‘I know.’ Nora nodded. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ She ran around the crowd and down the quays in the direction of Sackville Street. And I pushed my way through the jostling men. (This is where it is an advantage to be quite short, it is much easier to wriggle through a crowd than it would be for elegant tall people.) If I’d thought about it, I would have realised just how dangerous it was, that there was nothing to stop the men seizing me and tossing me into the air too. But I didn’t think. I just knew I had to try and save Phyllis from being thrown in the river. That was all.
Now I could see that someone else was trying to save her. Mabel, her face desperate, her hat long gone, had grabbed onto Phyllis’s thrashing foot, and was trying to pull her from the men’s grasp.
‘Let go of her, you beasts!’ Mabel’s voice was hoarse from shouting.
I seized hold of Phyllis’s skirt, which was when Mabel noticed my presence.
‘Pull!’ she cried. ‘We can’t let them …’
But whatever she had planned to say was left unfinished, as one of the men gave her a fierce shove from behind. She lost her grasp of Phyllis as she fell forward, crashing into me. The men raised Phyllis right over the parapet.
‘Phyllis!’ I screamed.
‘Throw her in, boys!’ yelled a raucous voice. ‘With a one …’
Phyllis was swung towards the crowd and back again, as the men roared their approval of this hideous game.
‘And a two!’ yelled the voice. Again they swung the wriggling Phyllis back and forth. Her hair was over her face, and she was making an awful whimpering sound that was worse than the screams.
‘And a three!’
And just as I thought Phyllis was going to be swung right over the parapet and into the water, there was a piercing whistle, so loud it seemed to stop the mob in their vile tracks. For a second, everyone seemed to freeze. Suddenly several policemen, batons drawn, barged their way through the crowd. Nora was right behind them, clutching the bag to her chest and red in the face from the exertion of running.
‘Release that young lady!’ roared a red-faced constable. Nothing happened. The constable seemed to get even redder as he waved his baton. ‘Right now!’
The men who had been abusing Phyllis dropped her roughly on the pavement next to the parapet. Nora, Mabel and I rushed to her aid as the policemen, batons drawn, shoved her attackers away. Phyllis looked as if she were on the verge of fainting. Her lace blouse front was torn, and there were several large rips in her jacket.
‘Oh Phyllis,’ I said, and as I spoke I realised I was crying.
‘Are you all right?’ said Mabel. ‘I thought they might have broken your wrist …’
‘They didn’t.’ Phyllis’s voice was barely a croak. She tried to get to her feet, but when she stood up her legs seemed to give way and she clutched the parapet for support. ‘No, no, I’m all right …’
‘Lean against the wall for a moment,’ said Mabel. ‘The policemen are still here. We’re safe for now.’
‘I’ll see if I can spot your lost hat,’ said Nora, looking down Eden Quay towards Sackville Street.
‘Long gone,’ said Phyllis faintly. She seemed to be in a sort of daze. ‘One of those hooligans’ wives will probably be wearing it tomorrow.’
I looked around in the other direction to make sure there were no more rowdies attempting mischief. And that was when I saw the group of well-dressed young girls in white, standing with their strangely familiar chaperone at the corner of Butt Bridge. They seemed to be frozen in fear, and had clearly witnessed Phyllis’s terrifyingly narrow escape. And standing right at the front of the group, staring straight at me, was none other than Grace.
For a long moment we held each other’s gaze. Then the chaperone seemed to unfreeze herself, and said something to her charges, leading them back across the bridge towards Tara Street. I realised why she looked so familiar. She was Grace’s beloved Miss Casey. She must have been taking the group of girls back from that tennis club outing to Rathmines.
I looked around for Nora. She’d been facing the opposite direction, and I don’t think Grace had even noticed her, especially as she was still wearing her mother’s hat and the long skirt. But I couldn’t pretend that Grace hadn’t recognised me. I felt panic bubble up inside me. Grace had clearly witnessed the violence. This wasn’t the same as her knowing we supported the cause or had even done a bit of chalking. She now knew that I had been at a suffrage meeting where a mob had attacked the speakers and where my sister had almost been killed. What would we do if she told Nora’s mother? I was distracted from my panicked thoughts by Mabel.
‘Mollie? Are you listening? I said we’ll have to try and get a cab.’ Her voice was strained. ‘I’m not going to risk meeting another mob. Asquith must be in the Theatre Royal by now, and that might give them another excuse to cause trouble.’
In case you’ve forgotten, the Theatre Royal is just on the other side of the Liffey, almost opposite to where we were standing. It seemed all too likely that trouble could break out nearby. Luckily, at this stage the crowd at Beresford Place had almost entirely dispersed, and traffic was making its way through again. But still, it took us a while to hail a cab. If the jarvey had any opinions on our generally peculiar appearance – Nora’s plaits had descended from beneath her hat, I had trodden on the hem on my skirt, and Phyllis and Mabel were not only hatless, but their clothes looked, as Mabel said ruefully when we were all inside the cab, as if they’d been dragged through a thorn bush backwards – he kept them to himself as we climbed aboard.
‘I’m going to have some hideous bruises tomorrow,’ Mabel said as we settled into our seats, trying and almost succeeding in keeping up her usual cheery tone. ‘What about you, Phyl?’
And Phyllis, without warning, suddenly burst into tears.
‘I’m sorry!’ she sobbed, as Mabel and I tried to comfort her. When I put my arm around her, I realised she was shaking. ‘I thought I was all right. But it’s as if …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. ‘They were going to throw me in the river! And they kept grabbing me and crushing me …’
I wasn’t used to seeing Phyllis like this. She was usually strong and bossy and even though it was very annoying sometimes, it always seemed like the correct way for a big sister to behave. It was horrible seeing her so upset. It was all wrong.
‘Sssh, you’re all right.’ Mabel’s voice was soothing as we waited for Phyllis’s sobs to subside. ‘You’re safe now.’
After a while, Phyllis dug around in the pocket of her coat for a handkerchief, which luckily hadn’t been lost in the assault. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose loudly.
‘Oh goodness,’ she said. She looked down at her clothes and rolled up her sleeves. Bruises were already starting to form, and you could almost see the imprints of the strong hands that had grabbed and dragged her. ‘Oh Lord. What am I going to tell Mother and Father? That mob is going to be in the paper tomorrow. They’ll guess I was there.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Mabel. ‘And I had an idea. We can tell our parents we were knocked over by a cab on Rutland Square. Nice and far away from the riot.’
‘A cab?’ Phyllis stared at her.
‘Well, don’t you remember the cab protests? The jarveys are in turmoil. We can tell your parents that one of them was distracted by a motor car or something.’ She looked guiltily in the direction of the driver, whose profession she was maligning (albeit for a good cause). ‘It’s not as though we’re going to blame an individual jarvey.’
‘All right.’ Phyllis was clearly too weary to argue. And then it was as if she noticed me and Nora for the first time. ‘What are you two doing here?’ She didn’t even sound angry. I think she was too overwhelmed by the terrible events of the evening.
‘We went to the meeting,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Phyl. You were right, it was too dangerous.’
‘It certainly was,’ said Mabel, in unusually stern tones. ‘You girls could have been badly hurt. It’s a
miracle you weren’t.’
‘I know,’ said Nora. ‘We hid under the lorry.’
‘Very ingenious of you,’ said Mabel dryly. ‘But you shouldn’t have been there at all.
‘It was Nora who got the policemen,’ I said. ‘So if we hadn’t been there …’
‘Did you really?’ said Mabel. Nora nodded.
‘Thank you, Nora,’ said Phyllis. ‘If they hadn’t come when they did …’ Her voice cracked, and I thought she might burst into tears again. But she didn’t.
‘At least you can swim,’ said Mabel. ‘Imagine if it had been Kathleen. She nearly drowned in a foot of water in Skerries last year.’
‘She’d have been more worried about her hat,’ said Phyllis, and gave a laugh that almost turned into a sob.
Mabel turned a discerning gaze on me and Nora.
‘Obviously I’m glad you were the means of saving Phyllis from a watery, smelly grave,’ she said. ‘Or at least a watery smelly bath. But where exactly do your mothers think you are?’
We explained about our usual method of deceiving our parents.
‘You’re not going to be able to get away with that forever,’ said Mabel.
And that’s when I remembered what I’d seen on the bridge. My stomach sank.
‘Oh no,’ I said.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nora’s brow furrowed. ‘You look a bit green. You’re not going to get sick, are you? Should we stop the cab?’
‘I saw something.’ I took a deep breath. ‘On Butt Bridge. Grace. She was on the corner. With her tennis club friends.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Nora, turning as pale as I felt. Phyllis and Mabel exchanged worried glances.
‘Do you think she saw what happened?’ said Mabel.
I nodded miserably. ‘I’m almost certain she did. Her group must have been crossing the bridge while those awful men were trying to chuck you in, Phyl. They couldn’t have missed it. And she definitely recognised me.’
‘Which means,’ said Mabel, her face grim, ‘that she probably recognised me and Phyllis too.’
‘She can’t tell anyone,’ said Phyllis. ‘You’ve got to make sure of that.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Nora miserably. ‘But she really can be very difficult.’
‘I don’t care!’ said Phyllis. ‘If she tells your mother what she saw this evening, I’m sure she would be straight round to our house to tell ours.’
I was quite sure this was true. And if she did, everything would come out – not just Phyllis being a suffragette. Not just the fact that she had put her life in danger (at least, this is how our parents would see it – of course it was only in danger because that mob of hooligans were causing trouble, but I knew our parents would blame her for being anywhere near them). Not just the fact that me and Nora had been there in disguise – I know Grace didn’t actually see Nora’s face, but I wouldn’t be able to persuade her that I’d been there on my own, especially when she knew Nora had planned to spend the evening with me.
All of that was bad enough for one evening. But of course, it wouldn’t just be about one evening. If Nora’s mother and my mother actually met and had a proper conversation about our activities, they would doubtless realise that over the last few months, Nora and I had told each of our parents that we were going to the other one’s house, when really we had been roaming the streets chalking and going to meetings and getting dressed up in (I felt sick at the thought of what she’d say when she found this out) Mrs. Cantwell’s very own clothes. They would realise that we had been lying to them for ages and ages. I couldn’t even imagine how they would respond to this. We’d never be let out of the house again. Or worse, they might decide to send us away to boarding school – different ones, obviously – where we would be supervised at all times.
And now it’s the next day and I still don’t know what they’re going to do. Because I haven’t seen or heard from Nora since the cab dropped us off. (We had managed to change back into our skirts while squashed onto the floor of the cab.) The jarvey was taking Mabel on to her house in Clontarf, and she leaned out the window as he drove her away.
‘Courage, mes amies!’ she cried. ‘Talk to your cousin, Nora!’
‘I’d better run,’ said Nora. She looked quite neat now she’d taken off her mother’s clothes. Well, she didn’t look as if she’d just been in a riot, anyway. I hoped I looked the same. ‘Maybe I’ll get home before her.’
‘Call around tomorrow,’ said Phyllis. ‘Tell us what happened.’
Nora nodded and sped away, and Phyllis and I turned and headed for home. She was walking slowly.
‘Are you sure you’re all right to walk?’ I said. ‘I could run ahead and ask Maggie to come and help support you …’
‘I’m fine,’ said Phyllis. ‘Just sore. Mabel’s right, I’ll be a mass of bruises tomorrow. Anyway, it’s not fair to Maggie to get her involved.’ We walked the rest of the way home in silence.
I had forgotten that Phyllis is a jolly good actress. I remembered that she was pretty decent when the senior girls put on that play when I was a junior baby, but she was quite extraordinary last night, especially when you consider what she’d been through that evening. Mother and Father completely believed her tale of being hit by a cab on Rutland Square, and then bumping into me around the corner from our house as she staggered home from the tram.
‘Those blasted jarveys!’ said Father, and I knew he was very upset because he’d never have said that word in front of us otherwise. I felt a bit guilty about the poor jarveys being maligned in this fashion, especially when they are worried about being taken over by motor cabs, but it couldn’t be helped.
‘I’ll call Doctor Butler tomorrow,’ said Mother from the sofa, where she was bathing Phyllis’s pale brow. Phyllis raised herself from the cushions on which she was lying.
‘There’s no need,’ she said. ‘There are no bones broken. After all, I was just a little bumped by the wheel. It’s not as though I were literally run over.’
‘Still, maybe you should let him have a look …’ I said. But Phyllis threw me an angry look, and I remembered the marks on her arm. If a doctor saw them, he would know she had been attacked by a person and not hit by a cab.
‘No, you’re right,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m sure you’re fine.’
‘The police should have arrested the jarvey,’ said Father.
‘Well, they were busy,’ said Phyllis. ‘I heard some suffragettes were attacked by a mob somewhere near the Theatre Royal. The police must have been gathered down there.’
‘Attacked by a mob!’ said Mother. ‘How dreadful.’
‘What on earth were they doing, attracting a mob?’ Father seemed less sympathetic. ‘They must have been breaking windows again.’
‘They weren’t,’ said Phyllis. ‘I mean, as far as I know. I was told they were just trying to give speeches, and some roughs started throwing stones and grabbing them.’
‘What is this city coming to?’ said Mother. ‘Girls being run over by cabs – well, almost run over, Phyllis – and women being attacked by mobs.’ And she blew her nose very loudly, just as Harry and Frank walked into the room. Of course, Harry wanted to know why Phyllis was lying on the sofa ‘looking like a dying duck’ and when he was told that she’d been hit by a cab he went quite pale and said, ‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Phyllis. ‘Just bruised.’
‘Well, I hope you’re going to throw those grubby rags you’re wearing in the rubbish bin,’ said Harry, sounding like his usual rude self again. But I could see that for a second he had been genuinely worried about Phyllis.
‘Are you all right?’ Frank asked me. ‘Did you get knocked down too?’
‘Me?’ Surely I didn’t look like a dying duck too? ‘No, I just met Phyllis on my way home. Why do you ask?’
‘Sorry, I just thought …’ Frank looked embarrassed. ‘The collar of your blouse …’ I glanced at my reflection in the glass over the mantelpiece and realised the co
llar was torn. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it must have happened when that man who was attacking Phyllis crashed into me.
‘Oh, she always looks like that,’ said Harry. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’
I could feel my cheeks flushing. Ever since Frank came to stay in our house, it seems to have been one embarrassing incident after another. And suddenly I felt exhausted by it all.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I said. And I left them all to discuss my scruffiness, and Phyllis’s ailments, and the state of Dublin, and whatever else they wanted to talk about. I didn’t think I’d sleep at all when I went to bed, especially as Julia was already snoring, but I fell asleep straight away, even though it wasn’t very late. Which is probably why I woke up at five o’clock this morning. But at least that has given me time to write this very long account of our adventures to you. I still haven’t heard from Nora so I have no idea if Grace has told Mrs. Cantwell what she saw this evening. I only hope that I will be able to write again and that I won’t be immediately sent off to one of the aunts in the country once Nora’s mother tells my mother all. If I was posting off this letter now, I would ask you to say a prayer for me. As it is, I will have to pray for myself and hope that God doesn’t mind that it is a prayer asking Him to help us keep a secret from our parents. But before I pray, I will go and ask Maggie for some toast because I really am awfully hungry …
Best love and votes for women,
Mollie
Later
Well! I don’t know where to begin. This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks of my entire life. Since Monday, I have become a master of disguise. I have been caught up in a police raid. I have been in a riot and almost saw my poor sister tossed into a river by a vicious mob. But nothing has shocked me as much as what happened this afternoon.
After I had written my last letter, I went down to get some toast. The door of Phyllis’s room was closed and although I desperately wanted to talk to her about what we should do if Grace told tales to Mrs. Cantwell, it didn’t seem right to disturb her. I could only imagine how horrid it must have been to be seized by those terrible men, and how scared she must have been of what they would do to her. And I could only imagine how bruised and sore she must be today. So if she was still asleep – or at least resting – I knew I should leave her in peace.