Free Octavia by Beryl Kingston

very idea. That was just prejudice, and if there’s one thing this campaign must do it’s to speak out against prejudice.’
    ‘At a political meeting, maybe,’ her mother told her, taking her seat by the fire, ‘but not in your own home and not to one of your guests. That is discourteous and unkind and I cannot allow it. You will write to Emmeline and your aunt this evening before you go to bed and apologise.’
    ‘No, Mama,’ Octavia said, flushing at the distress of disobeying her mother but determined to follow this through. ‘I know this will grieve you but I cannot possibly do such a thing. It would be tantamount to admitting I was in the wrong.’
    ‘You are in the wrong,’ her mother told her implacably. ‘You were discourteous to your guests and now you must apologise.’
    J-J was standing beside the dresser pouring himself a whisky, trying to look unconcerned and failing. ‘Pa,’ Octavia said, turning to him for support, ‘you know what this means to me. Tell Mama it isn’t possible.’
    His answer was a profound disappointment. ‘Your mother is the arbiter of proper behaviour in this house, my dear,’ he said, ‘and, as such, I stand by her decision. My advice to you would be to apologise with a good grace and put this whole rather silly business to rest. Any other course of behaviour would prolong the unpleasantness.’
    ‘Any other course of behaviour would be preferable tocowardice,’ Octavia said hotly. ‘Can’t you see what you are asking me to do?’ The longer they talked about it the more deeply entrenched in her opinion she was becoming. ‘It isn’t possible. It would be treachery.’ And then tears began to swell in her throat and she had to leave the room before she lost control of her feelings. She managed to pause at the door to wish them goodnight but then she had to move away as quickly as she could.
    Oh, how can they be so unkind? she thought, as she ran up the stairs to her bedroom. I’m not a child. Why can’t they trust me to do the right thing? And she flung herself face down on her counterpane and wept with abandon.
    It was a long sleepless night. She relived the quarrel, endlessly and word for word, sure she’d been entirely in the right, but getting more and more upset to have quarrelled with her dear Em and wondering how on earth it could have happened. Her thoughts rolled over and over, as the hall clock turned the hours like pages and the darkness pressed in upon her like guilt, and when morning finally lightened the sky, she was no further to knowing what she ought to do. I’ll talk to Betty Transom, she thought, and see what she has to say.
     
    Betty Transom was indignant. ‘For your own cousin to say such things!’ she said. ‘How could she be so insensitive? It beggars belief. Well, don’t take any notice of her, that’s my advice. She’s just being silly. Apologise if you must. You don’t have to mean it. I’ve apologised hundreds of times in my life, over and over for all sorts of silly things and I’ve rarely meant it.’
    ‘That wouldn’t work for me,’ Octavia told her, sadly. ‘If I say a thing, I have to mean it. It wouldn’t be honest otherwise.’
    The bell was sounding for the end of break. ‘Well,’ Betty said, ‘it’s too great a cause for any of us to go back on it now. My lot weren’t happy about it either. My ma thinks I shall be sent to prison. But I’m not going to take any notice of any of them. Cheer up. I’m with you. And so is Mrs Pankhurst. It’ll all come out in the wash.’
    Unfortunately it was a tea party that Octavia had to face, not a washday, and the tea party was even worse than she feared.
     
    For a start her mother was distinctly chilly with her, which was more upsetting than she cared to admit, and to make matters worse, she was uncomfortably aware that her father was ill at ease. He was frowning and stroking his beard and watching the conversation as if he was guarding it. Emmeline wouldn’t so much