Fall of Giants

“But you must lose money every time one of us hurts herself,” Ethel said in a tone of sweet reason. “Here’s two women been away from their machines nearly an hour, because they had to go to the chemist’s and get a cut seen to.”

The woman with the bandage grinned and said: “Plus I had to stop at the Dog and Duck to steady my nerves.”

Mannie said sarcastically to Ethel: “I suppose you want me to keep a bottle of gin in the medical kit as well.”

Ethel ignored that. “I’ll make you a list and find out what everything would cost, then you can make up your mind, is it?”

“I’m not making any promises,” said Mannie, which was as close as he ever came to making a promise.

“Right, then.” Ethel turned back to her machine.

It was always she who asked Mannie for small improvements in the workplace, or protested when he made adverse changes such as asking them to pay to have their scissors sharpened. Without intending to, she seemed to have fallen into the kind of role her father played.

Outside the grimy window, the short afternoon was darkening. Ethel found the last three hours of the working day the hardest of all. Her back hurt, and the glare of the overhead lights made her head ache.

But, when seven o’clock came, she did not want to go home. The thought of spending the evening alone was too depressing.

When Ethel first came to London several young men had paid attention to her. She had not really fancied any of them, but she had accepted invitations to the cinema, the music hall, recitals, and evenings at pubs, and she had kissed one of them, though without much passion. However, as soon as her pregnancy began to show they had all lost interest. A pretty girl was one thing, and a woman with a baby quite another.

Fortunately, tonight there was a Labour Party meeting. Ethel had joined the Aldgate branch of the Independent Labour Party soon after buying her house. She often wondered what her father would have thought, had he known. Would he have wanted to exclude her from his party as he had from his house? Or would he have been secretly pleased? She would probably never know.

The scheduled speaker tonight was Sylvia Pankhurst, one of the leaders of the suffragettes, campaigners for votes for women. The war had split the famous Pankhurst family. Emmeline, the mother, had forsworn the campaign for the duration of the war. One daughter, Christabel, supported the mother, but the other, Sylvia, had broken with them and continued the campaign. Ethel was on Sylvia’s side: women were oppressed in war as well as peace, and they would never get justice until they could vote.

On the pavement outside, she said good night to the other women. The gaslit street was busy with workers going home, shoppers putting together their evening meal, and revelers on the way to a night on the tiles. A breath of warm, yeasty air came from the open door of the Dog and Duck. Ethel understood the women who spent all evening in such places. Pubs were nicer than most people’s homes, and there was friendly company and the cheap anesthetic of gin.

Next to the pub was a grocer’s shop called Lippmann’s, but it was closed: it had been vandalized by a patriotic gang because of its German name, and now it was boarded up. Ironically, the owner was a Jew from Glasgow with a son in the Highland Light Infantry.

Ethel caught a bus. It was two stops, but she was too tired to walk.

The meeting was at the Calvary Gospel Hall, the place where Lady Maud had her clinic. Ethel had come to Aldgate because it was the only district of London she had ever heard of, Maud having mentioned the name many times.

The hall was lit by cheerful gas mantels along the walls, and a coal stove in the middle of the room took the chill off the air. Cheap folding chairs had been put out in rows facing a table and a lectern. Ethel was greeted by the branch secretary, Bernie Leckwith, a studious, pedantic man with a good heart. Now he looked worried. “Our speaker has canceled,” he said.

Ethel was disappointed. “What are we going to do?” she asked. She looked around the room. “You’ve already got more than fifty people here.”

“They’re sending a substitute, but she’s not here yet, and I don’t know if she’ll be any good. She’s not even a party member.”

“Who is it?”

“Her name is Lady Maud Fitzherbert.” Bernie added disapprovingly: “I gather she’s from a coal-owning family.”

Ethel laughed. “Fancy that!” she said. “I used to work for her.”

“Is she a good speaker?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Ethel was intrigued. She had not seen Maud since the fateful Tuesday when Maud had married Walter von Ulrich and Britain had declared war on Germany. Ethel still had the dress Walter had bought her, carefully wrapped in tissue paper and hanging in her wardrobe. It was pink silk with a gauzy overdress, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever owned. Of course she could not fit into it now. Besides, it was too good for wearing to a Labour Party meeting. She still had the hat, too, in the original box from the shop in Bond Street.