Chapter Fifteen 1902
Chapter Fifteen
The breeze whipping up the Thames was still more winter than spring.
Toby squeezed his upper arm where the cold made it ache.
A piece of shot remained lodged in his humerus bone; the surgeon had said it would do more harm than good to extract it.
Havelock Pridde’s shot, which had winged him the night he’d gone to serenade Cassandra like some drunk and dismal Romeo.
By agreement, Toby hadn’t pressed charges of attempted murder, and Pridde hadn’t sued him for consorting with Mrs Pridde.
Pridde had even pulled strings to keep the incident out of the press, though the rumour mill had done what it did best in any case.
Toby had denied, denied, denied. Claimed to have stumbled against the spike of an iron railing.
Only Tom knew the full story, and when he’d finished upbraiding Toby for an idiot, he’d laughed until tears ran down his face. Humerus indeed, old boy.
Despite Toby’s fears, it turned out that being shot by Pridde did wonders for his career.
After three years with the Fabians he’d got frustrated with their drawing-room socialism, their softly, softly approach, and had decided to move back into journalism.
He’d known exactly where he wanted to be: The Star.
A newspaper that had been founded with the aim of championing the underprivileged, which highlighted the daily hardships and injustices faced by the working classes.
It had grown rapidly to a circulation of over a hundred and fifty thousand, making it one of the most popular evening papers in the capital.
The Star was radical in outlook, opposed to all military action, and even included a ‘Woman’s World’ feature.
Their writers included illustrious socialist and reformist figures like George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Marlowe and Annie Besant.
Toby decided it was the perfect fit. With only his relatively short stint at The London Daily News behind him, he’d sent in a variety of essays and pamphlets in support of his application. He’d been called in for a meeting out of courtesy, only to be told there were no vacancies on the staff.
‘But we’ll keep you in mind, Mr Meriwether,’ the managing editor said. ‘You might have to moderate your tone somewhat, were you ever to write for us.’
‘I can do that.’
‘Good. We’re here to fight the good fight, but it doesn’t ever do to froth at the mouth.’
‘Ah.’ Toby shifted uncomfortably. ‘Of course.’
His arm ached and he put his hand up to press on it, a gesture that had become almost unconscious. The managing editor – tall, lean, extremely well-groomed – tipped his head quizzically.
‘Meriwether . . . I thought that name was familiar.’ He nodded at Toby’s arm. ‘Old war wound?’
‘Well, it . . .’ Toby had been on the verge of trotting out the story about the railings, but the other man looked so delighted he decided not to bother. ‘Of a sort,’ he said.
‘The rumour was that Havelock Pridde shot at you.’
‘Not so much shot at me, as simply . . . shot me,’ Toby confessed.
The man chuckled, then stood to shake his hand. ‘Well, any man who makes an enemy of that bloated oaf is a friend of mine. Leave it with me.’
A week later Toby began work at The Star, taking over the ‘What We Think’ column.
He was getting on well. He wrote them some broader opinion pieces too, and now, after only eighteen months, there were rumours of him moving up to assistant news editor.
He continued to write articles and pamphlets independently of the paper, and occasionally lobbied parliament on behalf of various reformist bodies.
He did not yet have real influence – not like the upper-class reformers, the Oxford men, the politicians’ nephews – but he was certainly being heard.
His name was becoming known in certain circles, and not just for having been shot by Havelock Pridde.
He was on his way to speak at the annual conference of the Society for Social and Judicial Reform, about the new system for young offenders’ prisons recently begun in Borstal, in Kent.
He’d come to love the particular character of London’s various meeting halls – the old wood and dusty plaster cornices; the portraits of long-dead notables; the susurration of a crowd settling down; the coughs and blown noses that obliterated the first five minutes of any speech.
It all felt like home, and carried with it an addictive sense of purpose, of being part of the machinery of change.
His speech went down well – only two older men fell asleep, but the hall was stuffy by the end.
Afterwards, he spotted Dennis Armstrong in the crowd.
Stocky, ruddy, as quick to laugh as to argue, Dennis wasn’t a university man but had read – and continued to read – practically everything.
Five years ago, at the age of only twenty-one, he’d set up a small publishing company to circulate the works of various reforming bodies, and it had gone from strength to strength.
He planned to publish Toby’s speech as part of the SSJR’s quarterly journal.
‘What ho, Meriwether,’ Dennis greeted him, shaking his hand robustly. ‘Good job. You almost have me convinced.’
‘Almost?’
‘Hm. Can’t quite swallow the idea of a murderer not going to the gallows, even though I agree with all your arguments. There’s the rub, I suppose – that irrational streak we all have.’
‘Which only proves my point. To err is human, et cetera.’
‘I wanted to run something by you, Meriwether. The chap I live with, Edwards – you’ve met him, I think?’
‘The architect with the boxer’s nose?’
‘That’s him. He’s getting married. Some girl he met three weeks ago – a dancer.
He’s quite lost his head, and it’ll end in tears, but, anyway, he’s moving out, and I need someone to take over his room.
Any interest? Fetter Lane – far more convenient for The Star.
It’s a decent set-up, and the char has a dab hand for pastry. ’
‘Well . . . possibly.’
Toby was still in his rooms on Cornwall Road, south of the river. It was as noisy and smelly as ever, but he hadn’t bothered to move.
‘Splendid.’ Dennis handed Toby a card. ‘Here’s the address. Stop by after hours sometime, and see what you think of the place. Now, come and meet a friend of mine – Mary Gladwell. She’s asked for an introduction.’
‘Oh?’
‘Don’t panic – she’s one of us.’
Mary Gladwell was as tall as Toby in her heeled shoes, and possibly a year or two older.
She was wearing the latest fashion, and had glossy hair the exact shade of the mahogany wall panelling.
She was handsome rather than beautiful – more Athena than Aphrodite – with an impressive bosom, a wide, sardonic mouth, and lively green eyes.
Toby picked them out as her best feature.
‘How do you do, Mr Meriwether?’ She shook his hand vigorously. There was nothing at all flirtatious about her, which put Toby at his ease. ‘I enjoyed your speech. It will be very interesting to see how this new youth prison gets along – or rather, how its young inmates get along.’
‘It will, indeed. Have you a particular interest in prison reform?’
‘No, not a personal one. Only that the whole system seems inhumane to me – I shall throw my weight behind any move to drag it into the modern era. But my main field of interest is rather more political.’
‘Mrs Gladwell is a universal suffragist,’ Dennis told him. ‘Central Committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, isn’t it?’
‘Ah, well . . .’ Mary looked slightly sheepish. ‘It was, until I had something of a tiff with Millicent Fawcett. A case of too many cooks, I suspect. In any case, we’re all part of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, now.’
‘How do you keep track of it all?’ Dennis asked.
‘We are a new movement, Mr Armstrong, and constantly evolving. So don’t poke fun.’
‘But I am full of admiration, Mrs Gladwell, else I wouldn’t tease,’ Dennis said.
Mary went on: ‘As with your own work, Mr Meriwether, there are a lot of petitions to parliament, a lot of meetings and conferences – and pamphlets, almost all of which are roundly ignored. I don’t expect you to have read any, for example, though I have read a great many of yours.’
‘Ah. There you have me,’ Toby said.
‘You needn’t look so embarrassed. As a woman, one is used to shouting into a void.’ She smiled quite amiably. ‘I’ve written articles for the press, too. Most recently on the benefits of cycling for good health.’
‘As in . . . ?’
‘As in cycling, Mr Meriwether. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure?
It’s both useful and beneficial, and yet it has taken until now – and rather a lot of hectoring on my part – to get a medical doctor of good repute to go on the record and say that a women’s internal organs are no more likely than a man’s to be harmed by the vibrations or the action of pedalling. Isn’t that patently absurd?’
‘It does seem to be.’
‘I sense an “and yet”, Mr Meriwether?’
‘I was only thinking that there must be bigger fish to fry. Is it really worth arguing about bicycle riding?’
Mary lifted her chin. ‘If you were told you could not, would you argue about it?’
‘I suppose I would, yes.’
‘Well then. Why should I not? Why should women not? Large walls are built of small bricks, Mr Meriwether.’
‘I stand corrected,’ he said, not actually minding at all.
‘You’ll find that happens a lot, in a conversation with Mrs Gladwell,’ Dennis said.
‘Well,’ she went on, ‘as I said, the campaign for the emancipation of women is young. We’re still at the stage where even men of sensitivity and learning must have their routine assumptions challenged on a regular basis.’
Mary studied Toby. ‘Not all of them like it.’
‘Who is publishing your article, Mrs Gladwell?’ he asked.