Free Suffragette by Carol Drinkwater Page A

Lady
Violet had presented me to her ages ago in Gloucestershire.
    “I want you to hear this, Dollie,” Flora said, and because their expressions were both so serious, I thought I must have done something wrong.
    Mrs Fawcett then informed me that she had recently written to the Prime Minister requesting an audience with him.
    “Do you know what he has answered, Dollie?” Flora asked me.
    I shook my head. The way they both quizzed me I felt personally responsible.
    “He has refused to see me,” Mrs Fawcett explained flatly. “Do you know why?”
    Again, I shook my head.
    “His argument is that, although I am not connected with the troublemakers, the organization discrediting the case for women’s franchise, he is too busy with urgent political business
to see anyone from any group connected to the Women’s Suffrage movement.”
    I glanced at Flora who was staring hard at me.
    “Forgive me if this sounds impolite,” I said. “I really don’t intend it to, but this government has slammed the door on all peaceable negotiations and now it criticizes
us because we have been driven to other means!”
    “
Us
? Dollie, are you telling me that you are involved in these terrible acts?”
    I couldn’t speak.
    “Dollie, Flora has told me all about you and I think it is splendid that you are so committed to our cause,” Mrs Fawcett continued quickly, “but won’t you put your
energies with us? We will win the vote, but we will do it without acts of violence and without turning the British public against us.”
    I agreed to think about it and then excused myself, saying that I had homework to do. I hurried to my room, feeling – what? Betrayed by Flora, I think.
    29th September 1909
    Mr Keir Hardie was one of the guests at dinner this evening. What a nice man he is! Inevitably the conversation turned to the hunger strikes and the government’s
response.
    “I don’t know how this Liberal government hopes to regain respect. Force-feeding women is barbaric.” The voice of Virginia Stephen. “As an eminent Labour MP, Keir, what
is your opinion?”
    Mr Hardie then recounted how he had challenged the government in the House yesterday. “I begged to know how a Liberal government could justify an act of such cruelty against the female
sex. In answer, I was informed by the Home Secretary’s speaker that it is common practice in hospitals to force-feed patients when they refuse to eat.”
    Elizabeth Robins, also a guest, was furious when she heard this. “What nonsense!” she cried. “The only patients who are force-fed in hospitals are the mentally
insane.”
    “Asquith is refusing to meet with Millicent, saying that if he sees her he must also give an audience to the WSPU, but, whatever his excuses, he will be forced to put an end to this
inhumanity. His government is being condemned from every quarter,” were Flora’s words on the subject.
    “Might the Home Secretary, the government and prison authorities judge suffrage women mentally unstable?” I ventured. “Perhaps that’s the message they want to put across
to the British people?”
    “That’s a very good question!” bellowed Mr Hardie.
    I blushed, but was thrilled to have been taken seriously.

4 October 1909
    No school today. So I went to the WSPU.
    Miss Baker, who I haven’t seen in ages, asked me about my new school. I told her it was fine but that I preferred being tutored by her.
    “Have you made any friends yet?”
    “There’s a nice girl, Celia Loverton, but she isn’t madly interested in our cause and she’s posh, so… What’s been happening here?” I changed the
subject because I am fed up with everyone asking me about school.
    “Letters are arriving by the sackload at the offices of all the national newspapers in protest against the treatment of the Birmingham women,” Miss Baker said, handing me a copy of
the latest issue of
Votes for Women
. “Emmeline has written an article in which she demands: ‘How can a Liberal