‘Hello, Mabel!’ I said cheerfully. I was so engaged in my cards that I had briefly forgotten all about telling Phyllis the truth that morning. But when Mabel said, ‘Could I have a word with you, Mollie? Just for a minute,’ I remembered everything. I had a horrible conviction that Mabel was going to tell me I’d damaged the movement with my rash behaviour and that from now on I would no longer be allowed attend meetings, let alone join in the protest in Nassau Street on Thursday.
‘If you leave the game now, you can’t get back in,’ said Harry.
‘That’s not fair!’ I said.
‘It makes sense, Moll dear,’ said Father, and Frank said, ‘We can play again later.’
By now I was so convinced that Mabel was going to expel me from the movement forever that I didn’t particularly want to go and talk to her, but I knew I had to. And so, leaving the others to the game (which seemed to get even more rowdy and full of amusement as soon as I left the drawing room) I followed Mabel out to the hall, where Phyllis was waiting for us.
‘Come on,’ said Phyllis, and I followed her up the stairs to her room, Mabel close at my heels.
‘Mabel,’ I began, once we were safely ensconsed in Phyllis’s room and the door had been firmly closed, but I didn’t get any further than that because Mabel suddenly flung her arms around me.
‘Mollie!’ She stepped back and holding me at arm’s length. ‘Phyllis told me all!’
She certainly didn’t look as though she were going to expel me from the movement, unless that was a sort of hug of betrayal like Judas kissing Jesus, but I couldn’t be sure. Not that I am comparing myself to Jesus, of course.
‘You’re not angry with me?’ I said.
‘Angry?’ said Mabel. ‘Why on earth would I be angry?’
‘Well, you know, me and Nora painted the post box and didn’t own up and take credit for it,’ I said awkwardly. ‘I thought you might have decided to expel me from the movement.’ Even as I was saying it, it sounded ridiculous. Mabel clearly agreed, because she stared at me as if she could barely believe her ears.
‘Why on earth would I do that?’ she said. ‘Even if I wanted to, which I wouldn’t, that’s not how the movement works. And if it did, I certainly wouldn’t have the power to expel you from anything. Besides, it’s not as if anyone got blamed for what you did.’
‘If they had, me and Nora would definitely have owned up,’ I said. ‘You must believe me.’
‘Of course we do,’ said Phyllis. She folded her arms and looked at me in her most superior way. ‘Really, Mollie, I wouldn’t have told Mabel at all if I knew you were going to be so melodramatic about it.’
‘So … why did you want to talk to me?’ I asked Mabel.
‘Oh, just to congratulate you,’ she said. ‘And to tell you that I fully agree you deserve to be in Nassau Street on Thursday.’
I felt a warm glow go through me. It was a very strange thing, being praised by grown-ups (or almost-grown-ups) twice in one day.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘The only thing is …’ Mabel glanced at Phyllis. ‘I can’t be absolutely positively sure that everyone will agree. They may not want anyone as young as you taking part.’
‘Do you think we should tell them all what we did?’ I said. ‘Then they’d know how serious we are about women getting the vote.’
‘Well …’ said Mabel. ‘I don’t think they’d all be pleased that girls your age were breaking the law in the name of the cause. I mean, maybe they would. But I just don’t know. They might think you were risking the IWFL’s good name. Imagine how awful it would have looked if you’d been caught. The Antis would have accused us of using children. They’d never believe you’d come up with the idea and done it all by yourself.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Do you think I should stay at home?’
It was a depressing thought, especially coming a moment after I’d been positively basking in Mabel’s praise.
‘In an ideal world, yes,’ said Phyllis. ‘But Mabel has another idea.’
Mabel nodded.
‘If we put your hair up,’ she said, ‘And you both wear your biggest hats and we get you longer skirts, I think we might be able to get you in without anyone noticing quite how young you are. I heard of two young girls in England who got into lots of meetings that way.’
My spirits, so low a few moments earlier, soared again.
‘You mean a disguise?’ I asked, unable to keep the excitement from my voice. Phyllis obviously noticed it, because she quickly said, ‘Don’t start getting any notions, Moll. This isn’t a Peter Fitzgerald story.
‘Well, obviously not,’ I said. ‘It’s not like I’m going to wear a false beard.’
Mabel laughed.
‘Maybe you should,’ she said. ‘We could dress you up as a little Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington.’
‘Mabel!’ said Phyllis. But she laughed too.
There were plenty of other things I could wear besides a beard, I thought. Maybe I could borrow Mother’s sealskin jacket? It would look very grown up. Though of course it was far too hot for July. Then there was the very elaborate hat she’d worn to the Horse Show last year …
‘I bet no one would recognise me if I wore Mother’s Horse Show hat,’ I said. ‘You can hardly see her face under that enormous brim.’ But Phyllis wasn’t impressed by my clever logic.
‘You’re going to wear the plainest, least conspicuous things we can find,’ she said. ‘Not Mother’s best summer hat.’
‘Could Kathleen make me a hat?’ I asked. Kathleen, you must recall, is fond of trimming hats in extremely unusual and striking ways.
‘Plainest means no Kathleen creations, I’m afraid,’ said Mabel, in apologetic tones. I had a feeling she understood my desire for an interesting disguise. ‘I can get things for both of you from my mother. She has more clothes than she can possibly wear, so she won’t notice if I take a few things.’
‘Can I wear a wig?’ I said. ‘One of the senior girls had a long one in the boarders’ show last year and she looked years and years older. Or maybe I could borrow Father’s reading spectacles ….’
Phyllis was starting to look annoyed.
‘No wigs, no beards, no spectacles,’ she said. ‘And if you carry on like this we won’t take you at all, so behave yourself.’
‘Yes, Phyllis,’ I said, as meekly as I could.
‘Go easy on her, Phyl,’ said Mabel. ‘I don’t blame her for getting excited. Now, my dear girl, if you can stay away from that gambling den downstairs for a few more minutes …’
‘We weren’t gambling,’ I said. ‘Father would never allow it.’
Mabel laughed. ‘I was only joking,’ she said. ‘If you can put up with our presence for a little while longer, I’m going to attempt to put your hair up. Though if it’s anything like Phyl’s, I’m not sure how long it will stay there.’
‘Mabel!’ said Phyllis, smacking Mabel’s arm in a very un-grown-up fashion.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let’s give it a try.’
Mabel gathered together as many little combs and hairpins as she could find both in and around the tin on Phyllis’s dressing table (she is jolly careless with them if you ask me) and Phyllis sat me down on the straw-seated chair, untied my hair ribbons and started brushing out my hair with the silver-backed brush she got as an eighteenth birthday present.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mabel. ‘Your hair does look as unruly as Phyl’s. Ow! Don’t poke me, Phyllis. You can be very childish. Anyway, I’ll do my best.’
I looked in the mirror as Mabel began her work, assisted by Phyllis, who passed her a series of pins and combs. Every so often a pin would be dropped just as it was being put into place and chunks of hair would fall down over my eyes, but I generally had a good view of proceedings. Have you ever put your hair up? I’ve tried, of course, just to see what it’ll look like in a few years when I do it every day, but I’ve never quite figured out how to do it properly.
‘I say, Mollie,’ sai
d Mabel, taking a pin out of her mouth and putting it in my hair. ‘I meant to tell you. You’re not the only person interested in boats.’
For a moment I couldn’t think what she meant.
‘Some ladies,’ Mabel went on, ‘are going out to Kingstown tomorrow to meet Mr. Asquith when his boat comes in. And by going out, I mean going out to sea.’
I started to turn around to face Mabel, but Phyllis said, ‘Don’t move!’ so I just stared at Mabel’s reflection in the looking glass instead.
‘My boat scheme!’ I cried. ‘How marvellous. I’m glad someone is doing it.’
‘What on earth are you two talking about?’ said Phyllis. I’d forgotten I hadn’t told her about my excellent idea.
‘Oh, Mollie and Nora told me about an idea they’d had,’ said Mabel.
‘We were going to get a rowing boat and go out with a banner,’ I told Phyllis.
‘And I happened to mention it to Mrs. Mulvany,’ said Mabel. ‘And well, it might be a coincidence, but some of the ladies have hired a boat – not a little rowing boat, I might add, a small yacht. And they’re going to have a megaphone so they can yell out a welcome greeting to the Prime Minister.’
‘How wonderful,’ I breathed. I thought Phyllis would be jolly impressed by my brilliance, but of course she wasn’t.
‘I hope you weren’t seriously considering rowing out to sea,’ she said sternly.
‘We were, as it happens, but I don’t see what’s so silly about that,’ I said. ‘After all, if Mrs. Mulvany thinks it’s a good idea …’
‘There’s a big difference between grown women organizing something properly in a yacht and two fourteen-year-old idiots messing about in a boat when they don’t even know how to row,’ said Phyllis, which was very unfair of her if you ask me. I should have known all that stuff about being proud of me this morning wouldn’t last long. Things were certainly going back to normal now.
‘Quiet, you two,’ said Mabel. ‘I need to concentrate on Mollie’s peculiar hair. I can’t understand why this comb won’t stay in it.’
I felt more and more grown-up as Mabel fixed my hair into place. By the time she’d finished, I was quite awestruck at how mature and sophisticated I looked. I didn’t look like a school girl at all. I looked like a young lady.
‘Hmmmm,’ said Mabel, stepping back and looking at my newly grown-up head in the looking glass.
‘She might pass if she wears a hat with a particularly wide brim,’ said Phyllis. ‘I suppose we can say she’s a very young-looking eighteen. And if she stays in the background and keep her mouth shut, hopefully people won’t ask her any questions.’
‘I don’t need a hat with a huge brim,’ I said indignantly. I have no idea what she was talking about, because I really did look awfully grown up. But for some reason neither Mabel nor Phyllis agreed with me. I suppose they’re so used to thinking of me as a mere child they weren’t able to see me as I would undoubtedly appear to strangers. I told them this and they seemed more amused than convinced.
‘Well,’ I said, with what I thought was crushing sarcasm, ‘I could always draw some lines on my face with the grey from my paint box. Maybe then I’ll look old enough for you.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Phyllis, who clearly doesn’t understand sarcasm at all. ‘With a decent long skirt you’ll just about do, as long as you don’t start messing about like you’re on the stage.’
I wanted to tell her that there was no chance of any messing, but I knew that the two of them might easily change their minds about disguising me and Nora as grown-ups. (I know Phyllis and Mabel don’t think of it as being in disguise but it obviously is.) So I just said, ‘All right. Thanks for doing my hair,’ and started to leave the room when Phyllis grabbed me.
‘You can’t go down like that!’ she said. And I suppose she was right, but it really did seem a shame to take all the pins and combs out. And not just because it took absolutely ages – you have to take them out very carefully to avoid getting your hair into a massive tangle – but because if I say so myself, I looked jolly nice with my hair up like that. It suited me much better than my usual plaits.
‘There is one thing.’ Mabel’s face was thoughtful. ‘Where are you going to change? We can’t put your hair up here, and you can’t leave the house dressed up. Someone will see.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ Phyllis’s face fell. ‘Maybe this isn’t going to work.’
Mabel glanced at me, and must have guessed how I was feeling because she said,
‘Oh, we’ll think of something. Now, Mollie, off you go and get your hair back to normal.’
By the time I’d finished brushing it out and tied it into two rather uneven plaits, it was practically time for bed – in fact, when I came downstairs Julia had already been sent up to our room. Mother and Father were in the drawing room and Harry and Frank had taken the deck of cards to the dining room. At this time of year it actually gets some light in the evenings so they hadn’t had to put on the gas, even though it was well after eight.
‘What on earth were you doing up there?’ said Harry, rude as ever. If Frank hadn’t been there I’d have told him it was none of his business and maybe even thrown a cushion at him. But I couldn’t let the family down in front of our guest with a display of rudeness (Harry clearly never worries about that sort of thing) so I just said, ‘I was discussing educational issues with Mabel and Phyllis.’
Harry made one of his irritating snorting noises. ‘Educational? I hope they were educating you about doing your hair. You look like something out of a circus with those plaits.’
‘No I don’t,’ I said.
‘One’s twice the size of the other,’ said Harry. ‘What were they doing to you up there?’
To my immense annoyance I could feel my cheeks going red. And it wasn’t because Frank was now looking at me as if he were trying to figure out just how lopsided my head now was. It was just because I didn’t want Harry to start noticing that I have been experimenting with my appearance, with the help of Phyllis and Mabel. Not if I’m planning a big disguise in a few days.
‘A spider fell on my hair and I had to brush it out to get rid of it,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry if I didn’t rearrange my coiffure to suit your high household standards.’
‘Coiffure’ is a jolly good word, isn’t it? It’s French and means how you arrange your hair, more or less.
‘I don’t care what you look like,’ said Harry. He gave another snorting laugh. ‘Though I’m not surprised to hear you’ve got spiders in your hair. There’s probably a whole nest of them living in your mop.’
‘Oh shut up, Carberry,’ said Frank. His tone was good-natured, but there was a hint of steel in his voice. ‘Leave her alone.’
‘Thank you, Frank,’ I said with dignity. ‘I’m glad someone in this house has manners.’
It was Harry’s turn to flush.
‘Sorry, I suppose,’ he said to me. And then, to my surprise, he said, ‘We’re going to have another game. Do you want to play?’
Frank’s niceness and good manners might actually be rubbing off on him.
‘All right,’ I said cautiously. There was always a chance he was playing some sort of unfunny joke and was going to say ‘Well, you can’t, so ya boo sucks to you!’ But he didn’t. He just pulled back a chair at the table and said, ‘I’m going to deal.’
I remembered what Frank said a while ago about Harry not being half as bad when he was at school. Maybe, under Frank’s influence, he was finally showing his decent side in the comfort of his own home.
Anyway, we played the game and it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had with Harry. Which isn’t saying much, but still. In fact, I didn’t realise how long we’d been playing until the dining room door opened and Mother came in to tell me it was time for bed.
‘But we’re in the middle of a game!’ I said. ‘And besides, it’s the summer holidays.’
But Mother said she didn’t care.
‘You’ll be fit f
or nothing tomorrow if you don’t get a decent night’s sleep,’ she said. And I didn’t want to have a row with Frank there (it was bad enough being told to go to bed like a baby) so I said, ‘All right.’
Harry sniggered (I might have known he couldn’t behave decently for more than half an hour) and said, ‘Off to the nursery, then!’ But he didn’t snigger for long because Mother said, ‘And you’ll be up to your room in half an hour,’ which shut him up.
Anyway, they can send me to my room but they can’t stop me writing this – it’s still practically daylight outside and I’m sitting behind the curtains to get as much light as possible. I can’t wait to tell Nora about the disguise idea!
Best love and votes for women,
Mollie
Later
Something awful has happened. No, no one has died or been arrested or anything. But I am burning with embarrassment about it and even though I tried to go to sleep afterwards I just lay there tossing and turning for hours and eventually I had to light a candle and start writing this to you (I knew Julia wouldn’t wake up; she is snorting away like a grampus, as usual. I do wonder if Mother should take her to a doctor, it can’t be normal for a small girl to snore so loudly).
After I finished writing earlier, I settled down to read Anne of Avonlea. Julia was almost asleep but, to her credit, she doesn’t mind me reading late if I just light a candle rather than a lamp, so I kept going after she began snoring. And I shan’t spoil anything for you, in case you haven’t read the book by the time you read this letter, but I will tell you that something very, very sad happens in it and when I read that bit I started to cry. And not just a delicate little tear falling down my cheek like the heroine of a romantic serial. Proper, red-faced weeping. I was crying so much I had to hide under the covers to muffle my sobs in case Julia woke up.