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Nerves fluttered in her stomach. ‘What is it?’
‘Someone draped a suffragette banner across a marble bust of Queen Victoria,’ her mother whispered, muffled by the handkerchief. ‘And the Prince Consort, too, God rest his soul.’
Violet tried to keep a straight face. It had been such a perfect opportunity.
Two legs. Two banners. Two marble busts. They’d been perched on plinths halfway up the wall, each set back in a gilt-scrolled niche. The banners had ballooned up and landed. Queen Victoria’s banner around her marble shoulders, like a shawl. Quite fitting for a monarch. Prince Albert’s on his head, falling over one eye, giving him a rakish look. She hadn’t been able to reach to fix it.
‘The ladies told me all about it.’ Her mother wrung her hands together. ‘At the end of the ball, when everyone came out into the hall, there they were, bold as brass. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
Laugh, Mama, Violet wanted to say. How she wished her mother shared her views about women’s suffrage, but her mother was content with her status as a wife and mother. She didn’t want to vote—she’d declared that on more than one occasion. Politics was the business of men and she had no interest in it. No, her mama would never understand.
Her father finally turned around from the fireplace. He appeared smaller than usual, almost deflated. It was because he wasn’t smiling. His jolly demeanour usually filled the room.
‘We know they were your banners, Violet.’
His tone shocked her. The usual warmth was quite gone.
‘I don’t intend to deny it, Papa,’ she said quietly. ‘They were my suffrage banners. I made them and I draped them across Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, too.’
‘Queen Victoria. Prince Albert,’ her mama echoed the names, reminding Violet of a parrot they kept for a while, when the birds had been fashionable. It had driven her papa quite cocky, he’d declared.
It wasn’t the moment to remind her parents of the parrot.
‘The parents of our King.’ Her father shook his head. ‘King Edward the Seventh.’
She nodded. She’d have draped a banner around a marble bust of King Edward, too, but there hadn’t been one, and in any case, she’d only had two banners.
‘Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are in their graves,’ her mama choked. ‘It’s unseemly. Disrespectful.’
‘Oh! I didn’t think of it that way,’ Violet said, horrified.
‘Why did you do it?’ her father asked, still in that empty voice.
Violet lifted her chin. ‘I’m a suffragette, Papa.’
‘A suffragette!’ came her mama’s echo.
‘Votes for women, eh?’ asked her papa.
With a gulp, she nodded.
Her father wiped his sleeve across his eyes. ‘So it’s all been for nothing.’
‘Papa,’ Violet whispered. Her throat constricted. It was suddenly hard to breathe.
He sank into the leather club chair by the fireplace. He appeared bewildered. ‘All we’ve done for you. All I’ve worked for. And you’re not grateful.’
Violet knelt beside him, seized his hand. ‘I am grateful, Papa. You’ve given me everything that anyone could ever dream of.’
‘They why did you do it?’
‘Surely you understand,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m like you. You’re a self-made man. Didn’t you long to be considered an equal, to make your way into the world? Look what you’ve achieved, the business you built. You started from nothing. Please listen to me. I just want the same opportunity as you, to contribute to the world.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s different for a man.’
‘A woman’s place is in the home,’ her mother said tremulously from the chaise longue.
‘I want more,’ Violet said simply.
Her father stared as if he hardly knew her.
‘I’ve never had cause to criticise you. I’ve always been proud of you, so proud.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But this. You’ve gone too far. You’ve become selfish, Violet.’
She fell back on her heels. Tears smarted in her eyes. ‘It’s not selfish to want to be part of the world. To vote. To become educated. To work. Why, there are even women working in factories now.’
‘No daughter of mine will ever set foot in a factory! That’s not why I worked day and night.’ He shook his head. ‘Your place is in the home. Your mama is right.’
‘The world is changing,’ Violet said. ‘There are new ideas. Not just votes for women, but opportunities for work, for education—’
Her father held up his hand. ‘Stop. I don’t want to hear such talk.’
‘A suffragette. How could you, Violet? We’ll be shunned in society.’ Her mother dabbed at her eyes. ‘The ladies made that quite clear this morning.’
‘Oh, Mama, we were shunned already,’ Violet replied wearily. It was made patent at the ball in their lack of welcome, except for Adam Beaufort, swirling her into his arms.
If they were no longer invited into London society, she’d definitely never see him again.
Her heart sank.
‘We’re ruined!’ exclaimed her mother.
‘Surely it’s not that dreadful.’ But it explained the outright snub from the girl at her riding lesson, Violet recalled uncomfortably.
Had she gone too far?
Her father breathed heavily. ‘I suppose we ought to leave London, before we’re run out.’
From the chaise longue came a muffled sob.
‘Leave London! Surely that isn’t necessary,’ Violet cried, aghast. What had she done?
‘Just when Violet had danced with a Beaufort,’ her mama mourned. ‘I never thought I’d see such a thing. Oh!’
If they left London...
‘We won’t be run out of London,’ Violet protested. ‘What does it matter what a few society people think?’
‘The Coombes are a respectable family,’ her father said. ‘We always took pride in that, more than anything else. You’ve taken our good name away.’
Full of remorse, Violet gripped her fingers together. ‘I’ll apologise to the ladies who invited us to the ball.’
‘Aye, you ought to do that. But the damage is done.’
‘Ruined,’ her mother repeated in a choked voice. ‘Ruined.’
Her father put his head in his hands.
Violet reached out to him. ‘Papa, please listen. Would it be so terrible to go back to Manchester? We were happier there, not trying to fit in with London society. I could learn to help you in the business, make your load lighter.’ Anything, she thought, her heart like a sinking stone, to make him smile again.
‘No, Violet. I told you. Your place isn’t in the factory.’
‘But, Papa...’
‘No!’
Violet jumped. Her father had never raised his voice at her before. Not once, in all her life.
He stood up, his elbows akimbo. ‘Men and women aren’t the same. If you’d been a son...’ His voice trailed off. ‘We pinned our hopes on you making a fine match. But now...’
‘Ruined,’ her mother chimed in from the chaise.
Violet’s throat choked. The lace jabot at her neck suddenly felt too tight. She tugged it loose. Never before had her father revealed such sentiments. But she’d suspected them all along, in her heart. It drove her to her daring acts, just as Adam Beaufort had guessed, at the ball.
‘I’m sorry, Papa. I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll do anything to set it right.’
‘It’s too late,’ her mama sobbed. ‘Nothing can be done.’
A discreet knock came at the drawing room door. The butler entered.
‘What is it?’ her father asked. Having servants still made him nervous, Violet knew. At the chocolate factory her papa was the man in charge, but she often suspected both he and her mama’s preference would be to have only family at home, as it had been in the beginning.
‘Forgive the interruption, sir. But a gentleman has called and I thought you’d like to know.’
He held out a silver tray. On it was a small white card, edged with black.
Her father took the card. ‘Adam Beaufort, Esquire,’ he read aloud.
‘What?’ Her mama sat bolt upright.
Violet’s pulse skipped a beat.
‘What does he want?’ her father asked.
‘He didn’t say, sir,’ replied the butler. ‘But he’s in the hall. I took the liberty.’
On the chaise her mother frantically began to tidy her hair. She seized a small looking glass and dabbed at her tear-stained face with her handkerchief. ‘Tell him to come in.’
‘Do you know what he wants?’ her father asked Violet.
In bewilderment she shook her head. ‘No.’
She brushed back her own hair from her forehead. Wisps had escaped while on horseback and she was still in her blue-velvet riding habit.
The drawing room door opened.
* * *
Adam Beaufort took a step back as he entered the Coombes’s drawing room.
He’d never seen a room like it. Every inch of the vast room was decorated. Gilt-edged paintings of pink-cheeked children and pretty country maids jostled for space on the flock-papered walls. China ornaments, again with a bucolic theme, took up every table top, apart from those crammed with silver trinkets, lamps and ferns in jardinières. The furniture was red-brown mahogany, the soft furnishings skirted, trimmed and flounced so that the room had a peculiar cushioned effect.
On a velvet chaise longue sat Violet’s mother, whom he’d last seen attired in canary-yellow satin. She now wore a pink gown with many ruffles that didn’t manage to obscure the dazzling diamonds around her neck, wrists and fingers. He winced at the thought of what some society ladies would say at the sight of such diamonds worn before evening.
By the fire, Violet’s father stood robustly, belly thrust out in a loud, checked waistcoat. Yet the pair lacked the happiness that had been so apparent on their faces while dancing the night before.
Adam frowned.
‘Mr Coombes.’ He addressed the man by the fireplace, with a slight inclination of his head. ‘Forgive my intrusion. I’m Adam Beaufort. How do you do?’
Reginald Coombes offered his hand. His handshake was firm. ‘I saw you dancing with my daughter last night. Most obliging of you.’
‘Indeed it was, Mr Beaufort,’ said Mrs Coombes faintly.
Adam bowed to her before turning to Violet, who stood silent, a still figure in sapphire-blue velvet by the fire. He couldn’t help notice how it sculpted her curvaceous figure. But her face was white and strained.
‘It was my pleasure,’ Adam said smoothly. ‘It’s unfortunate I didn’t have the opportunity for a second dance with Miss Coombes.’
He sent her a brief smile.
There was the faintest movement around her lips in return, but that was all.
Adam’s frown deepened. He felt oddly responsible for the whole fiasco. If he’d pulled the banners down in time...
‘Mr Coombes.’ He addressed Violet’s father. ‘I’ve come about the incident at the ball last night.’
‘You know about that?’ Mrs Coombes squeaked.
‘Most of London knows about it,’ Adam said bluntly. ‘It didn’t help that you sewed your monogram on the banner,’ he added to Violet.
‘Your monogram?’ Reginald Coombes looked from one to the other.
Wordlessly Violet reached into a sewing basket and drew out a banner. It unfurled like a streamer in purple, green and white. She passed it to her father.
He stared at the tiny bloom embroidered in the corner, his fist clenched.
‘So that’s what happened to all the purple silk,’ Violet’s mother said in wonderment.
‘How many banners are there?’ Violet’s father demanded.
