Chapter Eighteen #4
Lady Clemmie said, ‘This court has no authority over me. Democracy demands that those governed must have a say in the making of the law.’
Each in turn said she denied the court’s authority. Murmurs of support from the gallery were growing. Twice the clerk called for silence.
The magistrate dismissed their argument as irrelevant, pronounced them guilty and ordered each to pay a fine of five pounds and be bound over to keep the peace for six months.
Immediately there was disturbance. The defendants shouted, ‘We won’t pay!
’ and ‘Votes for women!’ and ‘Give us justice!’ One unfurled a suffragist flag over the front of the dock and there was a struggle as the police tried to restrain her.
Supporters in the gallery were protesting and shouting slogans.
The clerk called repeatedly for silence, and when the magistrate could be heard again he said that if the women wouldn’t pay the fine and be bound over, they would go to prison for two months. There was more uproar.
‘Two months in the second division!’ the magistrate shouted, over the noise. ‘Take them down!’
The police began to remove the defendants, two of them clinging to the rail of the dock so that they had to be dragged by force.
As Clemmie was taken away she shouted, ‘You can’t silence us! We will have the vote!’ She glanced up at the gallery, and her eyes met Nina’s for a moment, before she was jerked forward by the policeman and disappeared. Nina was shocked at how pale and frightened she had looked.
It took a long time to get out of the courtroom, pressed on all sides by the slow-moving throng.
Outside the crowd had swelled, and were chanting slogans and protesting against the sentences.
Decius was anxious to get Nina away before there was more disorder, but he had just edged them clear of the mass of bodies when he was hailed, and turned to see a smart little man in horn-rimmed spectacles hurrying in his wake. ‘Mr Blake? A word?’
Decius frowned, then said, ‘Oh, it’s Dunlop, isn’t it? The solicitor.’
‘I’m acting for some of the ladies, among them Lady Clementine Leacock.’ He lifted his hat to Nina. ‘I believe she is a particular friend of Lord and Lady Wigston.’
They walked a few steps further to the corner where it was quieter. ‘What is it you want?’ Decius asked.
‘This sentence, two months in the second division…It’s quite disproportionate,’ said Dunlop. ‘These are not common felons, they are ladies.’
‘What does it mean, in the second division?’ Nina asked.
‘It means conditions are very grim – harsh enough even for lower-class women, but for the gently born…I don’t believe, appearances to the contrary, that there is the appetite for punishing these ladies to this extent. Momentary annoyance at their – shall we say? – antics does not warrant—’
‘Yes, but what is it you want?’ Decius interrupted impatiently. ‘I want to get Lady Wigston home as quickly as possible.’
Dunlop came abruptly to the point. ‘Intervention. At least get them transferred to the first division.’ He glanced at Nina.
‘That means they can wear their own clothes, have books and writing materials, have food sent in. Lord Wigston has influence within the government. If he were to have a word with the prime minister or the home secretary…’
‘I see. Well, I will put it to him – that’s all I can promise,’ Decius said, and hurried Nina away.
Lord Wigston was quite grey in the face, thinking of Lady Clemmie in prison. ‘I thought they’d be bound over, nothing more. And two months! It’s horrible. Why didn’t they just pay the fine, damnit?’
‘What Clemmie did was wrong, but I’m sure she’s learned her lesson,’ Nina urged. ‘I don’t think she’d be able to stand prison. You know she isn’t very stout of health.’
‘Not a pick of flesh on her at the best of times,’ Wigston agreed. ‘But I can’t go asking favours, my first week. What would it look like?’
‘Isn’t your first week when you’re treated most leniently?’ Nina tried.
‘No, no, it doesn’t work like that. They’ll think I’m soft on law-breakers.’
Decius said, ‘I think there’s going to be quite a backlash over those sentences, sir. They’re respectable ladies. And Mrs Cobden Sanderson is the daughter of Richard Cobden, who got the Corn Laws repealed. She’s like royalty to the Liberals.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I think a lot of people are going to be asking the home secretary to intervene, and I think he’s going to want to, and I think perhaps the first person to ask him is the one who will get the credit.’
‘Oh, you think that, do you?’ He was silent, drumming his fingers on the table in thought.
Nina opened her mouth and Decius shot her a look that closed it again.
‘You could be right,’ Wigston said at last. ‘And I can’t bear to think of that sweet, gentle creature shut up in some filthy cell with God knows who.
’ He drummed again. ‘I’ll go and see Gladstone tomorrow.
If I got to the prime minister he’d likely just throw me off onto him anyway.
But mark me,’ he wagged a finger between them, ‘if I manage to get her off, that’s to be the end of it.
No more of this suffragette nonsense for Lady Clemmie.
If she wants to be treated like a lady, she’s to act like a lady. ’
Lord Wigston was by no means the first person to speak to the home secretary.
It was difficult to get to see him, he was so busy.
The newspapers the next day were full of commentary, the telephones fizzing with disquiet, letters of protest arriving in numbers.
In the lobbies of Westminster Members were clustered, heads together, buzzing like so many hives of bees, and press reporters were lurking in the Yard, Downing Street, and all points in between.
By lunch time the clubs were full of unhappy gentlemen talking about the government’s ‘embarrassment’, and by the time Wigston found himself face to face with Gladstone, he was aware the job was already done.
‘I can’t spare you more than a moment,’ Gladstone said distractedly, on his feet and already heading for the door. ‘If it’s about this women question—’
‘Lady Clemmie Leacock, personal friend and a very fine lady, sir,’ Wigston said quickly, to get the words out while he could. ‘General opinion, it’s an unduly harsh sentence. If you could see your way—’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard all the arguments. Damned nuisance, these suffragists, but you’re right, it does look bad. At all events, I’ve already written the letter. They’ll be put in the first division, and that’s all I can do.’
‘Thank you, sir, but if I may—’
‘No, I’m sorry, Wigston, but you mayn’t. And if there are any more of you planning to ask me the same thing, you might put ’em off, there’s a good chap. I’ve done what I can, and I can’t spend any more time on it.’
And he was gone.
Rumblings of discontent continued in polite society, letters continued to be published in the newspapers, and Nina heard from Lepida who heard from Mary Martin that several large donations had been sent to WSPU headquarters.
And it turned out that there was a little more that could be done: none of the women served the full two months.
They were let out quietly, at different times, and early.
Clemmie was the first to be released, on the 31st of October, having become very ill with a cold that turned to influenza. On her release she was taken into the house of one of the other WSPU ladies to be nursed back to health. Nina didn’t see her again until mid-November.