Never Come to Rest, page 1
Never Come
to Rest
By
Keira Michelle Telford
Copyright © Keira Michelle Telford 2015
Venatic Press
All Rights Reserved
Cover image copyright
Masson/Shutterstock.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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“Audax ad omnia femina, quae vel amat vel odit.”
A woman, when inflamed by love or by hatred, will dare everything.
CHAPTER 1
Tuesday June 3, 1913
“Which one takes your fancy, milady?”
The patient shop girl receives no answer.
“The green in this one does complement your eyes ever so nice.” She fusses with the colored plumage decorating a lady’s straw summer hat, the base of the dyed feathers nestled in an elaborate ruffle of tulle, the whole hat encircled with satin ribbon. “Is it for the races tomorrow? You’ll be the most elegant woman at the Derby, I’m sure.”
Lady Vera Mae Darlington, the unenthusiastic target of the poor girl’s sincere sales patter, stands silently in front of a mirror, gazing at her reflection.
She barely recognizes herself. Glassy emerald eyes stare back at her, devoid of expression, dark circles beneath. They remind her of a china doll she played with as a child: dull and lifeless, liable to shatter at the slightest touch. Her cheeks used to have a natural rosy glow, but no more. Though flawless, her pasty skin has been sapped of its former radiance. Youth is still on her side, but even that, she fears, is fading much too fast.
“You pick.” She eases an ostentatiously prettified blue summer hat off her head, careful not to displace a single, tightly pinned lock of dark auburn hair. “It’s of little consequence to me either way.”
She turns from the mirror, hands over the expensive millinery, and fixes her everyday outing hat back in place, two well-placed hairpins keeping the simple white affair sufficiently secure.
She’s had enough. She finds shopping to be a wearisome experience, but at least this excursion has been a momentary diversion from the unparalleled monotony of her daily life, her free time most often spent reading, sewing, or moping—the latter of which she’s lately become something of an expert in.
Leaving the shop girl to package up the green hat and a pair of matching gloves—the amount for both added to her account, to be billed at the end of the month—Vera Mae wanders out onto Kensington High Street. It’s usually quiet at this time of day, when afternoon is turning into early evening and the shops are about to close, but tonight she spies a gathering of exuberant young women standing outside the imposing Royal Palace Hotel’s Empress Rooms.
They’re dressed in virginal white from head to toe, their plain outfits ornamented with sashes and armbands in purple, white, and green. Vera Mae recognizes the colors: purple symbolizing dignity, green representing hope for the future, and white for purity. They’re the colors of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and these women are suffragettes: fierce campaigners for women’s rights. Some are wielding large banners, inviting passersby to step inside and peruse the bazaar at their latest fundraising event: All In a Garden Fair, the Suffragette Summer Festival, running from June 3 till June 13. Come and see!
Vera Mae knows she ought not to stray. No good ever comes of a woman exercising her mind, as the man who would call himself her husband is prone to saying, often while reading the latest abominable copy of The Anti-Suffrage Review. Yet she yearns for more.
As the shop girl brings out her boxed-up purchases and passes them off to the chauffeur waiting at the curb next to her private motorcar, Vera Mae takes a bold step and seizes the moment. She straightens her plum-colored jacket, grabs a fistful of her ankle-length brocade skirt, hitches it up, and marches into the street.
“Wait here,” she directs the disconcerted chauffeur. “I shan’t be long.”
She strides toward the Empress Rooms while she still has the nerve to do so, and is swiftly funneled into a grand hall hired for the occasion.
It’s decorated like a rose garden under an Italian summer sky. White pergolas line the walls, rambling pink roses wound around their columns and woven through their trestles. Beneath these, stalls are set up to sell WSPU merchandise and various other goods donated by the suffragettes to raise money for their cause, the main slogans of which are promoted all around, impossible to ignore.
Votes for women!
Deeds, not words!
At the center of the room, an illuminated fountain draws focus. It’s surrounded by a neat grass lawn bedecked with garden chairs, the verdant display edged with box trees painstakingly clipped into intricate shapes. Tucked into the back of the hall, the Ladies’ Aeolian Orchestra fills the room with soft, inspiring music.
Another prominent feature of the fair is an impressive plaster statue of Joan of Arc: a symbolic heroine adopted by the suffragettes since her beatification in 1909. The last words she spoke before her execution are inscribed upon the statue’s pedestal, and as Vera Mae stops to admire the centerpiece, a tall redhead wearing suffragette colors stands before it in salute and reads the inscription aloud, as if repeating a pledge of allegiance.
“Fight on, and God will give the victory.”
“Do you really think so?” Vera Mae wonders, half to herself, half to the redhead. “Do you really think we’ll get the vote?”
“Of course!” The redhead beams. “Never doubt it! Justice will prevail! And tomorrow, we shall march one step closer!”
Vera Mae is interested to know what the WSPU could possibly hope to accomplish by holding a suffrage protest on Derby day, when the King and most of London will be at Epsom Downs Racecourse watching the horses run, but the energized redhead doesn’t tarry. She hails one of her suffragette comrades and hurries off into the crowds without offering a single word of explanation.
In the wake of her departure, Vera Mae spies a beguiling young woman of near faultless proportions standing beside the fountain.
She’s tall and beautiful. Effortlessly beautiful. No more than twenty-five years of age. No need for any powder, lip color, or rouge. Her face is soft and gentle. Perfect cheekbones. Perfect lips. Eyes the color of speedwell. She’d be the absolute embodiment of femininity were it not for the fact that she’s wearing a man’s suit tailored to fit a woman’s form.
There’s not a frill on her. Not a single scrap of lace. Black leather ankle boots with a modest heel peek out from the bottom of her gray trousers, the hips and waist of which have been adjusted to accommodate her distinctly womanly curves.
Her matching jacket is open, revealing a single-breasted waistcoat buttoned over a crisp white shirt topped with a silk puff tie. The waistcoat clings snugly to her slender waist and modest bosom, accentuating the evidence of her sex. She wears no gloves. No hat. Her long blonde mane is pulled into a haphazard up-do, locks of honey-colored hair tumbling free.
Other women cluster around her, vying for her attention. One suffragette in particular hangs onto her like seaweed clinging to a rock, leaning tight against her, whispering to her, making her laugh.
The intimacy in their touch is plain to see. Vera Mae watches the statuesque stranger place a hand on the suffragette’s lower back, caressing her there, and a sympathetic shiver runs up her spine. Oh, to be touched so daringly! So tenderly! So erotically! Caught staring, she looks away … briefly. Peeping back seconds later, her gaze is snared by the stranger. Their eyes meet and a smile passes between them.
Feeling a blush color her cheeks, Vera Mae turns her head, cutting the stranger out of her line of sight. Self-conscious, she waits for the heat to subside before she dares to look again, but by the time she does … the alluring stranger is gone.
Disappointed, she diverts her attention to the stall of suffragette merchandise in front of her. Every inch of the table is cluttered with a muddled array of pamphlets, postcards, flags, scarves, ribbons, and brooches—all in bold WSPU colors. It’s an assault to the eyes.
“First time?” A sultry female voice startles her from behind. “You seem overwhelmed.”
The alluring, trouser-clad stranger moves in beside her, smiling warmly.
“A little overwhelmed, I suppose.” Vera Mae scans the enormous volume of reading material spread over table, suddenly finding herself unable to make eye contact with the object of her fascination. “This isn’t really my world.” She glances over her shoulder, suffragette colors swarming everywhere. “I’m not sure I quite belong in it.”
“You’re a woman, yes?” The stranger makes a show of scrutinizing her appearance from top to tail. Especially her tail. “Then I say you belong here just as much as the rest of us.”
“Very well.” Vera Mae clasps her gloved hands together, suppressing the tremor in them. “So what, may I ask, is the rite of initiation? Must I rush out into the street and set fire to a pillar box?”
The stranger chuckles, but the notion is not entirely implausible. Since the last conciliation bill proposing to grant property-owning women over the age of thirty the right to vote was defeated in the House of Commons in 1912, the determined suffragettes—under the strict control of the WSPU’s founder, Emmeline Pankhurst—have resorted to ever more militant tactics. C
“The WSPU expects nothing so terribly dramatic.” The stranger unpins a ‘Votes for Women’ brooch from her waistcoat. “Here you are.” She fastens the brooch onto Vera Mae’s jacket. “Now you’re one of us.”
“That’s all there is to it?” Vera Mae peers down at the adornment.
“Almost.” The stranger directs her to a WSPU membership form on the table. “If you want to join the WSPU officially, that’ll set you back a shilling, and you’ll have to sign a declaration of loyal adherence to the crusade for women’s freedom, but the brooch should be enough to inspire you in the right direction.”
“How anticlimactic.” Vera Mae pulls a face at the form.
“You’re disappointed?” The stranger pounces on her apparent dissatisfaction. “Let me guess: you came here hoping for adventure?” She smirks wickedly, her sapphire eyes shimmering. “You wanted something to make your heart pound heavy in your chest.”
Vera Mae swallows hard. “My heart is pounding at this moment, I assure you.”
“Funny that, so is mine.” The stranger captures one of her gloved hands. “May I show you?” She guides Vera Mae’s hand to her chest, slips it inside her waistcoat, and lays it over her heart, dangerously close to her breast. “Do you feel it?” She clamps Vera Mae’s hand in place. “Do you feel it beating?”
Vera Mae does. It’s hammering against her palm, thumping strong and fast …
Fearing the onset of a faint, she whisks back her hand, keeping her eyes downturned. “So do tell me, what is the most devilish thing you’ve ever done in the name of your cause? If it’s dreadfully wicked, I promise I shan’t breathe a word of it to anyone.”
“Our cause,” the stranger corrects her. “We’re in this together now, are we not?”
Vera Mae opens her mouth to respond, but the words are lost on her tongue. Another suffragette barges in between them, unapologetically claiming the stranger for herself.
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over.” She helps herself to the stranger’s arm. “Are you taking me out for supper, or what? You promised you was gonna be mine tonight. You ain’t forgot, have you?”
Awash with a sudden flood of embarrassment, Vera Mae backs away. “I’m sorry.” She turns on her heels. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Before the stranger has a chance to object, she disappears out the door, making a beeline for her waiting motorcar. In her hurry to remove herself from the fair—and from the charming stranger’s presence—she forgets to take off the suffrage brooch, and is still wearing it when she steps into her expansive Regent’s Park home thirty minutes later. Of course, such a trinket doesn’t go unnoticed for long. Within seconds of greeting curmudgeonly Lord Darlington in the library, it becomes an unwelcome focus of the conversation.
“What in God’s name is that?” He glowers at the offending piece of jewelry. “You haven’t been turned by those militant bitches, have you?”
Vera Mae bites her tongue. “It’s nothing, Reginald. Just a silly thing.” She removes the brooch, banishing it from view. “Those women cornered me as I was leaving the milliner’s.”
“Bloody pests,” Reginald grumbles. “Ought to be shot.”
“Yes, indeed.” Vera Mae clasps the brooch in her palm. “I’m afraid I’ve returned rather late. I shall go up and change for dinner at once.”
She’s glad to excuse herself from the room. The forty-five-year-old, rotund, balding man is in his decline, there’s no doubt about that. He’s some fifteen years her senior, has a chronic case of gout in his right foot, and his alcohol-reddened cheeks are blemished with tiny broken veins. If he has any redeeming features, she isn’t at all sure what they are. He repulses her.
Once safely in her bedroom, alone until her maid arrives to dress her, she opens her palm and admires the brooch, finding a few simple words handwritten in blue ink on the reverse:
Liberty.
No surrender.
CHAPTER 2
Wednesday June 4, 1913
Vera Mae traipses along several paces behind Reginald and his doddery aunt, the aging Dowager Baroness, as they wander around the paddock at Epsom Downs Racecourse. Every few moments, they stop to admire one horse or another, praising the proud beast’s form and commenting on the odds, hoping for a chance to meet King George as he poses nearby with his horse, Anmer. She has nothing of any value to add.
It’s Derby day, and at Reginald’s request, she’s made extra effort with her appearance. Her shimmering, freshly washed hair is delicately curled, braided, and pinned, her new green hat perched atop the elaborate do. A little powder on her face hides the dark circles beneath her eyes, and her cheeks are glowing and pinkened. Not because she’s wearing any rouge, but because the summer heat is stifling inside her high-collared blouse and bengaline jacket.
She ought to have worn a summer dress perhaps, but this outfit is one of her favorites. The five-gore bengaline skirt of silk and wool blend enhances her shapely figure with its vertical stripes of black, olive, and burgundy. The design is simple but flattering. A wide black velvet waistband dips to a V-shaped point at the center front, giving the illusion of a narrower waist and slender hips, and it holds its shape well, making it appear as though she glides smoothly along the ground by some force of divine magic.
Layers of cotton and silk are concealed beneath. In the midday heat, her back is unpleasantly damp, sweat trickling down her spine and soaking into the protective cotton chemise she wears under her corset for just that purpose. She’s uncomfortably hot. If she could, she would unfasten the high lace collar of her richly embroidered blouse and fan her upper chest, glad for any small modicum of relief. But she can’t. It would be unspeakably improper.
Completing her outfit is a matching bengaline jacket with black pleated lapels and a Chinese braid trim. Darts in the front and back tailor it to fit her figure most precisely, and it clings so snugly to her shoulders that she can’t even raise her arms above her head. Not that she would dare to do so at this moment. She’s certain her armpits are wet.
Desperate to feel even the faintest whisper of air against her skin, she hooks a finger of one gloved hand over the collar of her blouse and pries it away from her neck, as though loosening the grip of a noose. It doesn’t much help.
“Are you sure you’re feeling quite up to this, milady?” Bennett, her doting lady’s maid, hovers next to her. “If you isn’t, you should tell His Lordship. Wouldn’t nobody blame you. This is your first big social engagement since …” She lets that sentence die. “Well, since last year.”
“His Lordship has given me little choice in the matter.” Vera Mae flinches as a group of boisterous youths barge past her, grazing her person.
Even though she’s in a wide open space, she feels confined. People are packed together like sardines, one class brushing shoulders with another, any form of social etiquette markedly absent, children running feral, playing, laughing, and shrieking.
“I must get some air.” Vera Mae heads away from the paddock, her anxiety on the rise.
In need of refreshment, she strolls into the adjoining fair in search of a drink. Anything will do, but the stronger the better. With blinkered determination, she passes conjuring acts, clowns, fire breathers, and pugilists, music blaring from all angles, every amusement decorated in gaudy fairground colors. To her left, a steam-driven carousel spins endlessly, the painted horses bobbing up and down, entertaining hordes of squealing youngsters, their fingers sticky with spun sugar. Beside that, a Chair-O-Plane ride starts up, one young woman losing her unsecured straw hat to the wind almost immediately, her pristine up-do soon collapsing into a tangle of flopping, flailing curls.
