I exerted what pressure I could to steady my feet. No doubt this looked very “violent” on my part to some of the crowd who jeered and booed. I said to them, in gasps: “You ask women to behave in a womanly way; do you think this is treating them in a manly way?” Twice again I was thrown as before described. I offered no resistance to this whatever, and being of light weight for my size, I feared that I was becoming a specially desirable victim for the experts in this line. Each time I was thrown to a greater distance and the concussion on reaching the ground was painful and straining, though in each case the crowd acted for me as sort of buffers. When seized for the throw there is also a feeling of wrenching throughout the body. But I gained in the direction of the House nevertheless, always assisted by the crowd. The stranger woman in particular, a German lady who was tall, well-built, and of considerable strength, had managed to keep near me. Three times, after each of the “throws,” she came to my help and warded off the crowd while I leant up against some railings, or against her shoulder to recover my breath. Several times I said to her, “I can’t go on; I simply can’t go on.” Sheanswered, “Wait for a little, you will be all right presently.” At the time and ever since I have felt most inexpressibly grateful to this stranger friend.
I was goaded on most of all, perhaps, by the fear that I should be taken off by an ambulance—I heard that some were about—and, if so, that all I had achieved so far would have to be faced again, probably with renewed difficulty. Flashes of vivid light and the sound of a slight muffled explosion came about from time to time. I did not know what these were, they added to the sense of incomprehensibleness and general confusion. It was only towards the end of the day I realised that they were the newspaper photographers’ flashlights. The irony of their attentions seemed great.
It was cheering to find that in spite of everything I had gained ground and was quite near to the House. The police were now far less numerous, standing only in small groups of twos and threes. Several of these to my surprise let me pass quite close by them unmolested. The prospect of actually entering the House seemed now not unattainable. My utterly dishevelled condition, my inability for want of breath to stand upright or to string more than two words together at a time, should have enhanced the nightmare of possibly being admitted to the presence of the Prime Minister. But strange to say that fear had left me. The instinct for achievement engendered by the rebuffs of the police, the indignation aroused by the fact that such treatment of a deputation of voteless citizens had been deliberately ordered and sanctioned by the Government, had for the moment cured all fears as to my personalinadequacy as a spokesman. I found myself at the gates of the members’ entrance. No crowd was near and only two policemen stood, ordinary wise, at either side of the gate. They did not seem to be noticing me. I straightened my back to assume as much of a normal appearance as possible. I passed through the gate. At this the policeman nearest to me turned and seized my arm. Expecting to be thrown as before, I tried to hold my ground and said, “Please let me pass,” or words to that effect. Another policeman promptly took me by the other arm and I was led off at a great pace. The effort to try and realise what was happening seemed to use up the last remnant of physical power at my disposal. I supposed I was being led away, as I had been warned was sometimes done as a means of disheartening the women, to some distant and lonely street. But there was nothing of roughness or insult in the attitude of the police who held me. I thought perhaps I had fainted or fallen without knowing it and that they were ambulance men. I felt unable to cope with the problem, my eyes shut and my head fell forward. We seemed to be going a long way. “How shall I ever get back from here,” I wondered. Presently there was an alteration in the sounds of our footsteps and in the gestures of the men. I opened my eyes and looked up. Close in front of me, over a doorway, was a blue lamp with the words “Police Station” printed upon it. I knew then that I had been arrested. The discovery was positively life-giving. To think that it was over, that the struggle would not have to begin all over again! I was able to lift my headand walk fairly easily; the crushing sense of failure was gone. When anticipating events, and trying to prepare myself for the various stages of the ordeal before me, I had supposed that one of the worst moments would be this of being actually “had up,” when I should find myself in the police station and know the first step towards prison had been taken; that there could be no going back. When it came to actual experience, Cannon Row police station had all the attractions of a harbour after a storm. From the moment I set foot inside this domain of the police nothing could exceed their courtesy and even sympathy. In a large, nondescript kind of waiting room I was taken up to a table at which a policeman sat making entries in a ledger. I was asked my name, address, age, vocation, etc. I wondered whether I was the only one that had been arrested, but presently two more of the Deputation came in. The delight at seeing again some of my companions was very great; it was only then I fully realised how the isolation from the others had added to the toil and gruesomeness of the struggle in Parliament Square. We were taken up to a large sort of club room, in which there were billiard tables. Several of the Deputation were already there. We were eager, of course, to hear each other’s experiences. I quickly realised that I had had an unusually good time of it. Several of them had been thrown on to the ground, some kicked, one had had her thumb dislocated, another had a sprained ankle. One had her face streaming with blood from a blow on the nose. Before long Mrs. Pethick Lawrence joined us. It was a curious sensation on seeing her, of mingleddelight that she was with us again, and indignation that a woman such as she is should have been arrested. The word quickly went round that we were to conceal as best we might our various injuries. It was no part of our policy to get the police into trouble. Except where they were given definite orders to the contrary, they did their best for us, and whenever they themselves controlled the situation their good will towards us was most marked. I remember that the most difficult thing to disguise was the wounded nose of Miss Dugdale, when a policeman came up to inquire whether any were hurt or if a doctor were wanted for us.
It was here, at Cannon Row, that I first tasted the delights of that full, unfetterd companionship which is among the greatest immediate rewards of those who work actively in this cause. No drudgery of preliminary acquaintanceship has to be got through, no misdoubting inquiries as to kindred temperaments or interests. The sense of unity and mutual confidence is complete and begins from the first unhesitatingly. It was most noticeable, as it had been to me before when a mere looker-on, that this unity, so far from tending to produce uniformity of type, had the very opposite effect, it enhanced individuality. One felt like so many different bolts and cranks and wheels of a machine, each bringing a different quality to serve a different purpose for the smooth working of the whole. For the first time in my life I felt of some use; since we all were so different from each other, it seemed we could each contribute something to the general solidarity of experience, of opinion, of conduct.
The throwing about had brought on an aggressive cough which at first checked my ardour to brisk up with my companions. I found refuge in a distant bow window where there was a seat, and where I managed to allay the worst of my cough. Presently a wardress appeared. I asked her if we might have a glass of water for myself and one other woman who had a badly hurt ankle. She was most kind and quickly brought several glasses. I wrote a letter to my mother, reassuring her as to our having got through all right, assuming that some account of the way the women had been treated would appear in the press the next morning, and knowing how great would be her anxiety in consequence. As I recovered from the excessive spasms of the cough, I was able to talk to some of my companions. I felt, for about the fiftieth time since I had come in touch with the W.S.P.U., ashamed of myself in their presence. They were drawn from many different grades of society. Several were women of considerable intellectual gifts, a good many were from the leisured class, some belonged to the working class. Most of them could look back on lives of much more useful service to the community than I could boast, many had made sacrifices greater than my own to join the Deputation, several were running much graver risk, physically, in facing the hardship of prison than I incurred. Some had to face a situation in their homes more distressing even than my own. My little share of difficulty and sacrifice, of risk and dread, which had completely filled my horizon for so many weeks, seemed insignificant enough now. Time passed very slowly, but ratherfrom intensity of interest, acuteness of minute observation, than from boredom. We were to be detained until the House of Commons rose. At last at about eleven the light in the Clock Tower went out and our good friend, Mr. Pethick Lawrence, appeared and bailed us out for the night. One by one we again passed before a seated head constable and his book, and were handed an official paper requiring us to appear at Bow Street the next morning.
I had made no arrangements as to where I should spend the night, my chief concern having been to keep secret my share in the day’s proceedings till they were over. I felt stunned and cold as ice. I was in a sense, of course, satisfied and glad that, at least, I had shared what the other women had endured, but for the first time during that day it had come before me forcibly that, not only the Government, but the general public too were to a great extent responsible for the official treatment of the Deputation. I shuddered when I remembered the crowd of curiosity mongers, most of them “respectable” looking people who had treated the whole thing as a kind of cock-fight, and who took sides with the baiters or the baited, according to their apparent likeliness of victory. It was revolting, the kind of thing I could not have believed of a London crowd unless I had myself witnessed it. It made me feel ashamed to the marrow of my bones.[4]
Footnote:[4]I met a lady, Winifred, Lady Arran, in July, 1911, who told me that she had been in Parliament Square and had seen our Deputation. She saw and recognised me. “But,” she said, “you seemed not to realise that all the men in the crowd were for you.”
I took a four-wheeler and made for my youngest sister’s house in Bloomsbury Square. On the way, by as it seemed a strange coincidence, I passed my eldest sister, who was just emerging from a theatre with a friend. I stopped and spoke to her. She apparently did not notice my dishevelled condition or suspect that I had been with the Deputation. She told me that she too was staying in Bloomsbury Square. Arrived there, I found my hostess in bed. I asked her if she could put me up. “You’ve been with the Deputation?” she asked. “Yes.” “You’ve not been arrested yourself?” “Yes.” Her look of mingled sympathy and satisfaction was life-giving, I shall never forget it. Both my sisters were immensely kind and helpful. The house was full and I shared a bed with my eldest sister. All night she kept her strong arm round my heart and steadied my throbbing body which, owing to the attentions of the police, continued to shake all night. Several times in the night my sister said with great distress, “Oh! Con, you are not fit to go to prison;” but she of course, was thinking only of the physical side of things. We were able to discuss what best could be done to comfort Mother. Neither of my sisters ever tried to persuade me to take advantage of any possible way out from imprisonment if it should be offered at the trial. They knew my decision could only have been taken after deep and prolonged consideration and for reasons good enough in my estimation to outweigh all those against.