see the work of the WSPU, Emmeline closed her letter on a very personal note.
‘I came away without paying for the tonic which Mrs. Morgan sent round to be
packed in my trunk. Will you ask her kindly to send me the bill so that I may
pay it?’^37 That evening, Emmeline received a wireless message from WSPU
headquarters warning that the government intended to arrest her on her arrival;
her bodyguard would be waiting at the dockyard to defend her.
On 4 December, theMajesticanchored in the harbour where the tugboat that
usually met her was resting between two large grey battleships. Suddenly, recol-
lected Emmeline, two women, spray drenched and standing up in a power-driven
fisherman’s dory, dashed swiftly past the steamer calling out, ‘ “The Cats are here,
Mrs. Pankhurst! They’re close on you – ”.’ As their voices trailed away into the
mist, the police swarmed onto the deck and rearrested Emmeline, for the fifth
time under the Cat and Mouse Act. ‘They had sent five men from Scotland Yard,
two men from Plymouth and a wardress from Holloway, a sufficient number, it
will be allowed, to take one woman from a ship anchored two miles out at sea’,
she recollected wryly.^38 Refusing to co-operate with the enforcement of the Cat
and Mouse Act, Emmeline was carried off the ship and taken to Exeter gaol
where she went on a hunger strike. She was treated kindly by the prison staff, one
of whom confided to her that she was being kept there until after the evening
meeting of welcome at the Empress Theatre on Sunday, 7 December. With the
£4,500 that Emmeline had raised, the ‘Great Collection’ now totalled £15,000, a
substantial sum that indicated that the WSPU still had a lot of support and was
not so unpopular as some historians have assumed.^39 Further, the protests against
forcible feeding continued as a large gathering of Anglican bishops and clergy
condemned the practice as ‘an outrage on humanity’ and ‘unworthy of a
Christian community’.^40 Meanwhile, Rheta Childe Dorr had written to Sylvia,
‘Your mother wishes me to see you and to have a talk with you about certain
matters which we discussed. I hope we can meet within a few days.’^41
Emmeline was released from Exeter prison on the Sunday evening, at ten
o’clock at night, under a licence to return to the same prison on 15 December.
The news was greeted with much cheering by the 5,000 present in the Empress
Theatre where Flora Drummond, in the chair, spoke of ‘our beloved leader’ and
declared that ‘never, never again will the Government get Mrs. Pankhurst. Our
bodyguard will grow stronger daily. Every woman who is worthy of her name,
and determined to play her part must send in her name to me, and we shall
have a bodyguard that will even face battleships.’ She also explained how there
were many empty seats in the theatre that night since many letters containing
tickets for the meeting had been tampered with in the post by a ‘cowardly
Government’ in a ‘dastardly attempt’ to stop the meeting being held.^42
Accompanied by the elderly Dr. Frances Ede and Nurse Pine, Emmeline now
travelled openly to Paris to confer with Christabel about the WSPU campaign.
Writing to Ethel Smyth on 10 December, from Christabel’s flat, 11 Avenue de
la Grande Armée, Emmeline recounted her adventures of the last few days, her
restless spirit relishing the excitement and mystery:
OUSTING OF SYLVIA AND A FRESH START FOR ADELA