The woman’s rant had made me blush and my mother shake her head. It was not so much what she had said but the ferocity of her voice that made each word sound like a threat, yet now as I petted the dog, I thought I heard that voice again.
This time the voice seemed closer but muffled behind the windows and heavy curtains of the church hall, and every so often a word – representation, freedom, action – seemed to cut through the glass with the force of her breath.
I climbed up on the bench under the window and knelt on the seat. I pressed my nose against the cold windowpane and squinted through a gap in the curtains. The hall was full of women seated in rows, their topknots and hats cast in silhouette by a hard grey light, the like of which I had not seen before and, as my eyes adjusted, I could make out the sparkle of dust caught in a glowing beam. A white bed sheet was stretched flat across the far wall, and on it rows of women dressed in Sunday best and large feathered hats marched onwards until they faded into the darkness only to be replaced by another row, and then another.
I had heard descriptions of the new photoplays, but this was the first time I had seen anything like one. I had never been into London to see the electric theatres and Mother had even forbidden me from watching the magic lantern and bioscope shows that toured with the fairs, for she said they were ‘ungodly’. I stared at the flickering lights, bewildered, as if I was watching photographs brought to life.
The women seemed blurred as if outlined in charcoal, their skirts and blouses dulled to grey and their movements swift and stuttering, reminding me of army troops on manoeuvre. They held banners aloft like battle standards, and I watched wave upon wave of them pass before me – banners waving, feet marching, hands waving, faces grim – until they seemed no more than a flicker as they marched past me and I felt as if I was among the crowd and could hear the trudge of their boots, smell their sweat and feel their elbows in my ribs and the warmth of their breath.
Then the wetness of the dog’s nose in the palm of my hand. I looked down to see the little dog again, his head jerking back as he yelped, the sound now strained, and I realised that he must have been barking for some time. I turned to shoo him away but he had already scampered to the feet of his owner, the lady with the hard voice and the feathered hat – Iris’s Mrs Elliot-Palmer, the one we had run into on the common just a few days ago.
‘Oh,’ I said, feeling my face warm. ‘I was just passing and saw the dog…’
But she hurried forward and took my hand. ‘Come on,’ she said briskly. ‘I know you. You are old Father Ryland’s daughter and your mother would not want to see you here.’ She pulled me from the bench and over the step into the hall, the dog’s bark now just a whimper behind me.
The seated women sat entranced by the flickering grey images and did not seem to notice when we came into the hall. They turned to one another now and then or reached up to cast hazy shadows over the glowing bed sheet, their silhouetted fingers pointing out the words on a banner, or a face that they recognised.
The only person to stir when we entered was a man who stood near the back of the room – a thin man dressed in a long black jacket with the collar turned high, which made him look like some kind of clergyman. It was Mrs Elliot-Palmer’s companion from the common, and the man with the gun case I had seen watching Haughten Hall. He looked up as I trailed in after Mrs Elliot-Palmer, his eyes lingering on me as he slowly turned a handle on the machine in front of him, the skeleton of dark metal spinning a shiny black ribbon between large spoked wheels as smoothly as if it were thread.
Mrs Elliot-Palmer pulled a chair away from the back wall and put another next to it, patting it with her hand.
‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ I whispered. ‘I just saw the dog. I thought he needed help…’ But the words stuck in my throat when I remembered how she had caught me looking through the window and ignoring the dog’s frantic barks.
‘You do not mean to join?’ she said, disappointed.
‘Join?’ I said. ‘No, I don’t really know what—’
‘Do not worry, we have a lot of women, like yourself, who share our sentiments but cannot join,’ she said. ‘We understand about a loss of social standing or childcare commitments…’ Her voice trailed off and she looked at me again as if realising that neither of those reasons would apply to me.
‘I am Grace Elliot-Palmer,’ she said, holding out a large hand, like a butter pat, ‘for we have never been properly introduced, and over there is my son, Francis.’
‘Oh,’ I said, turning from her greeting, for I wished to see the name that I had heard on Iris’s lips, but I could not see anyone who was at all like the fair, muscular boy I had imagined.
Mrs Elliot-Palmer was talking about Francis’s involvement in something called the men’s league and his studies at Oxford into Christian and pagan rituals, but all I could think of were Iris’s words – Francis Elliot-Palmer was the boy who had been intended for her, and the one who was now forbidden.
The women who had been discussing the film were now rising, elbows angled into coat sleeves, hats pinned back on to heads and bags pulled from under the seats. I recognised the new vicar’s wife, the waitress from the tearoom and Miss Potter, my old schoolteacher. There were puffed blouses and long skirts, hair that was padded, rolled and tied in loose topknots, and hats with large brims – but only that, for I had seen only one man in the room: the one stood at the projector.
‘Grace Elliot-Palmer,’ the woman repeated briskly.
I turned back to see her hand still held out to me and I shook it awkwardly. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said automatically.
‘You should wait a moment before you leave,’ she said. ‘For I know your mother’s cottage is also on the green not far from here and it would not do for her to look out of her front window and see you leaving with the ladies.’
‘I don’t care what my mother thinks,’ I said, ‘I—’
‘Ah, Francis!’ she cried and at last I saw him, but he was not the fair and muscular boy that I had imagined. Francis Elliot-Palmer was the man that I had seen watching Haughten Hall and the one who had chased the dog across the common and made my heart skip a beat when he had stared at me for just a moment too long. He was the man who had operated the projector – the one who now stood next to his mother.
‘Do sit with us for a moment, Francis,’ she said. ‘This is—’
‘We have seen this lady before, Mother,’ said Francis, his voice deeper than I had remembered, but he did not sit, just looked right at me, his stare unwavering. I thought that he must be the first person to ever call me a lady rather than a girl, and I felt strange as if hearing the word had somehow transformed me.
I should have guessed that the man who had accompanied Mrs Elliot-Palmer that day was Francis, but there was so much about him that did not fit with what I had imagined the heir to a grand house to be, and so much that did not fit with Iris. He seemed older than I had expected although I could not tell whether his high hairline was due to age or just large temples. His dark clothes made him seem quite serious and I could not imagine how the girl who wore childish dresses and her hair loose could ever be at his side.
‘I know that we have seen this lady before,’ said Mrs Elliot-Palmer. ‘I have seen her often. She is old Father Ryland’s daughter.’