Mrs. Pankhurst hasgiven of herself in this agitation. She has literally
abandoned her judgment and her original ambition, which was to be
an active participant in state politics. ... The wild passion of women’s
insistence [on the vote] spent; the effective mouthpieces and actionists
fallen out from her ranks; herself in the process of rapidly advancing
invalidism, alternating between prison and nursing home, her mouth
effectually closed; her daughter settled as a quiet pamphleteering
suffragist aboard; and the vote? In the dim and speculative future! ...
She began to ‘lead a Cause’, and imperceptibly the Cause became
Leader – leading where all causes tend – to self-annihilation. Mrs.
Pankhurst may die and great is the Cause. What Cause?^43While such matters were debated academically in the press, Emmeline
played out the scenario with continual wreckage to her body. Although Sylvia
later represented her mother in The suffragette movementas being driven by
Christabel, whose policies she faithfully followed, a view that Ethel Smyth also
echoed when she observed that Emmeline became Christabel’s ‘willing execu-
tant’, some caution must be exercised in reading such claims.^44 As noted in the
Introduction, Sylvia wrote her book not only from a socialist perspective but
also from the viewpoint of a rejected daughter, while Ethel’s failed ‘love’ affair
with Emmeline coloured how she subsequently saw events. What both authors
failed to acknowledge is the way that Emmeline’s increasingly dominant role in
WSPU politics also made her an increasingly powerful figure. At the heart of
the women’s struggle with the British government, she became theepitome of
female militancy, struggling for justice for her sex. Further, by focusing attention
on herself, Emmeline was protectingChristabel, who was living out of the firing
line, in Paris. Emmeline trusted Christabel’s cool logic and her political judg-
ment, a view shared by many other militants. Gerald Lennox, a front-line
activist, commented, it was ‘the wish of all’ that Christabel should be out of the
country ‘for on her depended everything. Prison was faced cheerfully, knowing
that she was “outside” to carry on. And she never let us down. She was the
balanced, clear-sighted brain of the Movement.’^45 It was a view that the fiery,
emotional Emmeline, with her passionate devotion to the women’s cause, would
have heartily endorsed. Emmeline knew her own strengths and weaknesses. As
Jessie Kenney recollected, ‘I have seen Mrs. Pankhurst herself, in the confusion
of battle break down and sob, “If only I knew what Christabel would do now!”
That’s what we all wanted to know, and she never failed us.’^46 But other mili-
tants in the WSPU had different views. Mary Leigh thought that the attempt to
run the WSPU with Christabel in Paris and Emmeline in and out of prison a
ludicrous situation. Several times after Emily Wilding Davison’s funeral she
travelled to France and on one occasion firmly told Christabel that ‘the mili-
tants were loyal but sick of taking orders from young office girls’ while the
leaders were in prison and Christabel resided in Paris.^47 But Christabel
remained unmoved.
PRISONER OF THE CAT AND MOUSE ACT