A Petrol Scented Spring Read Free Page B

of high-minded intellect, who is to gainsay you? Then there’s the way your footsteps echo in the Old College courtyard, the freshness of your complexion against the grey stone, your crisp white blouse, the easy sway of your uncorseted gait, your waist so sweetly narrow in the cinch of your not-quite-ankle-length skirt. A bluestocking! A wholly new kind of woman – well, apart from lady novelists and Renaissance queens. The intellectual equal of any man, as rational and purposeful and far-sighted, but with an extra soulfulness. Born to show both sexes how far they fall short.
    She has never given a thought to the vote, but now that it’s been mentioned, of course she must have it. And the women who come to speak at the Suffrage Society are so much the sort of women she would like to be. So assured and passionate and imperious. And it’s such fun, getting all dressed up to carry the banner, making speeches on a soapbox, heckling members of parliament.
    It helps that she has her sister beside her. Dear Muriel. Clever, but not quite as clever. Courageous, but not in the same reckless way. She can’t remember a time when Muriel was not looking up at her with that admiring gaze. And part of what dear, loyal Muriel so admires is her big sister’s beauty. There’s no getting away from it: a beautiful woman can do things a plain woman had better not attempt. If it’s injustice that galls you, there’s injustice. Why should one pair of eyes, one nose, one mouth, be more pleasing than another? And not just pleasing: more aloof and unknowingly voluptuous, more like a ripe plum weighting down the branch.
    Muriel is a solid little thing, her lips a little thinner, her eyes a little more bulbous. Touching in her true-heartedness, but not a beauty. They share rooms while studying at Edinburgh University. They walk to lectures together. They whip each other into a frenzy of indignation over the iniquities of our so-called democratic system. They admire the English heroines who get themselves arrested and starve in gaol, but their own roles are no less necessary. Chalking on pavements, handing out membership forms, waving placards at by-election meetings. In 1909 they travel to London to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister and are arrested for obstruction and sentenced to twenty-one days in Holloway Gaol, where they refuse to eat.
    When they are released, they pour black dye into a postbox. Or rather, Arabella does the pouring and Muriel keeps watch. Postbox spoiling, window smashing, gouging holes out of bowling greens and golf courses. Since they are criminals now, in the eyes of the law, why not?
    The newspapers call it wanton destruction, but there are rules. No person, however vile, is to be hurt. Humiliated, yes. Pelted with eggs, or flour, or pepper to make them sneeze, but not physically harmed. There must always be a clear message in the action. If possible, a witty one. So cricket pitches and other sporting places are chosen because the government is not ‘playing the game’. A mansion in Perthshire owned by a prominent anti-suffragist is gutted by fire. (The Chancellor of the Exchequer is expected in Scotland. A postcard, found near the blaze, bears the words A warm welcome to Lloyd George .) When two women are interrupted in the act of trying to blow up Rabbie Burns’ cottage, anyone with a head on her shoulders understands that their true target is popular hypocrisy. Why should Scotland celebrate the egalitarian principles of its national bard while denying women the vote?
    That happens in 1914, when everyone has become so much angrier. In 1913 it requires no small amount of courage for Arabella, Edith Hudson and the elderly Thomson sisters to take their paraffin cans to Kelso racecourse. Muriel stays behind. After that spell in Holloway, their mother made them promise they would not be arrested together again.
    The Kelso escapade is a disaster. The old ladies are game but not