She probably will win the stupid cup at this rate, which will make her worse than ever (if that’s possible – perhaps it’s not). I still hope Daisy Redmond gets it. Daisy studies because she likes learning things, not so she can lord it over everyone else like Grace does. And Daisy’s been working very hard even though her mother has been very sick recently and she hasn’t been able to see her because she (Daisy) is a boarder and her parents live in Waterford. So she definitely deserves something good happening to her. But anyway, in the meantime Grace seems more interested in studying than tormenting me and Nora, which can only be a good thing.
I am going to send this letter first thing tomorrow. Good luck in your own exams! I hope I do well in mine, if only because if I don’t Mother and Father will probably force me to study all summer and then I won’t be able to do any suffragette things.
Best love and votes for women
Mollie
30th June, 1912.
Dear Frances,
This is not going to be a long letter because I want to make sure you get it before you head off to America. I am pleased to say that I am FREE. Yes, I have survived my exams, and they weren’t actually that bad apart from Historical Geography, where I made an utter hames of explaining how a glacier is made. But the rest were all right, and in fact I actually did very well in English, so hopefully my parents will remember this success next term when they’re going on about how I need to study more.
Harry, of course, made a huge fuss about his own exams, demanding tea and toast at all hours of the evening ‘to fuel my brain’ during his studies. And what’s worse is that he actually GOT it. No one brought me any brain fuel when I was studying, but then I suppose I didn’t ask for it, because I’m not a baby like him. Honestly, you’d think he was working to become a doctor or something, the way he carried on, instead of just a boy doing some summer tests. He’s finished now too. He and his friend Frank came round to our house for a celebratory tea today after their last exam, though in fairness to my mother, I must say that she gave me a celebratory tea yesterday after my exams had finished. For once, Harry did not get preferential treatment.
For both teas there was a special lemon cake made by Maggie. Maggie is a much better baker than any of the rest of us. Mother sometimes says she worries that Maggie will get fed up of working for our family and will go off and start her own bakery and make cakes all day, which I must say sounds like a better job than sweeping our floors and chopping vegetables for our dinners. But when I said this to Maggie – adding that of course I would miss her very much if she went off to make cakes – she said that it was a nice idea, but she’d never have the money to start her own bakery. Which is rather unfair, but on a shamefully selfish level I am quite glad she won’t be leaving us any time soon, because I do love her.
Sorry, I got distracted there. I find this often happens when I’m trying to tell a story. I start off writing about one thing and then I think of something else, and before I know it I’ve gone off on what in geometry class we call a tangent. I will try to stick to the point for the rest of this letter. Although now I’m not entirely certain what my point was.
Oh yes! I was talking about Harry and Frank. Well, there is quite interesting news on that front which is that Frank is coming to stay with us. Yes, he will be staying in our house for just over a week in July. His parents are going to visit an elderly aunt who lives somewhere in Kerry and apparently she (the aunt) can’t abide having children in the house. Frank’s father tried to explain that Frank wasn’t exactly a child anymore and was quite capable of being quiet, but the aunt didn’t care. She sounds worse than Aunt Josephine. Frank says that his parents want to stay on her good side because apparently she is quite rich, and they hope she’ll leave them something when she dies, though they will never admit this to Frank. So they decided that he could stay with another (nice) aunt and uncle in Meath. And Frank wasn’t particularly looking forward to it as his cousins are all much, much younger than him.
When Harry heard this, he asked our parents if Frank could stay with us instead and they said yes. I told Nora this yesterday and she looked at me in an extremely irritating way.
‘So he’ll be there for ten whole days,’ she said. ‘Maybe he will finally declare his love.’
I hit her with a pillow. (We were sitting on her bed at the time.)
‘Shut up Nora Cantwell, you vile creature,’ I said. ‘He won’t do anything of the kind. And I hope you’ll drag your thoughts out of the gutter while he’s staying in the house.’
‘I was only teasing,’ said Nora. ‘To be perfectly honest I think it’s more likely that you’ll declare your love to him.’
So of course I had to hit her with a pillow again, and she fell off the bed, which shut her up. That was a few days ago, and she hasn’t come out with any more rubbishy nonsense since, so I hope she has decided she’s not going to subject me to vulgar teasing. She does still keep giving me significant looks whenever Frank’s name is mentioned, but she’s been doing that for a while anyway so it doesn’t really bother me anymore.
It will be rather strange having Frank in the house all the time, though, especially as it’s the holidays so we’ll be free all day. (Well, free when Mother isn’t expecting us to do tedious chores, and by us I mean me and Phyllis and Julia because Harry does barely anything.) But Frank’s not coming until the week after next (I think) so I suppose I have plenty of time to get used to the idea.
And there is even more good news: Grace Molyneaux didn’t win the Cup! Daisy Redmond won it instead. I was very happy about this, not just because I hate Grace (although I must be honest, I do a bit). But Daisy deserved it AND when she got the prize she was very happy and didn’t lord it over the rest of us at all, which we all know Grace would have done.
Unsurprisingly, Grace was not a good loser. When Mother Antoninas announced the winner Grace looked so horrified I actually felt sorry for her for a moment. (I was quite surprised by that, but it turns out that sometimes seeing your enemies humiliated and miserable gives you a strange sort of wormish feeling in your stomach and you can’t enjoy it at all, even if you thought you would beforehand.) After the prize giving was over and we all went to the refectory for milk and buns, Grace ran away to the lav and when she came back she looked like she’d been crying. Even Nora looked a bit uncomfortable when she saw that.
‘I know I wanted this to happen,’ she whispered to me and Stella. ‘But she does look rotten.’
But just as we were all starting to feel sorry for Grace, she marched up to Daisy and unintentionally reminded us why we’d been yearning for her downfall. At first I thought she was going to congratulate her successful rival, which would have been very gracious for Grace (living up to her name, for once). But no! She folded her arms, tossed her curls and hissed, ‘I suppose you think you’re very clever.’
Daisy looked quite startled.
‘Not particularly,’ she said.
‘You know they only gave you that cup because they felt sorry for you,’ said Grace. ‘Because of your mother.’
I knew Grace was capable of dealing low blows, but this was very low, even for her. Daisy’s face went very white and she ran out of the room. For a moment no one said anything, but then Stella ran over to Grace. I’ve told you before that Stella can be a tigress when roused, especially for a good cause. Well, if looks could kill, Grace would have been lying stone dead on the refectory floor.
‘You utter beast,’ she said furiously. ‘Didn’t you know Daisy got a telegram this morning? Her mother’s much worse. Daisy’s going straight home after lunch. Sister Henry’s taking her to the station. And the only reason she hasn’t left already is because there isn’t a train until three.’
Grace obviously has some human feeling left because she looked pretty guilty when she heard that.
‘Well, how was I to know?’ she said. And before Stella could say anything else to her she marched over to a seat in the corner of the room with her plate of buns. H
er faithful follower Gertie went after her. But May Sullivan, who you probably remember has been hanging around them since she started at the school earlier this year, didn’t follow them.
In fact, ever since the day when Grace threatened to tell our parents about our suffrage activities and Stella showed us how ferocious she could be when it comes to important things, May has been spending more time with other girls in the class. She’s become friendly with Nellie Whelan and Mary Cummins, who are jolly decent and who are both supporters of our suffrage cause. When Grace marched off, Nellie had already taken a seat next to Johanna Doyle, and May went over there and asked if she could join them. I really think she might have finally had enough of Grace. Hopefully when we come back in September she will have totally escaped her former friend’s clutches.
It seems so strange that we won’t see lots of our classmates for months and months (well, two months). I know we’ll see some of the girls who live in our part of Dublin, and poor Nora will probably be forced to see Grace at some stage, seeing as she’s her cousin, but all the boarders will be scattered all over the country and in some cases beyond – there are a few girls who come over from Scotland. I shall miss Stella terribly, she has been simply marvellous this term. I can’t believe I ever compared her to a white mouse. It was awfully sad saying goodbye on the very last day. Nora and I had to promise to write every week, which of course we will.
‘And do let me know …’ Stella’s voice dropped to a rather loud whisper. ‘If you do any suffragette things. I’ll be cheering you on from Rochfortbridge.’ That is the name of the nearest town to Stella’s family house. At least, the house they live in at the moment. Her father is a bank manager and they have lived in quite a few places. I’m not sure why bank people seem to move around a lot but they do. It’s rather like being a diplomat – you get posted to exotic environs.
‘If we commit any more crimes for the cause,’ said Nora solemnly, ‘we will wear our suffragette scarves in your honour.’
Stella, in case you’ve forgotten, knitted wonderful scarves for me and Nora in the IWFL colours. It was nice of Nora to promise to wear them, but I couldn’t help thinking it might be a bit warm if we do anything in July. Anyway, the more I think of it, the more I feel I don’t actually want to break the law again. Every time I think of Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington and the other ladies languishing in their prison cells I feel a bit sick. And then I feel a bit cowardly because really, I should be prepared to do anything for the cause, including breaking the law. But I don’t want to go to prison if I can help it.
Our IWFL heroines are not on hunger strike like the poor English suffragettes, so thankfully they haven’t been force fed or anything like that. But it must be extremely horrid to be locked up in a nasty jail, all because they were fighting for their rights – for all of our rights, I should say. I shall pray for them tonight. (After all, Jesus did talk about visiting prisoners being a good thing, so praying for them can’t be wrong, can it?)
I hope your journey to America goes safely. It sounds very exciting to me. I do understand why you feel a bit nervous – I bet I’d keep thinking about the Titanic too – but really, how likely is it that TWO ships will be hit by icebergs in just a few months? Now I’ve written that sentence down it doesn’t look very consoling, but you know what I mean. Ships cross the Atlantic all the time and practically all of them get there safely, so I’m sure you will too. Phyllis’s friend Mabel went to visit relatives who live in Boston a few months ago. (They are very grand, much more so than anyone we know here, and live in a giant sort of house Phyllis called a brownstone, which I imagined being rather like a castle, but which according to Phyllis is just an ordinary big terraced house.)
Anyway, Mabel got there and back quite safely, and Phyllis says she had a jolly good time on the boat so I am sure you will too. Apparently Mabel’s cabin was very nice and there was a dear little round porthole, through which she could gaze out at the vast ocean, though she felt rather guilty whenever she caught a glimpse of the poor people down in third class, which wasn’t nearly as comfortable. I don’t think they even have portholes down there. Maggie’s cousin Bridie went to America a few years ago by third class and she arrived safely too – but she hasn’t come back and Maggie says she never will.
‘What has she got to come back to here?’ said Maggie, when I asked about Bridie the other day. ‘She’s got a good job in a nice little hat shop in New York now.’
‘Do you hear from her often?’ I asked, handing Maggie a tea towel. She was putting away some dishes in the kitchen at the time. Maggie shook her head.
‘She’s not a great one for writing,’ she said, carefully drying her favourite teacup. (It has strawberries on it, and Julia gave it to her for her birthday a few years ago.) ‘But she sends me a card every Christmas so I know she’s still alive and well.’
‘Do you think she might ever get home for a visit?’ I said.
‘Goodness, no,’ said Maggie, putting the cup on the dresser shelf. ‘She’d never be able to afford the journey here and back. No, she’s over there forever now.’
It seemed awfully sad that Maggie’s cousin will never see her family again, but Maggie pointed out that lots of people leave Ireland and never come back.
‘So there’s no point in crying over it,’ she said. But I still think it’s sad. I know I complain about my family a lot, but I couldn’t bear the thought of going to the other side of the world (well, almost) on my own and never seeing any of them again. Even Harry (not that I would ever admit that to him). I suppose I wouldn’t mind if Aunt Josephine went to America and never came back, but I don’t think that’s very likely to happen.
Do write before you get on the boat, and if you don’t have time, maybe you could write me a letter once you’re actually on it – Mother said that sometimes you can send letters from steamships because little boats call in and take letters back home. Imagine getting a letter that was sent from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! What would the postmark be? Mother was a bit vague on the details so she may be all wrong about this, but if it turns out you can send letters from the middle of the sea, please do send me one.
Also, I’ve been thinking of what you said about getting post once you’re in America, and I have come up with a solution. Why don’t I keep writing letters here and then send them all to you when you’re back in England? If I try sending them to all the places you’re visiting in America then I would probably keep missing you, but this way you will eventually have a full report on all the doings in Dublin. Of course, there may not be much to write – probably not anything as exciting as the last few months. But I will keep writing to you anyway, while you’re off in Boston and New York and New Orleans and all those other exciting places. And then you can read them all when you come back and have a record of summer in Dublin in 1912.
Much love and votes for women – and bon voyage, as we say in French class,
Mollie
4th July, 1912.
Dear Frances,
I know you are on a boat right now and I wish I was there with you because something awful has happened. In fact, it’s so terrible I can barely bring myself to write about it. Don’t worry, no one has died or been horribly ill or been arrested (no one I know, anyway). But it is still pretty dreadful.
GRACE IS STAYING IN NORA’S HOUSE.
FOR AT LEAST TWO WHOLE WEEKS.
Remember when Harry had to come home from our cousins in Louth because one of them had scarlet fever? Well, Grace’s brother goes to boarding school in Louth and clearly there is some sort of terrible scarlet fever epidemic up there because he (the brother) arrived home for the holidays this morning and promptly came down with it as soon as he walked in the door, as far as I can tell. And Grace had been away visiting an aunt for the day and her parents had to telephone the aunt (so it turns out the Molyneauxs did have a phone after all, I always thought that was just Grace showing off) and tell her that Grace couldn’t come home.
But the aunt can?
??t look after Grace all summer so she has to stay with her other relatives and that means the Cantwells! And she will have to SHARE NORA’S ROOM.
Nora ran around to my house as soon as she could after hearing this terrible news. When Maggie showed her in I thought someone had died, she looked so pale and sick and miserable.
‘What’s happened?’ I said. I remembered that her brother George had been due to come home from his school in Westmeath that morning. Maybe there had been an awful train crash. ‘It’s not George, is it?’
‘Oh no,’ said Nora. ‘He’s fine. He’s at home now, being fed with cakes. And it’s all very well for him,’ she said, looking as if she were going to burst into tears, ‘because his summer hasn’t been completely ruined!’
And then she told me about Grace.
I feel so sorry for her. It’s bad enough for me sharing a room with Julia, but Julia’s all right really. At least, she is when she’s not going on about how I don’t say my prayers for long enough. Imagine how awful Grace will be. And what makes it worse is that the room only has one bed and Nora’s parents have got hold of a camp bed (how, I don’t know. Nora thinks it might have been used by her journalist uncle when he wrote about the war in South Africa), and Grace and Nora will have to take turns to sleep in it! Nora rightly pointed out that she shouldn’t have to give up her bed to Grace but Mrs. Cantwell didn’t agree.
‘She told me I should have more sympathy for a poor girl who couldn’t go home for weeks,’ said Nora in a disgusted voice. ‘And that she thought it would be nice for me and Grace to spend some proper cousinly time together. She went on about how sad it was that we weren’t friends.’
‘What did you say?’ I said.
‘I told her that it wasn’t sad at all,’ said Nora. ‘Neither me nor Grace particularly wants to be friends, so why should my mother care? But she started going on about how we’d regret it when we’re older and that relatives are very important and it was all very boring.’